Social Work as Art

What is good social work? What decisions and actions are best for clients? What reply can social workers give to criticism that their practice is haphazard and lacks a proper basis in knowledge and expertise?

First published in 1986, Social Work as Art examines the ways in which the subjective character of social work consistently poses problems in the organisation and education of social workers and, above all, in the evaluation of their work. Yet the quality of the social worker’s intuition, imagination and experience, the author argues, are the only real basis of good practice and, in consequence, social work’s subjectivity can never be sidestepped. The need is to make it clearer and more manageable.

The real nature of social work, Hugh England shows, has been obscured by attempts to define social work within the terms of the social sciences. The author explains that the problems posed by the social worker’s necessary dependence upon intuition are already very familiar in the critical and theoretical literature of the arts and that, as art, social work can gain a purchase upon the problems of good practice. This purchase in turn makes clear the manner of evaluation, organisation, and education which will be appropriate for social work.

Social Work as Art offers a distinct and fundamentally different perspective to social work. Its combination of innovation theory with highly detailed and critical accounts of practice makes it a work of immediate relevance to social workers and social work students. Its emphasis upon the ‘human nature of helping’ is also important for others in the counselling and helping professions.