1 / 7

Moral Agency and the Service Ideal: Nigel Elliott Over-view of presentation

Voices from the Front Line.

cliff
Download Presentation

Moral Agency and the Service Ideal: Nigel Elliott Over-view of presentation

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

    1. Moral Agency and the Service Ideal: Nigel Elliott Over-view of presentation Some ‘voices from the front line’. Drivers behind the current policy and practice environment in social work and the social welfare professions – and increasing authoritarianism. Two moral voices: instrumental utilitarianism and the service ideal – the exercise of moral agency.  Using the author’s own experience of social work practice, research, reflection and writing within the probation / criminal correctional field. A ‘good practice’ framework for establishing the potential for congruence between practice realities in any setting and one’s own service ideal. ‘Worked’ examples demonstrating the application of the framework.

    2. Voices from the Front Line ‘I now have to work much harder that I have ever worked in my life. You are expected to work much faster with no breaks. It is no wonder that so many social workers are off with stress and on long term sick. It is appalling and it is going to get worse now we have all these league tables that are beginning to drive things.’ ‘Social work is more and more about numbers with managers wanting to hit so many targets which involves turning cases over quickly. They want a case in, sorted and pushed out --- I think this emphasis on turnover is cosmetic to make it seem that we are giving a service to the public. But we don’t give anything. We have nothing to give.’ (Jones, 2001, pp.553-4) ‘I think back to when I first did child protection in the mid-80s --- it’s just horrific to think people could --- have a meeting about people and they wouldn’t even know it was taking place --- [today it is] about being open to scrutiny, open to accountability, much more inclusive in the way that information is used and shared.’ (Banks, 2004, p.158)

    3. The Revolution in Public Welfare Voices from the front line and their moral urgency. The changes to public welfare services in a neo-liberal market environment – the managerialist marketization of fragmented public services. Difficulty of controlling fragmented services – the surveillance of targets, monitoring, audit and star ratings. A competitive society that feeds insecurity and anxiety. Resulting authoritarianism and focus on risk within the public welfare services, leading to --- An instrumental utilitarianism that can slip into an amoral technical rationality – what works over-rides the moral merit of the methods chosen.    

    4. Two Moral Voices and the Exercise of Moral Agency Instrumental utilitarianism. The commitment to equity, transparent criteria and accountability – measurable and project based practice. The service ideal. The commitment to ethical practice as an end in itself – see Kant and virtue ethics. Relationship-based, valuing process and social well-being as well as outcomes. An imbalance between the two moral voices requiring a re-balancing because of the authoritarian and oppressive risks when utilitarianism ceases to rein in instrumentalism. Exercising moral agency and judgement – i.e. making demands – of one’s place of work. The ‘framework’ and the personal experience of reflective practice that lies behind its formulation. A set of questions – not as absolute standards but so that settings may be assessed according to criteria of good practice.

    5. Typology for Interrogating a Professional Practice Setting (Worked examples from Elliott, 1995, 2001 and 2003)

    6. REFERENCES Key references include: The full (pdf) text and references of this paper are available in the Kingston University Research Repository (http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk): Elliott, N. (2008) ‘Moral Agency and the Service Ideal’, in Improving Practice by Research, paper presented at the Olive Stevenson Seminar Series, Kingston University, 7th Nov. 2008. ‘Worked’ examples given are: Elliott, N. (1995) ‘College Reflections on Practice Theory’, Social Work Education, 14(3), pp.5-24. Elliott, N. (2001) Working with Structural and Ideological Change, Norwich: University of East Anglia, Social Work Monograph. Elliott, N. (2003) ‘Portfolio Creation, Action Research and the Learning Environment’, Qualitative Social Work, 2(3), pp.327-45. The JSWEC conference paper is based upon and develops the article: Elliott, N. (2008) ‘The Global Vortex: Social Welfare in a Networked World’, Journal of Social Work Practice, 22(3), pp.269-87.

    7. The following are key references for the paper: Banks, S. (2004) Ethics, Accountability and the Social Professions, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Charles, M. and Butler, S. (2004) ‘Social Workers’ Management of Organisational Change’ in M. Lymbery & S. Butler (eds) Social Work Ideals and Practice Realities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.57-82. Cooper, A. and Lousada, J. (2005) Borderline Welfare: Feeling and Fear of Feeling in Modern Welfare, London: Karnac. Jones, C. (2001) ‘Voices from the Front Line: State Social Workers and New Labour’, British Journal of Social Work, 31(4), pp.547-62. Robinson, G. and McNeill, F. (2004) ‘Purposes Matter: Examining the “Ends” of Probation’, in G. Mair (ed) What Matters in Probation, Cullompton: Willan, pp.277-304. Sennett, R. (2006) The Culture of the New Capitalism, New Haven: Yale University Press. Email contact: N.Elliott@sgul.kingston.ac.uk

More Related