Losing the Eyes in the Back of Our Heads : Social Service Skills, Lean Caring, and Violence

Violence in the social services work place in general, and the developmental services in particular,h as increased in the last several years. Findingsf rom an ethnographic study suggests that new, lean forms of work organization remove opportunities to use or learn many of the tacit or practice skills workers previously used to keep themselves and their clients safer in the work place. This article describes many of these skills and the new management schemes that remove the possibility to develop or transmit these praxis skills. The article concludes by analyzing the convergence between the new labour processes and the competency approach to work place skills. Noting the loss of praxis skills that kept workers and clients safer, the conclusion highlights the hidden costs to developmental sector clients and workers

Seven Kinds of Work - Only One Paid: Raced, Gendered and Restructured Work in Social Services

Drawing on the literature as well as themes emerging from interview data collected as part of a multi-year, three-province (Alberta, Nova Scotia and British Columbia), qualitative study (eighty-three semi-structured interviews) of the restructured social services sector in Canada, this article explores discernible types of caring work delineating seven kinds, only one of which is paid. The social service workers' description of their changing worlds show not only extremely heavy workloads but also that their paid, volunteer, community, and union activist work involve many of the same skills, tasks and mind sets, thus blurring the lines between professional and non-professional identities as well as the lines between work and leisure. Moreover, this work was highly gendered and significantly racialized.En se basant sur la littérature ainsi que sur les termes qui émergent des données recueillies d'entrevues, en tant qu'une partie d'une étude qualitative étalée sur plusieurs années, trois provinces ( l'Alberta, la Nouvelle- Écosse, et la Colombie-britannique), quatre-vingt-trois entrevues semi- structurées du secteur des services sociaux restructurés au Canada, cet article explore les différents types perceptibles, de travail de soins qui délignent sept types, dont seulement un d'entre eux est rémunéré. La description de leur monde en changement que décrivent les travailleuses en services sociaux, démontre non seulement leur charge de travail extrêmement lourde mais aussi que leur travail rémunéré, bénévole, communautaire, et leur travail d'activisme syndical, demande le même genre de façon de penser, ce qui brouille les lignes entre l'identité professionnelle et non professionnelle, ainsi que les lignes entre le travail et les loisirs. De plus ce travail a été hautement divisé entre les sexes et les races

'How could management let this happen?' Gender, unpaid work and industrial relations in the nonprofit social services sector

This article explores recent strike action in two highly gendered nonprofit social services agencies who had long term union agreements, a history of labour peace (upwards of twenty years) and a reputation for participatory, cooperative IR cultures. Drawing on qualitative interview data collected in case studies in two liberal welfare states namely Scotland and Canada, the article investigates a management shift resulting from government funding restraints (passed on down to the line to agencies, workers and service users), as well as a concomitant shift in industrial relations culture in which management moved away from more cooperative, participatory approaches to more hostile, oppositional approaches. Drawing on the following three components - - the voices of workers in our data, mobilisation theory (Kelly 1998) and feminist political economy - - the article analyses union-management relations in under-funded, contracted-out government services in both countries studied. The objectives of the article are to explore: 1. whether conditions still exist for a progressive culture of management-union relations given widespread restructuring and what that means for this highly gendered sector; 2. moblisation theory and feminist political economy, particularly in relation to gender and the NPSS; 3.whether austerity policies such as government funding cuts are leading to a possible convergence between private and nonprofit approaches to union-management relations

Editorial

This edition of Social Work Policy Studies: Social Justice Practice and Theory continues our commitment to building and sharing knowledge. In keeping with our commitment to publishing ‘emerging voices on emerging topics’ this edition showcases the work of undergraduate and post-graduate social work students

'If I had a family, there is no way that I could afford to work here' : juggling paid and unpaid care work in social services

Drawing on three case studies in each of Australia, New Zealand and Scotland, this article explores how care workers employed in the social services sector negotiate their unpaid care responsibilities in the context of lean work organisation and low pay. For younger workers, the unrelenting demands of service provision and low pay made any long term commitment to working in social services unrealistic, while many female workers experienced significant stress as they bent their unpaid care responsibilities to the demands of their paid work. However male workers, less likely to have primary caring responsibilities, appeared less troubled by the prioritising of paid over unpaid care work and less likely to self-exploit for the job. At the same time there was a widespread acceptance across different national and organizational contexts that the work/family juggle is a personal responsibility rather than a structural problem caused by the demands of underfunded and overstretched organisations

Not Profiting from Precarity: The Work of Nonprofit Service Delivery and the Creation of Precasiousness

This paper examines the impact of precarity on the nonprofit service providing sector (NPSS). Using in depth qualitative interviews, recent empirically-based surveys of the Ontario nonprofit sector and key academic and grey literature, we explore the deeper meaning of precarity in this sector. We contend that the NPSS is a unique, and in many respects, an ideal location in which to explore the workings and impact of precarity. Looking at the nonprofit sector reveals that precarity operates at various levels, the: 1) nonprofit labour force; 2) organization structure and operation of nonprofit agencies; and, 3) clients and communities serviced by these nonprofit organizations. By observing the workings of precarity in this sector, precarity is revealed to be far more than an employment based phenomenon but also a force that negatively impacts organizational structures as well as vulnerable communities

'White knuckle care work' : violence, gender and new public management in the voluntary sector

Drawing on comparative data from Canada and Scotland, this article explores reasons why violence is tolerated in non-profit care settings. This article will provide insights into how workers' orientations to work, the desire to care and the intrinsic rewards from working in a non-profit context interact with the organization of work and managerially constructed workplace norms and cultures (Burawoy, 1979) to offset the tensions in an environment characterized by scarce resources and poor working conditions. This article will also outline how the same environment of scarce resources causes strains in management's efforts to establish such cultures. Working with highly excluded service users with problems that do not respond to easy interventions, workers find themselves working at the edge of their endurance, hanging on by their fingernails, and beginning to participate in various forms of resistance; suggesting that even among the most highly committed, 'white knuckle care' may be unsustainable

Promising Practices in Long Term Care: Can Work Organisation Treat Both Residents and Providers with Dignity and Respect?

Rather than expose and indict shortcomings of the existing system, the author was recently involved in a study that sought to build a vision of what high quality residential care for the elderly could look like. Preliminary findings suggest that care is best fostered in contexts where care is understood as a relationship and where both residents and care workers are treated with dignity and respect. Drawing on qualitative data collected in six countries (Canada, US, UK, Sweden, Germany and Norway), this paper will explore forms of work organisation that fostered care relationships between staff and residents, and inspired quality care. The paper also argues that the conditions of work are the conditions of care and suggests promising practices to support both

Critical Engagements with Aging and Care

A predicted and significant increase in the number of elderly has generated a call for increased services and care from many advocates and analysts. In addition to the need for quality care, advocacy groups and researchers have urged attention to issues of equity and services sensitive to the needs of marginalised groups including: low and no income elderly; Indigenous elderly; women; LGBTQI+ elderly; and those with complex health needs (Daly and Armstrong, 2016)