What is the relationship between law and social work values?
Gwyneth Roberts
The picture that I have drawn, of the structure of social work law, of course is incomplete, in terms of actual social work practice because social workers have values and these values are also crucial in making up the concept of social work and social work practice. Much of the time, fortunately, the law and social work values correspond, or there’s a fair fit between the two. For instance, in the concept that the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration under The Children Acts. And that is extremely important, that’s a good example I think. But there are occasions when social workers feel they have no power to intervene when they might wish to do so. For example, to protect vulnerable adults from financial, physical or other forms of abuse. And some service users are excluded from some provisions of certain statutes like direct payments for example. So there are examples of omissions, if you like, in the law where social work values need to come in perhaps to fullfill the gap. Or there can be conflict between these two because the law is a body which is practised within complex social situations. The law is also a historical body and sometimes hasn’t caught up with changes in the social structure so there are lots of issues here and I think that social workers need to be educated, need to understand some of those conflicts as well when they are being trained and when they are practising also.
Alison Brammer
The relationship between law and the values that social workers might bring into their practice is at times complementary, but I think, at times, there is a conflict. If we think of some of the key values for social workers, the first point, perhaps, is to work in an anti-discriminatory anti-oppressive fashion, that’s key to social work practice. And, to a certain extent, the law supports that through legislation that intends to combat discrimination in relation to sex, race, disability, and, recently, age. But those laws are essentially reactive to particular situations when discrimination has already occurred. And it’s clearly an area where good practice in social work goes beyond what the law prescribes. And it may also be argued that there are some ways in which the law itself is quite discriminatory, if we just think about how legislation is framed, always in the male pronoun, that could be arguably so. Also law doesn’t change as quickly as practice and so there are some terms in usage in legislation, and sometimes in case law decisions, that wouldn’t be considered good practice for a social worker to use. If you think of definitions of disability which refer to people being ‘blind’, ‘deaf’ or ‘dumb’, it would clearly be unacceptable for a social worker to use that terminology other than if they are specifically referring to that piece of legislation. If you think also about the way the law operates and the sorts of people that are perhaps are involved in law. If you look at The House of Lords, the judges there, predominantly male, in fact there is only one female judge in The House of Lords. And if we look at the judiciary as a whole, there are very few judges from ethnic minorities, which must raise questions as to diversity and the impact on decision making and the extent to which the judiciary are actually in touch with reality. So there are points there about the way the law operates. Other key values, I think for social work practitioners, partnership is really important and that was described as a key element of The Children Act of 1989. But, in fact, the term ‘partnership’ doesn’t feature in the Act, we have to look to guidance such as ‘Working Together’ to find a template for partnership between individuals from different professional groups. Children’s rights, respecting rights is something that’s also important for social work practice and we see some examples of that within legislation such as the requirement for children's views to be ascertained, for their wishes and feelings to be considered, there are a number of references to that within The Children Act. But there are other areas of law in which children’s rights are clearly not supported. Although it was argued that there should be a requirement that a child over twelve should consent to their own adoption, that didn’t actually feature in the most recent adoption legislation. And the UK has been consistently criticised by the United Nations committee that oversees the operation of the convention on the rights of the child for it’s apparent lack of commitment to children’s rights. Although, as a result of some of that criticism, we do now have a new post of Children’s Commissioner in England, and also in Wales and Scotland.
Stuart Vernon
The law that social workers work with is, reflects if you like, both politics/policy and values. And social workers, I think, often come to an understanding or a learning of law from a position which is very negative. They see the law as something which often controls what they can and cannot do. The statute law that social workers deal with, and case law as well, is, if you like, value laden. Some of those values will indeed support the objectives of a social work practitioner’s practice. Other values won’t, and they will find them in opposition to, if you like, their objectives. But what’s important is that they understand what the value base of legislation is and realise that within the legislation they are working with there is space for what I might call ‘positive practice’. Now, I’ve understood, if you like, the value level of social work law, the statute law as being located on a continuum. At one end of that continuum you’ve got that sort of law which is very much dictated by the values of social work. One end of the continuum you’ve got social work law which is dominated by the value of social work – and I would include the Children Act in that – at the other extreme end of the continuum you’ve got those areas of law which, if you like, are dominated by other values. They may be legal values, they may be political values, which some social workers would find very difficult to work with or within. And I am thinking, increasingly, of the values attached to criminal justice legislation and youth justice legislation. If you were to look at the sort of middle range of the continuum, I think you’ve got sorts of statute law where there is, if you like, a tension sometimes between the values of social worker and other values. And I would include there, for example, mental health law. I’ve described those values as being contained within statute but they are equally contained within the case law as well. Now, that case law may emerge from the development of the common law but it may also emerge, of course, from the interpretation of the statute in the first place. And what is fascinating, is to see the values of the law emerging, if you like, from what may be first of all a policy initiative or a political initiative, getting transformed into a statutory framework and then again possibly being developed or transformed by practice or by interpretation by the courts. This is a dynamic movement, it’s not a static movement at all, and that’s something that it’s useful for social workers to understand that their practice can contribute to the development of the law.