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‘Analysing a parent’s capacity to change: towards a model for child protection social workers’
- Authors:
- HOUSTON Stan, SWORDS Calvin
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work Practice, 35(3), 2021, pp.231-244.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
In cases where child protection concerns are evident, a central query within inter-professional, safeguarding assessments, centres on the parents’ capacity to change to enhance their child’s lived experience. Social workers, as key professionals co-ordinating such assessments, require analytical tools and models to enable them and others to reach a considered judgement on this pressing, complex aspect of case inquiry. This article describes one such model. The model builds on the C-Change Approach which reviews the change process from a mainly cognitive-behavioural perspective. While recognising the strengths of this contribution to child protection assessment, the authors have extended it by examining change from a psycho-dynamic orientation. This orientation takes account, not only of the intra-psychic dynamics within the individual, but also the relational forces at work between people. Lastly, the authors consider how this extended model can be utilised to analyse and facilitate desired changes in parenting practices. Here, they draw on the helpful notion of a force-field analysis: a conceptual representation of the dynamics of change within a social situation. (Edited publisher abstract)
Reducing child protection error in social work: towards a holistic-rational perspective
- Author:
- HOUSTON Stan
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work Practice, 29(4), 2015, pp.379-393.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Social work in the UK remains embroiled in concerns about child protection error. The serious injury or death of vulnerable children continues to evince much consternation in the public and private spheres. Governmental responses to these concerns invariably draw on technocratic solutions involving more procedures, case management systems, information technology and bureaucratic regulation. Such solutions flow from an implicit use of instrumental rationality based on a ‘means-end’ logic. While bringing an important perspective to the problem of child protection error, instrumental rationality has been overused limiting discretion and other modes of rational inquiry. This paper argues that the social work profession should apply an enlarged form of rationality comprising not only the instrumental-rational mode but also the critical-rational, affective-rational and communicative-rational forms. It is suggested that this combined, conceptual arsenal of rational inquiry leads to a gestalt that has been termed the holistic-rational perspective. It is also argued that embracing a more rounded perspective such as this might offer greater opportunities for reducing child protection error. (Publisher abstract)
Mandated prevention in child welfare: considerations from a framework shaping ethical inquiry
- Authors:
- HOUSTON Stan, SPRATT Trevor, DEVANEY John
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work, 11(3), July 2011, pp.287-305.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Child welfare policy in the United Kingdom has been characterised by a range of divergent opinions about how to best meet children’s needs. The aim of this article is to outline a framework for approaching ethical dilemmas arising from the development, evaluation and implementation of child welfare policies. This framework may be relevant to policy-makers, social researchers and social workers. The central tenets of the framework are developed by drawing on ideas from moral philosophy and critical social theory. These ideas are presented as axioms, theorems and corollaries derived from deductive reasoning. This process leads to 4 principle axioms that are seen to shape the ethical scrutiny of social policy: problematising knowledge; utilising structured forms of inquiry to enhance understanding; engendering enabling communication with those affected by the ethical concern; and enhancing self-awareness. This framework can be used to enhance an inquirer’s ethical awareness and enable them to reach a point of creative tension from which moral decision making may evolve. By way of example, the 4 axioms are applied to the current ‘third way’ policy of mandated prevention in child welfare, where the aim is to obviate deleterious outcomes in later life.
Conceptualising child and family support: the contribution of Honneth's critical theory of recognition
- Authors:
- HOUSTON Stan, DOLAN Pat
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Society, 22(6), November 2008, pp.458-469.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The role of social support in child welfare policy and practice continues to engender widespread debate. Yet the moral and philosophical underpinnings of this topical area have received less attention in the literature. This is of concern, not least because academic debates on the 'politics of identity' have a significant contribution to make to our understanding of self-development and social justice. In this article the authors show how Axel Honneth's account of the 'struggle for recognition' can be adapted to invigorate theories of social support. The result is a conceptual framework for reflective practice that can illuminate, and interrogate, the moral and operational dimensions of preventative work with children and families.
Towards a model for developing children's services training plans: a perspective from Northern Ireland
- Authors:
- HOUSTON Stan, BAMFORD David
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work Education (The International Journal), 18(3), September 1999, pp.323-334.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This article makes the case for developing 'Children's Services Training Plans' (CSTPs). These plans should build on and reflect the Department of Health's directive to Local Authorities (in the wake of the Children Act [1989]) to develop 'Children's Services Plans'. In keeping with the 'working and training together' ethos in child care, CSTPs should embrace multi-disciplinary perspectives; but it is argued here that the plans offer a unique opportunity to set the strategic direction for social work education and training. To this end, this article stipulates that CSTPs should make linkages with both the Post Qualifying framework and with systems within universities and colleges for academic accreditation.
‘It’s almost kafkaesque’: newspaper coverage of social work’s role in the ‘Grace Case’ in the republic of Ireland
- Authors:
- HUGHES Michelle, HOUSTON Stan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 49(6), 2019, p.1376–1394.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In many countries, the media portray the social work profession in a negative light. The impact of such coverage has been an enduring concern with many commentators signifying the profound consequences for practice and professional morale. However, more investigation is required into how social work has been represented in the Irish ‘print’ media in the wake of severe maltreatment to children, especially following claims of professional negligence. Within Ireland, this is a matter of huge significance for social workers, policymakers and service users. In this context, the media’s recent coverage of the ‘Grace Case’ has led to a watershed moment in the country’s public and private spheres. Using a documentary approach and thematic analysis informed by social constructionism, the study investigated the dominant representations of social work practice in selected Irish newspaper articles in the aftermath of this tragic case. Four major themes were adduced from these sources depicting the profession as ‘failing’, ‘deceptive’, ‘unaccountable’ and ‘divided’. These results were analysed with reference to a growing moral panic within Irish society centring on the role of the state in protecting vulnerable children. A way forward for the profession was subsequently considered drawing on ideas promulgated by social constructionism. (Publisher abstract)
Further reflections on Habermas's contribution to discourse in child protection: an examination of power in social life
- Author:
- HOUSTON Stan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 40(6), September 2010, pp.1736-1753.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article contributes to an ongoing debate in this journal on Habermas’s contribution to discourse in child protection. In his 2008 article Garrett challenged Hayes and Houston's 2007 positive review of Habermas's contribution to discourse in family group conferences. This paper replies to Garrett but extends the analysis through a considered, developed and detailed examination of Habermas's thoughts on power in social life. This leads to a conceptual framework that enables the participants in the conference to exercise power in a positive manner. In developing this earlier analysis, the paper also acknowledges Garrett's argument that Bourdieu helps us to understand the nature of constraining social structures in child protection. However, Bourdieu's ideas are subsequently challenged on the grounds that they lack a competent formulation on human agency, a faculty that Habermas cogently elucidates. This enlarged understanding of agency, it is argued, offers a theoretical resource that fits better with the ethos of emancipatory social work.
Exploring workforce retention in child and family social work: critical social theory, social pedagogy and action research
- Authors:
- HOUSTON Stan, KNOX Stephen
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work and Social Sciences Review, 11(2), 2004, pp.36-53.
- Publisher:
- Whiting and Birch
Child and family social work in the United Kingdom is facing a staff recruitment and retention crisis in many areas. Occupational stress, burnout, heavy workloads and insufficient resources combine to make the social work role highly demanding and unattractive to prospective recruits. This paper explores one approach to the problem which synthesises Giddens' philosophical ideas on discursive consciousness, Habermas' precepts on moral discourse, Boal's use of empowering theatre and Lewin's rendition of the action research cycle. These theoretical, philosophical and methodological components, when combined, offer a radically different approach to staff retention strategies within child welfare organisations by centring on the transformative power of human agency. It is concluded that the approach described can be extrapolated to the management of other human service professions experiencing similar recruitment and retention difficulties.
'Lifeworld', 'system' and family group conferences: Habermans's contribution to discourse in child protection
- Authors:
- HAYES David, HOUSTON Stan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 37(6), September 2007, pp.987-1006.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Habermas’s critical social theory has been challenged on a range of fronts. However, the authors see merit in his mediation thesis as set out in the seminal text, Between Facts and Norms (1996). Adopting a pragmatist defence of the thesis, the authors review and demonstrate the effectiveness of what they believe is a coincidental expression of some of its main tenets - the family group conference in child protection. Drawing further on Habermas’s work, they then proceed to re-work aspects of the conference’s core processes, thereby accentuating the possibility of empowering dialogue between its key participants: the families (who embody the ‘lifeworld’) and the social work professionals (who represent the ‘system’). In the final section, the authors argue that moral practice in child protection must be safeguarded by communicational procedures that explicitly address issues relating to the use of power and the need for ‘recognition’ between subjects.
Developing critical social work in theory and in practice: child protection and communicative reason
- Authors:
- SPRATT Trevor, HOUSTON Stan
- Journal article citation:
- Child and Family Social Work, 4(4), November 1999, pp.315-324.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This article argues that a critical analysis of the ideologies that inform contemporary child care has been missing from the 'refocusing debate'. Such an analysis points up the necessity of reasserting a critical social work position in order to provide a basis for reconstructing practice and engaging with other social actors and their ideologies in an open and creative fashion.