Social work and society

Social work and society are caught in an intense and changing relationship. Just as social work seeks to infl uence society (and individuals and families within it), so society in its many guises seeks to control social work, by setting limits on what social workers can and should do. Social work is situated in the middle, pulled between the individual and society, the powerful and the excluded, negotiating, and at times in confl ict, with both. This chapter examines social work and society from the perspective of a history of social work in the United Kingdom. This does not presume that the United Kingdom is the only country which might offer insight into this topic. Instead, it is argued that the United Kingdom provides a useful case-study example for exploring the changing relationship between social work and society over time. Nor is it to suggest that this is the only ‘true ’ history of social work in the United Kingdom. There are many possible ways of presenting history, and many voices which have often been excluded from social work histories, such as the voices of the many people who have used social work services. This account should therefore be regarded as one attempt to do justice to the histories of social work in the United Kingdom, demonstrating as it does the complexities and contradictions at the heart of the relationship between social work and society. What is Social Work? There have been many attempts to defi ne social work in recent years. One defi nition is widely quoted