Introduction

Social work literature and policy documents can demonstrate extraordinary claims to usefulness and woeful lack of clarity on working practices. They can appear to glory in complexity and unrealistic ambitions. The contradiction is that in the over-ambition for the use of social work, its effectiveness or specific contribution can be easily denied. In this chapter greater focus is sought, combined with a confidence in its role, specific knowledge and skills. In particular, the challenges of personalisation and personal budgets and child protection are addressed.

Complexity or confusion

In all social work practice there is a range of roles and responsibilities, often in tension, competing, if not in outright contradiction. Part of the challenge to the cognitive and emotional abilities of social workers is the way in which this complexity is internally processed, and how it is explained and demonstrated coherently in direct practice, in work with colleagues and with the people who are served and their carers. In the first instance, the internal language is developed to explain and to be able to articulate, drawing on knowledge and insights from the diverse academic disciplines that collectively form the basis of the academic social work curriculum, the evidence of what can be shown to constitute effective practice, and the progressive gathering of practice wisdom. This is then embedded into day-to-day thinking, systematic analysis, reflection, synthesis, evidence-informed practice (Hodson and Cooke, 2007), and expressed, shared and explained with both colleagues and people who receive social work services.