Editorial — Exploring the Role of Community in Supporting Vulnerable People

In the context of an ageing population, Care England noted that years of underfunding and rising costs were pushing care homes into liquidation. ‘We have had the national living wage, pension auto-enrolment, and significant increases in CQC fees, all of which have been levied onto the sector without commensurate increases in fees. These increases are making care services in both residential and domiciliary care unsustainable… because the funding is inadequate’.(Carter 2016). Together with funding cuts, there are changes in legislation which include assessing the individuals ‘contribution to society’ (see Diaper and Yeoman in this issue). In the current climate, with a shrinking welfare state, the articles in this issue offer important ideas for realising vulnerable people as assets and not a burden. The importance of hope cannot be overestimated (Collins 2015).

The article by David Moxley and June Abbas develops a proposition for using libraries, which are a community space, in ways that maintain them as a community resource. In their article, ‘Envisioning Libraries as Collaborative Community Anchors for Social Service Provision to Vulnerable Populations’, they write about promoting libraries as focal points for information provision, with opportunities created for librarians to work with social workers to strengthen libraries as community anchors to assist people who may be reluctant to access formal assistance. Research already indicates that partnerships between libraries and social welfare providers may be growing in the areas of health, public health and health promotion and libraries are already engaging in promoting new technologies to a wider population.

Andy Diaper and Paul Yeomans article, Contribution to Society: A Footnote for the Care Act 2014, explores how the new legislation changes the eligibility criteria and introduces ‘well-being’ principles which include an unusual statutory phrase — the individual’s contribution to society. This article notes the problem of interpreting this and, in the light of there being no case law, as yet, discusses interpretations which may help practitioners discharge their legal duties and abide by professional standards.

Sue Thompson’s article, Promoting Reciprocity in Old Age: A Social Work Challenge, also examines the concept of contribution to society. Thompson suggests that promoting opportunities for reciprocity can challenge ageist connotations of ‘uselessness’ by highlighting that even very frail and dependent older people can give as well as receive. Thompson, writing in the current context of concern about the affordability of eldercare, wonders if we can rise to the challenge of helping to reduce the need for services, rather than merely responding to escalating demands.

And now we come to electronic information systems (IS). Should IS act as an ‘external expert’ shaping and guiding social workers practice? Philip Gillingham writes of a new development in ‘Electronic Information Systems to Guide Social Work Practice: The Perspectives of Practitioners as End Users’. Since evaluations of (IS) being used in social work agencies in England and Australia have been highly critical of their effects on frontline social work practice, attention is now turning to how IS might be redesigned. One particular development is the inclusion of particular practice frameworks in the design of an IS, in order that, when practitioners use them, practice is shaped and guided — the IS is intended to act as an ‘external expert’. Gillinghams’s research questions whether incorporating a practice approach into an IS, even in consultation with practitioners, is enough to promote intended improvements in practice. I would also worry about the insidious influence it may have on practice.