Seminar Social Work A Profession in Decline International Workshop

Social work has been an object of ongoing reforms for more than 20 years. The marketisation of public services has led to a managerialism which claims to bring efficiency, effectiveness, certainty and predictability into the welfare state. In this world every process can be identified, measured and controlled. Today standards, procedures and performance indicators are well known terms in the personal social services. Time scales and the use of information technology determine interactions of social workers and service users. Quality management and care management schemes are used to structure daily activities of social workers and other welfare professionals, who feel they have lost control of their work. Powerful interest groups have appeared in newly created welfare markets to constantly provide politicians, purchasers and providers of services with new management ideas and strategies. In some countries the promises of a -social work business- may have been less tempting, in others the results of managerialistic approaches in the field are devastating. Some commentators claim that in specific areas no social work at all may be less damaging for service users, than standardized and bureaucratized care services. Critics say social workers have been devalued into rule-following robots, into box-tickers who are victims of a tyranny of forms and procedures. Social work, it seems, is no longer an attractive occupation. In contrast there may be a tipping point. There is a growing perception that managerialism is seen as a cause for costly and dramatic failures of social interventions. In addition social workers have found creative ways to undermine these managerialistic bureaucracies. The International Workshop aims to offer participants an insight into the situation in selected European countries. The focus will be • on national managerialistic approaches and the problems these cause for welfare professionals and service users, • on alternative solutions and good practice, • on consequences for and reactions of social workers who have to cope with the demands to routinize their daily work. FB 01 Institut für Sozialwesen Uni Kassel SoSe 2012 Soziale Arbeit und Lebenslauf FB 01 Institut für Sozialwesen Prof. Dr. Hansen Eckhard