 |
| Image credit: Career Guidance.com |
The first thing a social work student is supposed to learn is that social workers are agents of change. This change should not just be focused on the client, but also on the institutions and agencies that ostensibly serve the client; and it extends to social policy as well.
Today, however, many students believe that the only value of a social work program has for them is to teach them research-based techniques for social work practice. They don't often appreciate the fundamental purpose for learning those techniques, which is to become agents of change. It doesn't seem to register with them that part of their job is to critique their work site in order to make it more responsive to their clients' needs.
In today's tight job market and budgetary constraints, too many students say they just want to keep their heads down and not make waves. They say that their primary concern is be boosters for the agency rather than advocates for the client. No wonder social workers are being accused of being guardians of the status quo.
One hears social workers emphasize "coping skills," but much less time and energy is devoted to developing strategies to empower the client to change their social or institutional environment. Many well-intentioned social workers believe that the best way they can help their client is by helping them to adapt to their circumstances. They are careful not to legitimize clients' dissatisfaction with impersonal, dehumanizing and bureaucratic systems that clients are forced to interact with. Many social workers, today, also seem reluctant to use their values, knowledge and skills to promote institutional or agency change, and changes in public policy.
It reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's observation nearly a century ago when he said that some people are like the bad tailor who, when the sleeve of a coat was too short for the customer's arm, decided to cut off the man's arm rather than lengthen the sleeve. When the cuffs of the man's trousers were too high the tailor wanted to cut off the man's leg rather than lengthen his pants.. When the man's head did not fit his hat the tailor tried to box in the man's head. Chesterton concluded that people like that attempted to tailor the man to fit the suit rather than the suit to fit the man.
A social worker should constantly assess how their agency fits the culture of its clients in its outreach efforts and delivery of services. Rather than merely being guardians and boosters of the status quo, social workers must be prepared to thoughtfully and factually critique the status quo.
I know of a social worker who works in a school in a working class neighborhood. This worker refuses to work beyond 5 PM, or to attend community meetings in the evening, yet she believes that the parents of the children she works with are unmotivated to help their children because they never visit the school and they never respond to the questionnaires she sends home with the students.
I know of a community social worker who holds meetings to plan the development of the business district in a distressed neighborhood at 2 in the afternoon. She always gets a low turnout from small business owners in the neighborhood, and concludes that they don't care about the neighborhood's future. It never occurred to her to go to their shops and talk with them, one-on-one. "I invite them to town meetings, but they never show up," she says.
If she took the time to visit them one-on-one she would find out that, at 2 O'clock in the afternoon, business owners are in the middle of their day. They can't find anyone to watch their store when the planning meetings are held. If she would hold the meetings early in the day, before businesses open; or later in the day, when the kids are out of school and can watch the store, she would get a much better turnout.
Guardians of the status quo tend to assume that that the client, alone, is the one who has to make the adjustment. They often complain that the social system itself is too big for them to even be able to wrap their minds around and understand it, much less develop strategies for changing it. They reason that it is better to teach clients to cope with the existing conditions rather than to try to effect social or institutional change.
This is not a new phenomenon. When I was researching the history of the Urban League, during the 1920s, I came across a caseworker's notes where she was frustrated with a women's club that refused to focus on the home economics lessons that the social worker thought was important. She took this as evidence of the ignorance and backwardness of these Southern migrant women, who simply didn't understand what the purpose of a women's club is, she thought. Instead, these "backward" women wanted to use the club to organize their neighbors to confront the city about using the ditch behind their houses to dump garbage. Clearly, these women needed to be adjusted.
Many social workers that I have come across have had valuable skills to offer their clients and constituents, but it is important that they understand that their clients and constituents have needs and priorities of their own, and these are often legitimate. People don't exist to serve social policies, bureaucracies and institutions; rather, bureaucracies, institutions and social policies should serve people.
When the sleeves and the pant legs are too short we should try to tailor the suit to fit the person, not the person to fit the suit. Coping and adaptation to existing circumstances should not be our default reaction to every ill-fit between between communities and the institutions and policies that are ostensibly there to serve them. Social workers should not only look for ways to change the client; they should also be alert for the possibility that the agencies and institutions may also have to be adjusted in order to better serve human needs. The social workers, who have had the greatest impact on society and the profession, were not contented to merely process paperwork. They took note of how the system they were in functioned, and they actively worked to change it.
C. Matthew Hawkins
Also of interest: What is the public image of social work?
