This thesis provides a description and analysis of contemporary policy and practice in kinship care within three local authorities in England. The aim is to examine the extent to which government policy principles and available research evidence have translated into professional practice on the ground in different agency settings and to consider the implications of these findings for future management planning in this field. This is approached through considering UK research on kinship and examining the relationship between the statutory principles driving policies and the way the three local authorities have responded. This is with a view to questioning how kinship locally has influenced social work practice at a case level and compares local policies and practice against wider research evidence. Proposals are made about the modelling of a more effective approach to social work practice and management in kinship care planning. This study of different authorities and their approaches to kinship explores some of the challenges by which policy principles and research findings get translated into social work practice in a field of practice and theory that is itself contested. The study was undertaken in four stages: 1. A review of the extent to which local authority policies are compliant and consistent with statutory rules and contemporary research findings on kinship care. 2. A comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between policies and their formation in three studied authorities. 3. An analysis of the extent to which local management and social work practice, as reported, is consistent with policy and research. 4. The modelling of a Kinship care Definition and Policy Model could be proposed that is compliant with the principles of the Children Act 1989 and responsive to the research findings. The challenge set out in this research is to bridge academic research, policy formulation and operational practice. This research does not seek to evidence best practice in its own right but to recognise the variance of kinship in practice and approach and, from knowledge gained, set out a proposed model of good practice, one that is responsive to the findings and could be adopted within local authorities in England.

This thesis explores Greek social work students' perceptions of the development of their professional values and ethics in the workplace during their professional practice placement. To accomplish its goals, the thesis includes a literature review and employs a qualitative exploratory research design with descriptive elements positioned within the constructivist paradigm. This research design allows the researcher to explore and describe a topic - social work values and ethics - that is generally under-researched in the existing literature, as well as being complex in nature and difficult to study. Data were collected using the critical incident technique (CIT). This method took the form of a written questionnaire (the CIT questionnaire) completed by 32 students between 11th and 25th October, 2010. The data were inductively analysed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. SPSS and SPAD software packages were also used to analyse the numerical and textual data respectively. The study findings underline the vital role of the workplace as a social space for students to learn and develop their professional social work values and ethics. They also highlight the complexity of implementing social work values and ethics in the different workplace environments that students, as trainees, are placed for their professional practice due to their situation-specific nature. Further, the study reveals a number of factors that, from the students' point of view, are important in applying and upholding professional ethical standards in social work practice. These factors are associated with: a) the need to practice social work values and ethics in the workplace on a daily basis in order to keep them alive and active; b) the students' own contribution to upholding ethical standards; c) the role practice instructors/supervisors play in the transmission of social work values to students during their placements; d) the importance of ethical collaboration inside and outside the workplace to achieve the best practices for clients; e) the client's behaviour as a determinant of the ethical practice of social workers in the workplace; and f) the importance of the ethics of management (including the political affiliation of the heads of organisations) in creating and sustaining an ethical work/learning environment. The study suggests that all the factors mentioned above-to a greater or lesser degree- should be considered important elements to take into account in the planning and development of values-based social work education programmes. Special attention should be paid to workplace conditions that can hinder or support the development of values-based social work practice. As the study clearly shows, daily ethical practice in social work, students as individuals, the role of practice instructors, ethical workplace collaboration, client behaviour, and the ethics of management are crucial components for building upon the ethical skills taught in the classroom and developing ethically informed professional identities in real-life workplace situations. The thesis concludes that the critical incidents experienced by students are a valuable source of knowledge and understanding of the development of social work values and ethics in professional practice. In this study, indeed, students gained valuable insights into their ethics development process in practice contexts, from both positive and negative critical incidents alike.

The thesis focused on the field of service user and carer involvement in the assessments of social work students. It examined the positioning of service users and carers in relation to other stakeholders involved in student assessments. Participants' views on what should count as service users and carers' feedback evidence at Continuing Professional Development (CPD) level were also explored. The rationale for the study centred on the relatively limited research studies focusing on service user and carer involvements in students' assessment, in comparison to their involvement in other areas of social work education. Further, the limited studies available appeared to be under theorised. The study is situated in the qualitative research tradition and drew from narrative research methods. It was influenced by the practitioner-doctorate research paradigm (Drake and Heath 2011). The study drew from the theoretical insights of Foucault's (1972; 1980) notion of discourse and power/knowledge theory; and Bourdieu's (1990) concepts of field, capital and habitus, to analyse the dynamic power relations between those involved in the assessments of students. Following ethical clearance from the University of Sussex, a semi-structured individual interview was carried out with 21 people. The sample consisted of service users, carers, social work students, social work employers and social work educators. The voice-centred relational method of data analysis, developed by Gilligan (1982), was used to analyse the research participants' narratives about how they have experienced their involvements in social work students' assessments. Participants' narratives revealed that the field of service user and carer involvement in social work students' assessment is characterised by a complex mix of relationships, different power dynamics and power struggles. On the question of what should count as service user and carer evidence, in relation to what students are expected to demonstrate to service users and carers at CPD level, the research participants reported on qualities such as:  Professionalism, good time-keeping, reliability and honesty  Effective communication skills, such as listening, empathy and kindness  Ability to support service users and carers  Intelligence, ‘structured empathy', mastery of practice and development of practice wisdom. Although important, progressive difference in expectation at CPD level was not acknowledged. The study makes five contributions to knowledge in the field of service user and carer involvement in social work students' assessments, as follows: (1) It adds to the body of research studies looking at service user and carer involvement in social work students' assessments. (2) It sheds some light on what stakeholders involved in social work practice and education thought about the ASYE in 2010 before its implementation in 2012. (3) It contributes to knowledge on what participants feel service users and carers should comment on when assessing social work students at CPD level. (4) It offers theoretical insight into the different power relations, struggles, and power dynamic between stakeholders involved in social work students' assessments from Bourdieusian and Foucauldian perspectives. (5) Feedback of the interim findings was provided to Skills for Care to support the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) assessment in 2011. The study concludes by arguing the case for social work and service user organisations to support service users and carers in their role as assessors of social work students.

Social work / M.A. (Social Work)

Social work / M.A. (Social Work)

A death in research exacerbates the lack of knowledge and information in respect of the needs and life view of the aged. Two studies were conducted in this population group with specific reference to the 'once-off interview'. Information was gathered using interview schedules focusing on therapeutic skills of social workers working within the system which cares for the aged. Results of a pilot study and an expanded study were compared in order to establish the inter-relationship between the. needs of the elderly, their elemental experiences in line with Bloom's theory (1984), and the role of the social worker. Findings revealed that the majority of "discontinuances" after the first interview were because the needs of the elderly clients had in fact been met. The need for day care services, transport and the expansion of the 'home help' facility was highlighted to enable the elderly to retain their independence in the community / Social Science / M.A. (Social Science: Mental Health)

Case management, a coordinating process designed to align service provision more closely to the identified needs of people requiring assistance in the context of complex care systems, is an example of those policies and practices that cross the borders of different national welfare systems, ostensibly to resolve the same or similar problems in the adopting country. Developed in the USA, case management was re-named 'care management' upon adoption in the UK as part of the community care reforms of the early 1990s, reforms which have framed my professional life in English local authority adult social care services ever since. In 2007, a temporary research fellowship (TH Marshall Fellowship, London School of Economics) enabled me to spend four months in Berlin studying a citywide case management service for older people in the context of German long-term care policy and legislation. This experience sits at the core of this thesis which addresses the extent to which the study of a specific case management service for older people in Berlin can illuminate how case management translates across differing national welfare contexts, taking into account the particular methodological challenges of cross-national research. Drawing on both cross-national social policy and translation studies literatures and adopting a multi-method case study approach, the central problems of determining similarity and difference, equivalence and translation form the core of the thesis. Informed by a realist understanding of the social world, the study took a naturalistic turn in situ that fore-grounded the more ethnographic elements in the mix of documentary research, semi-participant observation and meetings with key informants that formed my data sources and were recorded in extensive field notes. The data were analysed to trace how case management was constructed locally in relation to both state and federal level policy and legislation, and then comparatively re-examined in the context of the key methodological problems identified above in relation to understandings of care management in England as reported in the literature, in order to further explore the question of comparability of case management across different welfare contexts. The research clearly demonstrates how institutional context both shaped and constrained the adoption of case management in Berlin, and highlights a need in comparative research for close contextual examination of the apparently similar, with a focus on functionally equivalent mechanisms, to determine the extent to which case management can be said to be similar or different in different contexts, particularly where English words and expressions are directly absorbed into the local language. Relating the case study to findings from earlier studies of care management in England highlights the extent to which care management in England is itself a locally shaped and contextualised variant of case management as developed in the USA that matches poorly to the variant in Berlin. Indeed problems discovered in the research site constructing definitional boundaries for case management in practice mirror issues in the wider literature and raise questions about the specificity of the original concept itself. Nonetheless, the study shows that, despite the multiple asymmetries of equivalence and difficulties of translation, there are sufficient points of similarity for cautious potential lessons to be drawn from Berlin, particularly with regards to policy changes on the horizon in England, but also in the other direction with regards to how case management in Berlin may also be re-shaped following recent reforms to German long-term care legislation.

Through the theoretical lens of Foucault's archaeological method, this thesis undertakes a discourse analysis to examine how old age and ageing are strategically positioned as forms of governmentality in New Labour social care policy documents. It is argued that these discourses are not directed purely at the older generation, but at everyone, at all stages of life, encompassing all aspects of everyday living. Old age thus becomes a strategy of governing the population through individual everyday lives. This hints at the way ageing is prefigured, anticipated and lived in advance. An analytical method is developed by weaving together Foucault's notions of archaeology and governmentality; the latter is utilised both as an analytical perspective and to provide an understanding of how people primarily act and interact in contemporary Western societies. This analytical perspective is initially applied to an exploration of how the form and function of social policy enable ordinary practices of life to become targets of political government, making both possible and desirable the government of everyday living: governing how we ought to live in every aspect of life from work and finances to health, to personal relationships and leisure activities. The thesis progresses to explore this in more detail through a practical application of governmentality and focused discourse analysis of eight New Labour social care policy texts. The aim of the analysis is to explore what subjectivities and forms of life are possible within these discourses and therefore what these policies actually do, as distinguished from what they claim to be doing. It is argued that the discourses that emerge in these policies act to limit and subjectify, by attempting to contain and stabilise the multitude of possibilities for practices of living. By ostensibly aiming to create social inclusion the policies make possible vast areas of exclusion that become prime spaces of government. Thus many ways of living, ageing, and being old become untenable due to their inherent contradiction with the social values and rationalities upon which these discourses are based. Whilst governmentality analyses have been brought to many other policy areas, this thesis makes an original contribution by: developing a governmental analysis of social policy as a form of biopolitics; by applying this analysis to the social care field; and by using policy discourses of old age and ageing to draw out significant aspects of a governmental society. In particular it explores the dispersion of many traditional boundaries, leading to the rearrangement of relations, responsibilities and subjectivities.

This submission is based on a critical analytical literature review of the moral paradigm of virtue ethics and a specific application of this to social work value discourse in search of lost identity. It echoes the philosophical academy's paradigmatic wars between 'act' and 'agent' appraisals in moral theory. Act appraisal theories focus on a person's act as the primary source of moral value whereas agent appraisal theories - whether 'agentprior' or stricter 'agent-based' versions - focus on a person's disposition to act morally. This generates a philosophical debate about which type of appraisal should take precedence in making an overall evaluation of a person's moral performance. My starting point is that at core social work is an altruistic activity entailing a deep commitment, a 'moral impulse', towards the distressed 'other'. This should privilege dispositional models of value that stress character and good motivation correctly applied - in effect making for an ethical career built upon the requisite moral virtues. However, the neo-liberal and neo-conservative state hegemony has all but vanquished the moral impulse and its correct application. In virtue ethical language, we live in 'vicious' times. I claim that social work's adherence to act appraisal Kantian and Utilitarian models is implicated in this loss. Kantian 'deontic' theory stresses inviolable moral principle to be obeyed irrespective of outcome: Utilitarian 'consequentualist' theory calculates the best moral outcome measured against principle. The withering of social work as a morally active profession has culminated in the state regulator's Code of Practice. This makes for a conformity of behaviour which I call 'proto-ethical' to distinguish it from 'ethics proper'. The Code demands that de-moralised practitioners dutifully follow policy, rules, procedures and targets - ersatz, piecemeal and simplistic forms of deontic and consequentualist act appraisals. Numerous inquiries into social work failures indict practitioners for such behaviour. I draw upon mainstream virtue ethical theory and the emergent social work counter discourse to get beyond both code and the simplified under-theoretisation of social work value. I defend a thesis regarding an identity-defining cluster of social work specific virtues. I propose two modules: 'righteous indignation' to capture the heartfelt moral impulse, and 'just generosity' to mindfully delineate the scope and legitimacy of the former. Their operation generates an exchange relationship with the client whereby the social worker builds 'surplus value' to give back more than must be taken in the transaction. I construct a social work specific minimal-maximal 'stability standard' to anchor the morally correct expression of these two modules and the estimation of surplus value. In satisficing terms, the standard describes what is good enough but is also potentially expansive. A derivative social work practice of moral value is embedded in an historic 'care and control' dialectic. The uncomfortable landscape is one of moral ambiguity and paradoxicality, to be navigated well in virtue terms. I argue that it is incongruous to speak of charactereological social worker virtues and vices and then not to employ the same paradigm to the client's moral world. This invites a functional analysis of virtue. The telos of social work - our moral impulse at work - directs us to scrutiny of the unsafe household. Our mandate is the well-being of the putative client within, discoursed in terms of functional life-stage virtues and vicious circumstance. I employ the allegorical device of a personal ethical journey from interested lay person to committed social worker, tracking the character-building moral peregrinations. I focus on two criticisms of virtue ethics - a philosophical fork. It is said that virtue ethical theory cannot of itself generate any reliable, independently validated action guidance. In so far as it does, the theory will endorse an as-given, even reactionary, criterion of right action, making 'virtue and vice' talk the bastion of the establishment power holders who control knowledge. I seek to repudiate these claims. Given that this demands a new approach to moral pedagogy, the practical implications for the suitability and training of social workers are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the development of integrated child welfare services through an exploration of how professionals providing such services make sense of children's rights and interpret their understandings in their approach to practice. The study focuses on professionals providing services for children between 5 and 13 years old within the Every Child Matters initiative, designed to support the assessment and provision of integrated child and family preventive services in England. The aims were to explore professional understandings of, and engagement with children's rights, provide a description and analysis of the empirical data, and develop a theorised understanding of the factors influencing sense-making and their implications for professionals' interpretations of their role. Areas of interest included similarities and differences in professionals' understandings and how these matched the understandings of service users and those evident in legal and policy texts. It was anticipated that professionals' understandings and engagement would draw on a complex mix of variable knowledge and embedded assumptions and practices, contested and negotiated in relation to welfare structures, texts and professional identities. The study was designed to explore whether this was borne out. A post-modernist theoretical approach was used, drawing on Bourdieu's theories of structured inequalities and influenced by Actor Network Theory's perspectives on networks. Using qualitative methodologies a case study was undertaken within one local area, linking a range of elements in an iterative process, with data from one phase interwoven in the next. Thirty-nine semi-structured interviews with professionals from social work, education and health settings drew on material developed from focus group discussions with child and parent service users and were supplemented by analysis of legal and policy texts and of 30 case records and site-based observations. Initial findings were discussed in parent and professional focus groups. In a second stage analysis of a subset of the data, these findings were explored further and situated within research and academic debate on professional practices and theories of childhood and of rights. Three broad configurations emerged from the data, reflecting differing professionals' constructions and practice interpretations of children's rights. Some participants interpreted children's rights as an essential ‘golden thread' underpinning their practice; others took a more selective ‘pick and mix' approach; and in a third perspective, children's rights were positioned as ‘uncomfortable accommodations' in relation to interpretations of professional role and of family life. These varying dispositions and related interpretations of professionals' regulated liberties were associated with perspectives on childhood, rights knowledge, professional setting, personal dispositions and relational practices. The findings are necessarily tentative and a causal relationship cannot be inferred. Three overarching themes emerged across these configurations. These related to: a common rights language and framework; children's longer-term welfare rights; and conceptualisations of the role of rights within relationships. The absence of a common rights framework to support professional and interprofessional discussions of children's rights was evident across all settings, as was a professional focus on the immediate and lack of attention to children's longer-term welfare, civil and social rights. Participants indicated that providing information about children's rights and exploring rights-based relationships in work with parents and carers was very rare and often avoided. The study proposes that in order to address children's rights in a more consistent and holistic way professionals need opportunities to explore theories of human and children's rights using a broad common framework such as the UNCRC. In integrating children's rights within professional practice increased attention is needed to children's longer-term welfare and development rights and to providing children and adults with information about, positive modelling of and opportunities to explore the place of rights in children's key relationships.