Legal expertise and interprofessional dynamics: social worker negotiations of professional identity in English mental health social care settings

This article reports findings from a study that aimed to explore the experiences of mental health social workers within the statutory frameworks of the Care Act 2014, the primary social care legislation in England. A total of 26 social worker participants were interviewed (between November 2023 and August 2024) from 16 mental health teams across local authority and National Health Service mental health settings in England. Participants reported a challenging negotiation between interprofessional hierarchies and social worker expertise in relation to the Care Act in these settings. This is analysed through a critical lens informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, in which the core dispositions, or ‘habitus’, and status, or ‘capital’, of social work are negotiated in mental health social care ‘fields’ in light of potentially dominating legal frameworks and professional groups. Social work education, supervision and professional development are identified as essential points of reference for the English social work habitus in mental health social care contexts, which often only partly utilise the skills and outlooks of the profession.