literature review on the significance of the risk society for contemporary social work practice of social work with reference to examples from practice, examples from current issues and arguments from the literature.
Introduction
The lack of a clear definition and understanding of risk has played a key role in the current blaming system and defensive practice although according to Paton (1996) the neutral vocabulary of risk attempts to provide a bridge between the known facts and experiences of existence and the construction of a new moral community. Risk originally meant calculating the probabilities of events, both positive and negative and yet increasingly, in social work at least, risk has come to be associated with negativity or adversity: 'the relative variation in possible loss outcomes' (Brearley, 1982: 82).
It is apparent that the authors from the literature review concur that social workers are operating in an ever-changing social, political and cultural environment of human services, supporting people of all abilities, behaviours and expectations. Social workers’ professional autonomy to take risk for the benefit of their clients seems to be restricted by the accountability systems, risk society and the blaming culture in the contemporary social work practice.
The literature review is conclusively suggesting that risk has become a major pre-occupation in social work practice, causing significant obsessions with risks among practitioners because there is no clear definition of risk and as a result different professionals have different perceptions of risk level and severity. Paton (1996) points out that the emphasis on risk has also contributed to the increased role of auditing where social work is subjected to and plays an active part, but the trust in science, technology and experts has undermined social workers while auditing has increased. This process is intimately related to our pervasive concerns about risk which play a key role in the blaming system and new forms of accountability. Further to this Paton (1996) argues that the increased focus on risk in social work has coincided with the decline in trust in social workers’ expertise and decision-making and the growing reliance on increasingly complex systems of audit, monitoring and quality controls. The media coverage has also contributed to the growing pressure for organisational accountability, risk minimisation and public safety where risk assessment and management has failed. These negative publicities have misconstrued the role of social workers, yet their key role is to identify and assess not only a client's need for protection from self or others but also public and professional safety.
Paton (1996) suggests that the death of Maria Colwell in 1973 caused a moral panic and preoccupation with culpability, blame and retribution therefore affecting child protection to become more reactive and less optimistic since the 1970s. The reactive approach was inevitable as risk events with physical consequences according to Kasperson et al (1988) often elicit strong public concern and produce extraordinarily severe social impacts, at unanticipated levels. Therefore reaction to eradicate the threats is paramount although the main aim of risk assessment in child protection work is now to gather forensic evidence, prioritise cases and predict risk. It must also be noted that the contemporary risk assessments are meant to be scientific, accurate and effective. However this is not the case as it appears to be impacting the social work practice as it serves to give credibility to an organisation or social worker at the expense of consumers, limiting any liability when things go wrong. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that a working climate of “risk society” has been created in the social work practice prompting practitioners to find comfort in audit compliance thus (tick a box attitude), hoping that nothing would go wrong that would attract public enquiries or negative media publicity. Munro (2004) believes that the (tick a box attitude) is created when the organisation introduces more and more formal procedures to guide practice and in the event of a tragedy occurring, they can claim the defence of 'due diligence' and show that their employees followed correct procedures in working on the case. A child may have died but the agency staff can show a clear audit trail of what they did, therefore a defensive culture and the protection of the agency can start to dominate over the protection of children. Creating formal procedures of practice within a social work agency is important but professional supervision and practice support should be strengthened so as to maintain the social work standards. The literature suggests that supervision is one of the key avenues for practitioners to have the time and capacity to reflect on their practice and to identify, discuss and learn from mistakes. The value of supervision for assessing and managing risk in Child Youth and Family Service has gone a long way in team building and in creating organisational culture that allows dialogue with confidence and trust on the part of both the supervisee and supervisor (Stanley, 2005).
