Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
three - We need to talk about ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
[C]hild protection raises complex moral and political issues which have no one right technical solution. Practitioners are asked to solve problems every day that philosophers have argued about for the last two thousand years. … Moral evaluations can and must be made if children's lives and well being are to be secured. What matters is that we should not disguise this and pretend it is all a matter of finding better checklists or new models of psychopathology – technical fixes when the proper decision is a decision about what constitutes a good society. (Dingwall et al, 1983: 244)
Written 30 years ago, this closing paragraph of a lucid ethnography of social work by sociologists Robert Dingwall and Topsy Murray and socio-legal scholar John Eekelaar underscores the moral and ethical aesthetic at the core of practice. Unfortunately, their wise counsel was not followed and social work has been mired in a series of technical fixes which have distracted us from, and masked, the moral nature of the work. Thus, the right debates have not taken place, or at least have not taken place in the right spaces.
This chapter seeks to return to Dingwall et al's imperative and explores both the importance, and the precariousness, of ethics in a risk averse context. Following procedures remains a central professional imperative and there has not been a debate at a societal level for some time about the value base that should underpin the work. We draw from a range of writings to urge the importance of supporting processes that ensure multiple voices can be heard and multiple forms of ‘suffering’ recognised. We argue for dialogic processes to be part of social work's day-to-day practices and for a wider commitment to public dialogue about the means and ends of practices.
Hollowing out ethics?
Ethical propositions are statements of value related to action. … Value-statements may draw on abstract or ideal notions but at the same time they necessarily carry with them implications for the way in which individuals act and the relationship between people as members of social groups. (Hugman and Smith, 1995: 2)
A number of writers have noted the lack of ethical debate about the nature of practice interventions in child protection but we would add also that it is vital to understand and locate these practices in the context of the overall purpose of the work which has been little debated.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Re-imagining Child ProtectionTowards Humane Social Work with Families, pp. 37 - 52Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2014