As befits a journal with social work in its title, we reflect upon social work itself for the first half of this issue, which opens with six papers that, in different ways, address fundamental (we might even say generic) aspects of professional practice that resonate across a wide range of contexts.
Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung, writing from Hong Kong, opens our issue with an in-depth scrutiny of a concept that is at the heart of social work – practice wisdom – arguing that it is a quality nurtured through the courtesy, kindness, consideration, compassion, and benevolence of inter-subjective encounters, alongside the analysis of that experience. Monica Kjørstad addresses another key reference point for the profession – the principle of reciprocity – applying this to the implementation of workfare policies in Norway to illuminate problematic aspects of policy implementation. It is then the turn of criminal justice social work to receive scrutiny, with a contribution from Aline Bauwens and Rudi Roose in Belgium, posing the question ‘What is social about social work’ in this context. They argue that probation services have been under the influence of controlling tendencies that have narrowed their focus and methods, and call for a renewed radical debate that can restore social work to the criminal justice probation context.
The next two articles explore how social work is shaped by, and in turn might shape, specific political and geographic contexts. Vassilis Karagkounis presents a critical analysis of the impact of austerity on social work in Greece, arguing that scarce resources and staffing have limited the profession’s ability to respond at a time of escalating need. Again, a more radical agenda is proposed, seeking to adapt radical social work models to the Greek context in order to nurture their practical relevance for practitioners. We then move to Brazil, or at least to a contribution that focuses on the development of social work in this country; here the author, Trond Heitmann, finds that while social work is broadly seen as a profession aiming at social change, driven by democracy and universal rights, its political role is challenged by the competing views that are apparent in a society characterised by extreme inequalities.
The last of our six articles on core elements of social work takes an empirical turn. Rosalind Willis, Pathik Pathak, Priva Khambhaita, and Maria Evandrou explore the relevance of cultural competence – a further (if contested) foundation of practice. They report on a study that explored adult social care practitioners’ experiences of working across differences of culture, ethnicity, religion, and language in the context of an increasingly diverse ageing population. Their finding that cultural reflexivity was the key to practitioners’ confidence in such work has significant implications for staff training.
The second half of our issue moves to more specific fields of practice. First, three articles address different aspects of services for adults. Martina Boström, Marie Ernsth Bravell, Anita Björklund, and Jonas Sandberg explore the significance of a ‘sense of security’ for older people moving into and subsequently living in nursing home care in Sweden, finding this important quality was enhanced when residents were able to retain control over daily routines. Hugo Stranz, Patrik Karlsson, and Stefan Wiklund, also writing from Sweden, explore factors associated with reliance on long-term social assistance among long mothers. Their findings on the influence of structural factors have important implications for services in this field, which are characterised instead by a focus upon individual factors. Verner Denvall turns our attention to the ‘wicked problem’ of homelessness, and the question of how programmes attempting to tackle it should be evaluated. He highlights key differences between approaches to evaluation in the US and in Europe, finding that large-scale US studies taking a quantitative approach are more highly cited, and calling instead for the contribution of smaller scale, qualitative European studies to achieve higher prominence.
We conclude with three papers on aspects of services for children. Ann-Kristin Johansen, Birgit Svendsen, and Rolf Sundet explore what dominant discourses are present in Norwegian social workers’ descriptions of their work with children who experience domestic abuse, finding a gap between professed ideals about children’s competence, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, practice actions that revealed an emphasis on their vulnerability. Jennifer Davidson, Ian Milligan, Neil Quinn, Nigel Cantwell, and Susan Elsley demonstrate the challenges experiences by nation states in implementing the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, calling for new ways to move beyond the constraints of institutionalisation and to recognise alternative forms of family-based care. Finally, Jan Storø, writing from Norway, tackles the concept of ‘transition’, as applied to the movement of young people from state care to independent living, calling for further scrutiny of and theorisation about a concept that has both possibilities and limitations in both research and practice with young people.
Thus, in both the countries represented within these pages and in the topics addressed, this issue highlights the breadth and scope of this journal, along with its unifying focus – whether through theory, research, policy, practice, or education – upon the work of the social professions.