Power

This chapter looks at the concept of power in social work by focusing on what this means as a ‘professional’ and theorizes competing discourses of empowerment in social work and its key concepts, drawing in particular on the explanatory powers of critical theorist Michel Foucault (1991). The chapter problematizes the concept of power by explicitly drawing on both users’ and carers’ accounts from the literature to demonstrate different external and internal influences on the root causes of disempowerment. It also explores everyday issues around ‘safeguarding’ and ‘vulnerability’ in relation to how different service users are supported to make decisions about their own care and support through 2 key scenarios where some of the challenges in relation to exercising power ethically and the dilemmas faced in staying close to the values of social work in its everyday context are considered in detail