Finding the Balance between Compliance and Challenge - A True Civil Society
Compliance and Challenge -
What is the balance for social workers in organisations and political environments, which do not like to be questioned and challenged?
This presentation is based on the premise that social work organisational practice settings are increasingly unwilling to accept or engage with contested positions in relation to their policies, programmes and practices. This unwillingness occurs it is premised because many human service organisations are increasingly becoming management dominated closed systems governed by a small corporate elite, who interact with the rest of the organisation in a top down authoritarian manner. Such human service organisations do not brook challenges well, no matter how mild. Compliance is the name of the game; compliance is employment and organisational survival. Compliance however cannot be the basis of a truly Civil Society. The capacity to contest the conduct of the major institutions of our society is an inherent component of the worth and integrity of the society.
This presentation will focus upon three aspects of working within modern day human services where the range and nature of social workers’ “Masters” has become more complex in relation to how social work as a profession is now practiced. The presentation will exam the characteristics and nature of human service organisations as increasing site expectations of worker compliance for social workers. The presentation will then focus upon the tensions and dilemmas produced for social workers in practice where ‘compliance’ has become the name of the game. The presentation will examine the complex relationship between organisational compliance survival and the necessity for social workers to challenge the policies and practices of the organisations they work for. A framework will be presented which provides a means to determine when to be compliant, when to challenge -which battles to take on, why some battles are more important than others and what strategies to use.