Since the early 1980s developments in social policy legislation have made service user par- ticipation a key requirement. For example, the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 made consultation with service users a legislative duty for local authorities. Since 1997 and the election of a Labour government there has been an increased momentum requiring active service user (and carer) participation in service development, for example in government directives on Best Value for local authorities and the legislation associated with the public service ‘modernisation’ agenda (DoH, 1998). Unfortunately practice has fallen short of the legislative requirements and requires an increased effort to enable further involvement from service users. The role that social workers take in this is therefore an important one given their privileged position in working closely with service users.
Having looked in considerable depth at the issues of AOP and culturally sensitive social work it is now important to look at the specific values that we identified above that relate to AOP. These are:
G empowerment; G partnership;
G minimal intervention.
As we argued above, these values make sense only as part of an anti-oppressive approach if we contextualise them within a general AOP perspective which commits the worker to the value of social justice (see Figure 2.4).
Empowerment
Empowerment requires the development of personal, interpersonal and political power to allow individuals or collectives to enhance their life situation. It requires the full participation
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Having read the exchange of emails how would you as a social worker reconcile the issues presented above?
How far does the existence of the FGM Act 2003 alter, as Jenny Brooks argues, the nature of the ethical dilemma here?
A C T I V I T Y
2 . 7
Social justice Values
of people in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions determining the functioning and well-being of themselves and their wider social environment.
Addressing the ethics of empowerment in your work requires you to consider the power that you can exercise in relation to service users. It requires you to consider ways in which that power can be shared with and optimally transferred to the service user. Thus the social and personal barriers which prevent service users from achieving control in their lives is paramount as control implies power to decide on what constitutes a ‘good life’. Empowerment is a contested concept, some writers emphasise the importance of individual empowerment while others focus upon collective and social aspects (Adams, 2003). While individual empowerment is important and necessary it is the contention here that it is not sufficient. Parker et al. (1999) argue that social workers must be wary of an uncritical approach to the concept. They suggest that empowerment is often done to you by others, or done by you to others (p151). What they mean by this is that professionals have colonised the practice of empowerment so that service users are therefore in passive receipt of empowering practice by professionals which, they suggest, is the opposite of the project of empowerment. As a first step in developing empowering practice, the social worker is required to enter into the world of the service user. This is akin to an empathetic approach but goes beyond this by requiring the social worker to see the commonalities of one service user’s experience with others. In this approach the service user’s interpretation of events and problems in their lives must take centre stage. At this stage it requires social workers to view this narrative as legitimate. It requires understanding on the part of the social worker and an acceptance for its validity for the service user. It is not something which requires changing by the social worker as if it may lack a true reflection of a situation or a lack of consciousness on the part of the service user. To take the view that the service user’s consciousness of their sit- uation needs to be changed at this stage is the complete opposite of empowerment.
A person who, for example, has derived most meaning and satisfaction in their life from caring for others is likely to experience being looked after in a nursing home very differently from someone who has been used to having others meet their needs in many ways throughout their life. Someone whose occupational role has been a major part of their identity may interpret the experience of going to a day centre differently from someone whose identity was more closely defined by the quality of their relationships with others. These are factors which will have a profound influence not only on a person’s care needs generally, but also on how they can be most
meaningfully involved and consulted (Allan, 2001).
In considering the dynamics of empowerment two aspects are important: G control – so that people define their own situation and their needs within this;
G self-actualisation – enabling service users to then take power for themselves through developing their confidence and self-esteem, their skills and knowledge.
Partnership
Partnership refers to the way social workers should work with service users. This means in effect working with service users in a systematic way but with the service users’ consent.
If we look at the basic model of systematic practice, we can highlight how partnership working is integrated in each stage of the process.
G Assessment – investigate and analyse the needs of the service user with them, checking out the validity of the information gathered at each stage, drawing out the strengths which the service user has as well as those needs which require further development. G Plan – agree a course of action with the service user but do not impose your own strategy. G Intervene – draw on the service user’s strengths, agree on what they can do and what
you will do, and review intervention with the service user on a regular basis. Agree on how much time will be devoted to the task.
G Evaluate – discuss what achievements have been made with the service user, and agree on what has been achieved and what might need to be addressed in the future.
Partnership as a principle is equally valid with involuntary service users. For example, in regard to statutory child care, these principles should continue to be adhered to so that service users have the maximum amount of choice and control over their situation as pos- sible. These principles of partnership working have been validated by families involved in statutory child care who felt that even though they were subject to intervention in which they had no choice they were far more positive about this experience where social workers had worked in partnership (Aldgate and Statham, 2001).
We could look at partnership as a pyramid with the apex being user control and manage- ment of services, descending towards participation in planning of services, down to the base of individual consultation via surveys of service user’s views to gain feedback on the effectiveness of services. (see Figure 2.5).
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User control of services
Individual (includes feedback, surveys, complaints procedures) Participation in the planning
and development of services