Gendered Organizational Culture in Child Protection Social Work

Abstract

This Practice Update summarizes findings of ethnographic research on child protection work in United Kingdom. focus of research was on gendered of a social work team. findings have been published in detail elsewhere (Scourfield, 2003). aim of this practice update is to introduce a U.S. social work audience to research. study was motivated by concern over tendency of child care social work to concentrate on working with women, and relative failure to engage Researchers have noted this tendency in United Kingdom (for example, Edwards, 1998; Farmer & Owen, 1995), Scandinavia (Kahkonen, 1999), Australia (Parton, Thorpe, & Wattam, 1997), Canada (Swift, 1995), and United States (Davies & Krane, 1996; Edleson, 1998). Farmer and Owen's (1995) study of child protection practice in United Kingdom showed that in two-parent families, focus of intervention tended to switch from abusing father-figure to mother and to general child care and support. O'Hagan and Dillenburger (1995) labeled this process the abuse of women by avoiding men. They observed that this process is documented, explicitly or implicitly, in majority of high-profile child death inquiries in United Kingdom. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE Research has explored how child protection process is gendered, by looking at organizational of social work teams. This study was not intended to be an evaluation of practice or judge whether social workers were constructing gender correctly, but to understand their practice, and uncover some taken-for-granted assumptions about men and women Harlow and Hearn's (1995) summary of theories of organizational outlines breadth of different theoretical perspectives that have been applied to topic, and this column uses perspective that they label as discourse. Discourse here means regimes of truth (Foucault, 1980) that function as neutral knowledge and circumscribe activities of social work agencies. RESEARCH METHOD fieldwork consisted of a three-month attachment to a child care team in United Kingdom, referred to as The (a pseudonym). I observed interactions in office, including team meetings and supervisions, conducted in-depth interviews with staff, and read case files. research findings in this column refer to whole range of data sources. Analysis was based on principles of grounded theory of Straussian variety (Strauss, 1987). Sociological ideas emerged from data rather than a specific hypothesis being tested. With help of a computer software package (NUD*IST 4), ethnographic data were organized according to themes (codes) that arose during fieldwork, and each code was then explored in detail. I decided to concentrate on child protection cases because much of commentary in literature about gendered practice has focused on this area, and stakes are high for both parents and children. Initially, I scrutinized a broad range of case files, then, for more detailed analysis, I focused on case files of children who had been on child protection register within past three months (10 families). RESEARCH FINDINGS Social Context of Child Protection Work Apart from gender, there are other social divisions to consider in relation to clientele of Uplands team. Most of active child protection cases in Uplands team are poor, working-class They are said by social workers to be stigmatized, even in very poor communities, and are seen as constituting an underclass. Social workers see this class position as both something imposed by government policies, which have created inequalities, and a patch culture of unemployment and problematic parenting. Not all individuals have an equal claim to being clients. Social workers proudly say that child is their client, rather than parent or parents, although routine talk about clients actually refers to adults because social workers spend most of their time with adults. …