Editorial

One the founding beliefs of this journal is that ethics is not solely the province of moral philosophers and those who claim identities as ethicists. Making ethical decisions in complex and contested circumstances; understanding the problems and troubles of others struggling to do the right thing in their everyday lives; acting in ways that maximise well-being; assessing and evaluating the way in which policy-makers determine priorities for public and social policy, necessitate the capacity to ‘do ethics’ on the part of many who would claim to know little about what ethics is or means. Since its inception, this journal has sought not only to explore the ethical challenges that are an everyday part of social welfare practice, but also to promote a dialogue between theory and praxis that can benefit both. This reflects a belief that ethics is necessary to an engaged and critical perspective on social welfare policy and practice.

Thus, the journal has always welcomed contributions from practitioners in different social professions seeking to interrogate both their own practice and to explore broader issues affecting how they expected to work and how they are enabled to work. It has recognised those who use welfare services as moral agents as well as ‘experts by experience'. It has also encouraged multidisciplinarity amongst contributors and the sources they draw on. The contributions to this issue demonstrate this diversity.

In his analysis of the significance of ‘oppression’ as a basis on which to develop ethical practice, Derek Clifford argues for a robust theoretical foundation for practice. Oppression, he argues, has received much less theoretical analysis than related concepts—justice being the most obvious, and yet it has provided a basis for critical practitioners adopting ‘anti-oppressive’ practice intended to achieve social justice for service users. His review of different ways of theorising oppression demonstrates the necessity of allying social and political theory with ethical analysis to develop concepts of oppression capable of supporting just social practices. He highlights the importance of the work of Andrew Sayer from a social theory perspective, and feminist scholars such as Margaret Urban Walker from a philosophical perspective, who work beyond the sterile disciplinary divide between the social sciences and philosophy. We are very glad to have Andrew Sayer as one of our speakers at this journal's 10th anniversary conference in London in September 2016. This conference will address ‘ethics and social welfare in hard times’ and is designed to develop critical perspectives on new and enduring ethical challenges of austerity, migration and inequality.

Clifford not only names power as central to ethics, but also highlights the necessity of dialogue and recognition of different knowledges to challenge oppression in a divided world. As he acknowledges, feminist scholarship and praxis has often led the way in this respect. In particular, work on the ethics of care continues to highlight deliberative and dialogic approaches to ethics necessary to not only understand but transform the world (see Ethics and Social Welfare, vol. 9 no. 2 and Barnes et al. 2015).

The article by Karolina Slovenko and Naomi Stanton embodies collaboration and dialogue between practitioner insights and academic research. It presents an accessible critique of contemporary youth work practice in the UK and the political pressures that have impacted this, and also offers a constructive alternative based in the values and approaches of social pedagogy. This is more familiar in continental European countries than the UK. There have been numerous critiques of the incorporation of neo-liberalism into social welfare policy and practice. Slovenko and Stanton add to this literature in their demonstration of the ways in which youth work values have been compromised by policy requiring targeting, individual behaviour modification and short-term measurement of impact. But what is particularly valuable about this article is the way in which it offers an ethical alternative grounded in available models of practice. The conclusions that youth work practice needs to engage with both individual and collective, to apply contextual understandings rather than standard ‘best practice’ solutions, and to reassert ‘the importance of helping relationships and relational qualities’ are also consistent with those of care ethics and other current thinking concerning the necessity of situated ethics in social practices.

This is also the starting point for Sarah Banks’ discussion of social work as ethics work. Arguments for situated ethics not only mark a departure from professional codes of ethics as an adequate basis on which to practice, but from approaches that separate ‘professional ethics’ from ethics as part of everyday life. Slovenko and Stanton refer to the social pedagogic concept of ‘Haltung’ which suggests that the values and beliefs of practitioners are intrinsic to their self. In Bank's analysis of what ethics work means in practice, she argues that this involves much more than reasoning in response to ethical dilemmas, and more than either ‘moral fluency’ or ‘ethical literacy’. Ethics work, the ‘doing’ of ethics in practice, also involves emotion work, identity work and work on roles and relationships. Banks’ illustration of what this means, including the situatedness of ethics in practice, highlights the need for thick description of cases as a basis for ethical analysis. This resonates with the problematics of quantitative evaluation of practice identified in the article on youth work. When funding is tied to evidence of impact, and impact is defined in terms of individual outcomes, the future of services is put at risk by inappropriate evaluation methodologies. ‘Doing ethics’ is also a methodological issue.

The final article by Karin van der Heijden and her colleagues also depends on in-depth case analysis. But in this case the focus is not on the reflections of a practitioner, but of a woman exploring caring for others close to her—firstly, her first husband who has bipolar disorder, and subsequently her neighbour who has terminal cancer. In her current circumstances Eva is not someone likely to be identified as either a ‘carer’ or ‘service user’ in relation to professional social services and the analysis does not address caring relationships involving social practitioners. But one aim of this article is to interrogate policy assumptions concerning personal responsibilities to care by exploring the interaction between self-identity and the capacity to care.

This editorial marks the end of my period as joint editor of Ethics and Social Welfare. I will be pursuing my commitments in this respect in other contexts—I have long been convinced that the personal, professional and political cannot be lived in disconnected boxes. But I also remain convinced of the importance of stimulating ethical, policy and practice debates and urge social policy colleagues as well as social professionals and theorists to contribute to this by writing for the journal. I wish you all well.