From Doel, M. (2012) Social Work: the Basics, London: Routledge

SOCIAL WORK SAGAS

Every profession has its own mythology, social work included. Here are four mythological stories, sagas if you like, that purport to tell the story of Social Work. How might you use these with students?

The stories are taken from the last chapter of Doel, M (2012) Social Work: The Basics, London: Routledge, in which Mark Doel also outlines his Utopia for social work. What might yours and the student’s Social Work Utopia look like?

Comedy-melodrama - a triumph over adversity.

Plucky little Social Work, new on the scene and forever the Cinderella, actually survives against all the odds, gets written into key legislation and acquires recognition as a graduate profession. Although dominated by bigger brothers and sisters, Social Work quietly infiltrates their heads with social work ideas and values - so quietly that they don't even realise it.

Romantic saga, in which there are recurring triumphs and setbacks.

So, the story starts with Lady Bountiful's transformative love affair with Freud and the psychoanalysts - or was it just a case of learned helplessness? The affair ends in the inevitable tears. On the rebound, Social Work renounces the Lady Bountiful title and finds brief happiness with Marx and the radicals and realises that the earlier relationship was a case of false consciousness; but pretty soon Social Work is caught two-timing with the Behaviourists. There are flirtations with Systems theory and other dalliances that bring only short-lived pleasures. It seems that Social Work falls at the feet of each passing fashion - structural, post-modern, solution-focused - until, weary and friendless, Social Work loses all allure and is forced to succumb to the prescriptions of Doctor Health. The audience is left with the hope that this is just the latest setback and that Social Work will rejuvenate and find a true self ...

Tragedy, the fall into adversity.

Social Work stands face set square, like a soviet statue, braving the hostile Forces of Reaction led by The Establishment. The battle for a unified social work profession is fought and Social Work emerges triumphant, with the biggest, faster growing budget on the block. But then things start to turn nasty. The battle for neighbourhood and locality-based work is lost. Social Work is accused of a series of child murders and the media whips up a vicious witch hunt. Social Work suffers a diaspora and is absorbed by warring tribes - the children and families, the adult services and the mental healths. Can Social Work regroup and find a way home ...

Irony-satire, in which the outcomes are unexpected.

Social Work starts our story as a happy-go-lucky, easy-going free spirit, given to odd bursts of passion about following your instincts, doing your best by people and sticking to your principles. Social Work is an outdoors type. Gradually, by twist and turn through the story, Social Work somehow ends up in a dark office stuck behind a huge bank of computer screens. You should have seen it coming but somehow you didn't. Social Work is still remarkably chirpy, seems almost to have forgotten those passionate early speeches, rationalises the state of affairs. Then, just as it seems all is going to end quietly but rather sadly, Tristan - hitherto, a minor character at the Ministry of Dark Forces - mistakenly has a bright idea: it would be ever such a good thing for Social Work to get out a bit. Everyone else at the Ministry has taken voluntary redundancy, so Tristan just goes ahead and signs an Instruction there and then. By no particular design or purpose, Social Work finds the doors opening and the wind blowing all the papers away and the light streaming in, blindlngly. Social Work stands up, falteringly, and the audience feels a collective lump in its throat: can Social Work take those steps back into the light after all ...

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Social work sagasbyMark Doelis licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.