Reprioritising social work practice

Abstract

Relational social work was originally understood in terms of the kind of ‘social casework’ associated with the American pioneer Florence Hollis, which itself was significantly influenced by psycho-analytic theory. There was strong agreement among service users in the project about what they valued most in specialist palliative care social work. Social work practitioners frequently facing media hostility as well as political constraints, also seem to be experiencing a parallel unrecognised struggle to access their ‘second person’ voices. The chapter discusses the conceptualisation of the personal and the social from a social justice based critical social work perspective. It considers what a critical relationship-based approach to social work might look like informed by a critique of the concepts in social work. Social work action network has placed a strong emphasis on involving social work students, current practitioners and service users and carers in its organisation and activities and has developed as an international movement.