The deskilling of social work: Turning the tide
This paper sets out to explore the impact of key aspects of recent management culture on professional social work practice. Particular attention will be paid to the following:
· Managerialism, Macdonaldisation and the audit culture
· The incipient transformation of social work from a professional to a technical activity
· The rôle of proceduralisation in this transformation
· Brief lessons from control system theory about the use of feedforward and feedback controls within social work.
Discussion will not be confined to a rather sterile denunciation of managerialism and its impact. It will be recognised that managerial did not ‘just happen’. It is not simply an accidental aberrance; rather it came to prominence in answer to real and acute pressures. Cries for change which do not recognise and respond to the pressures out of which managerialism arose are likely to make little lasting impression.
Leaning particularly on examples drawn from developments in recent years within the field of child protection, this paper seeks to engage practitioners, managers and educators in identifying the processes which have come to bear within their own fields of work. It will encourage the development of alternative responses to these processes which build the capabilities and confidence of social workers rather than undermining and deskilling them.