By Dymphna
A personal view of the social work scene By the time these words appear in print, I understand that we shall have taken one more step, whatever that is, towards joining the European Community whatever that is. (We have trouble enough defining what we mean by a community even within Britain; I can’t imagine it’s going to be any easier, in European terms, even to perceive the community, let alone define it.)
Anyway, before very long, people are going to start drifting about Western Europe in the quest of their own particular rainbows; and some of them are going to take their social problems with them. I don’t think social workers have begun to consider the situation yet. One of the problems that will immediately arise is that of transmitting, across national boundaries, the basic facts of casework material. I can’t see, for example, how a social worker in, say, Slough is going to make a meaningful referral to her opposite number in Minervino Murge whither one of her problem families has fled to escape the bailiffs. And, of course, with the current shortage of secure accommodation for difficult adolescent girls, a social worker in Chorlton-cum-Hardy may have to go as far as Bad Mergentheim to obtain a placement. So it seems to me clear that a new International Casework Language will have to be developed pretty quickly. Fortunately the basic materials are already to hand.
The first thing we shall have to establish is the sex of the client: after all, the Walloons and the Lombards are going to have trouble enough with our Evelyn’s and Jocelyn’s and Obomole’s, and we shall have Clair’s and Henne’s coming the other way. So male and female symbols have to be developed, like this Male-Female Having established that, we shall have to show if they are actually married - or merely cohabiting Then the age and sex of the children can be recorded as meaning a girl of 10 and a boy of 6. It is easy enough to show if the children are in care:A Then we need to know something of the personalities of the clients, especially if they’re mental health cases. Like this
= Violent .or aggressive person = Inadequate or eroded person = Suicidal.
In probation cases it will be necessary to show that the person has a criminal record - or, in common parlance, is “bent” A Though sometimes it may be helpful to show the type of crime indulged in, like this ? a. arung tiiiu. m = T aking and ^9 driving away driving away a train = Bestiality gf = Indecent exposure.
thereof”, which gives me the following And then of course social workers < /V will have to inform their colleagues g f? of the position reached in the casework process “I have a relationship” “This client blocking” A is MBk, or possibly ‘Progress is erratic” ^ A ‘We are back to Square One” “This man is driving me up the wall” A I had some difficulty with that most common crime of all, larceny; but then I remembered that one of the elements of larceny is “the intention permanently to deprive the owner of an article of the possession I think International Casework is not far away: I think we’re going to get by. All we need are a few ultra-expensive International Conferences and a million ultra-expensive International Leaflets and Explanatory Memoranda, and we’re in business.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.