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Leadership: a crucial ingredient in unstable times
- Authors:
- McDONALD Catherine, CHENOWETH Lesley
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work and Society: International Online Journal, 7(1), 2009, Online only
- Publisher:
- University of Bielefeld
Social work is experiencing an unprecedented degree of institutional instability, particularly in the advanced industrial nations which, to varying degrees and via differing paths, have abandoned the Keynesian Welfare State. The degree of change is such that it can be understood as institutional change. The profession needs a number of strategies in response the contemporary de-stabilization. Drawing on theoretical and empirical literature about institutional change the authors show why it is that professional leadership is crucial in the current environment. The paper reviews what in currently know about leadership, both in general and in relation to social work. Referring to the notion of institutional entrepreneurs and on the role played by other non-social work professional associations in situations of change, the role leadership can play is articulated. The article concludes with recommendations about how leadership could be promoted, particularly by the professional associations.
Workfare Oz-style: welfare reform and social work in Australia
- Authors:
- McDONALD Catherine, CHENPWETH Lesley
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Policy Practice, 5(2/3), 2006, pp.109-128.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Traditional approaches to the promotion of welfare have disappeared in Australia, replaced by a new institutional order represented by welfare-cum-workfare. This has impacted on social work both as a collective entity and as a set of practices. This paper maps the shift to workfare in Australia and examines its impacts on and implications for social work. The authors briefly discuss the Australian model of social protection, illustrating our own brand of “exceptionalism,” and lay out what we have termed “Workfare Oz-style.” Drawing upon neo-institutional theory, the authors review and analyze two key contexts where “Workfare Oz-style” is operationalized-the Job Network and Centrelink. Some tentative conclusions are given and the dimensions of a research agenda, which will put any emerging propositions to empirical test, are proposed. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580).
Getting beyond ‘heroic agency’ in conceptualising social workers as policy actors in the twenty-first century
- Authors:
- MARSTON Greg, McDONALD Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 42(6), 2012, pp.1022-1038.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The social work educational literature focusing on the nature of the profession suggests that social workers have considerable capacity to achieve progressive social change at the organisational, policy and even at the societal level. This paper considers whether this assumption is warranted. It argues that the validity and legitimacy of the radical tradition in social work education and practice has been challenged by market capitalisation and growing inequalities. These conditions undermine the possibility of pursing a model of social protection committed to collective well-being. The article suggests that the actual engagement of social workers in policy practice and political change in liberal democracies is muted and discusses reasons for this. It discusses the impact of conceptualisations of the ‘heroic agency’ of social work identity as employed in texts used in social work education. Specifically, it argues that new social work graduates, when immersed into the organisational rationalities of reconfigured welfare states, may experience a considerable mismatch between the promise of being a social change agent and their experience as a beginning practitioner. Emerging practitioners should be better supported to develop their political identity and purpose in the context of 21st-century spaces of social work practice.
The role of non-profit organizations in the mixed economy of welfare-to-work in the UK and Australia
- Authors:
- WRIGHT Sharon, MARSTON Greg, McDONALD Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 45(3), June 2011, pp.299-318.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Arguing that although the welfare-to-work policies of the UK and Australia share similar policy logics the policies themselves and arrangements for their delivery have evolved from different contexts, this article compares the traditions of delivery in these 2 countries. It discusses the development of employment services and welfare-to-work policies, delivering welfare-to-work through non-government organisations, and the relationship between the state and the non-profit sector. The authors find that in the UK employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, whereas in Australia mixed economies of welfare-to-work operate in different states, and there is a stronger role for both social services and non-state organisations as key providers of front-line employment services. They assert that UK welfare reforms have been gradually following the Australian lead in contracting non-state actors as delivery agents since the late 1990s, and examine the Australian experience in order to reflect on the role of non-profits in policy reform.
The importance of identity in policy: the case for and of children
- Author:
- McDONALD Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Society, 23(4), July 2009, pp.241-251.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This article draws out one of the core reasons why children should be conceived as active agents in research, particularly policy-related research. The main thesis is that policy inevitably projects and, to an extent, constitutes the subject identities of its intended objects - in this case, that of 'children'. Drawing on several bodies of theory - the 'new' sociology of childhood, identity theory, 'governmentality' and theories of discourse - the article shows why not incorporating children's voices is a problem for social policy, and suggests that the impact of their exclusion has the potential to render policy both inappropriate and non-responsive.
Contingent on context? Social work and the State in Australia, Britain, and the USA
- Authors:
- McDONALD Catherine, HARRIS John, WINTERSTEEN Richard
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 33(2), March 2003, pp.191-208.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The notion that social work is an international profession, operating with generally similar goals, methodologies, and common values is considered critically. Examining the political and social contexts of three countries Australia, Britain and the United States, the role of social work within the welfare processes of each country is compared. While social work as an identifiable professional activity shares some features, it is argued that the idea of its having a core essence needs to be tempered with a realistic assessment of the importance of contextually created difference. Recent and rapid developments in the institutional context, such as those experienced in these three countries, further underscore the limited utility of the notion of a common professional project.
Post-Fordism, the Welfare State and the Personal Social Services: a comparison of Australia and Britain
- Authors:
- HARRIS John, McDONALD Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 30(1), February 2000, pp.51-70.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary social welfare change within a wider analysis of the transformation of capitalist accumulation regimes. Services to older people in Australia and Britain are employed as the specific context of comparison in relation to three dimensions of measuring transformation along a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economy to a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the model of service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governance function of the central state. This comparative analysis suggests the need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesis concerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impact on the personal social services.
Risk technology in Australia: the role of the Job Seeker Classification Instrument in employment services
- Authors:
- McDONALD Catherine, MARSTON Greg, BUCKLEY Amma
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 23(4), November 2003, pp.498-525.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determine the type of interaction that unemployed people have with the Job Network. In the first instance, the authors critically examine the development of the JSCI and expose issues that erode its credibility and legitimacy. Second, employing the analytical tools of discourse analysis, they show how the JSCI both assumes and imposes particular subject identities on unemployed people. The purpose of this latter analysis is to illustrate the consequences of the sorts of technologies and interventions used within the Job Network.