Social Work Today

This paper argues that over the last fifteen years social work in Britain has undergone a significant transformation. Under increasing attack, both in the media and from government and its new right ideologues, social work has faced an increasingly impoverished client group with fewer resources and growing uncertainty about its legitimate role. In this context, legislative, administrative and financial changes have pushed social work into an increasingly antagonistic relationship with clients and have left it demoralized and without a clear sense of direction. The paper looks at the way this change has come about and argues that it has profound implications for the future of social work in the reduced welfare state of the 1990s.