Professionalisation and Social Care in Ireland

Professionalisation and social care in Ireland

Perry Share, IT Sligo

[DRAFT ONLY – NOT FOR CITATION]

Introduction

The current debate in the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann) on the Health and Social Care Professionals Bill (2004) provides an opportune moment to examine the issue of professionalism in Irish social care in particular, and the broader question of the nature of the ‘social professions’ in general.

The field of social care has expanded considerably in recent years, far outgrowing its origins in residential care and control. The number of educational programs and of students entering the field has exploded. But the nature of social care practice itself remains somewhat elusive and contested. The field remains very much ‘open’ for definition and debate. This process has started to occur: within the ongoing development of courses of study (eg the EirCan model associated with Athlone IT); in the publication of texts and journals; in the regularisation of work-based programs and placement procedures through the IASCE (Gilmore, 2005); and in public debate stimulated by the legislative activity.

This paper arises from an earlier chapter (Share and McElwee, 2005b) in the text Applied social care(Share and McElwee, 2005a) that attempted to establish some of the issues related to the professionalisation of social care in the Irish context. That chapter in turn drew on earlier work by writers such as Williams and Lalor (2000), Gallagher and O’Toole (1999) and the papers collected in Knorth et al (2002).

Share and McElwee (2005b) provide a brief overview of aspects of the sociology of the professions; in particular as it relates to the field of social care practice. It outlines the so-called ‘trait theory’ of the professions, and within this framework, assesses the extent to which social care practice has moved along the ‘trajectory’ (Gallagher & O’Toole, 1999: 83) of professionalism. The chapter suggested that the trait or ‘checklist’ approach was no longer an adequate strategy for the exploration of professionalism. It pointed to issues of discourse, interaction and occupational identity as fertile ground for contemporary exploration of the topic. This paper attempts to develop some of these possibilities.

The paper opens with a scene-setting section that locates the current debate within certain intellectual and organisational contexts. It then identifies four sets of issues related to the social care professions (see Banks, 2004: 35ff for an extensive discussion of this term). These are, first, the problem of definition, which examines debates relate to the identity of the social professions, and in particular how the field of social care relates to other allied professional fields. Second, the paper examines arguments in relation to the content of social care practice: in other words, what do social care practitioners do in their professional practice. Third the paper explores the issue of performativity and institutional reform; in particular how the social professions are impacted upon by the restructuring of state and non-state organisations and the development of discourses of managerialism and accountability within such organisations. Finally the paper examines issue related to the resistances to professionalism, and what these may say about the emergence of particular types of professional discourse within the field.

Having reviewed literature and debates across these areas, the paper suggests a five-fold typology of professional strategies. It is intended that this typology will form the basis for further research that will involve interviews with social care practitioners and other related categories such as managers,policy-makers, students and educators.

The professional development project

Hallstedt and Högström (2005b: 18) suggest that all occupations in the field of welfare ‘are fighting for right to call themselves professions’. In the Irish context Farrell and O’Doherty (2005: 81) refer, aptly, to the ‘slow and tortuous process’ of the professional development project within social care. In the early 1990s it was suggested by O’Connor (1992) that, in the Irish context, the prospects for professionalisation, in what was then termed the ‘childcare’ field, were not high. In 1999 Gallagher and O’Toole (1999: 78) identified the issue of professionalisation as ‘central to the development of social care work’ but that development of a ‘coherent professional identity’ was stymied by

a lack of internal unity, fragmentation across qualification level, diverse client and administrative settings, a changing role and exclusion from key policy making structures within the bureaucratic professional hierarchy of state welfare services (Gallagher and O’Toole, 1999: 83).

In 2001 Williams and Lalor (p. 73) could claim that ‘the profession [of residential child care] is presently at a young stage in its development’ while by 2005 Farrell and O’Doherty (2005: 81) felt that they could conclude that ‘the promise of official and public definition and acceptance of social care work has [now] become a reality’.

By 2005 Share and McElwee (2005b: 58) were claiming that ‘it is crucial to the future of social care in Ireland that practitioners themselves engage seriously with the concept of professionalism and begin to discuss what it might mean’. There is no doubt that professionalisation has emerged onto the agenda for policy-makers in the Irish social care field. Much of the debate and discussion on the topic is teleological: it is generally assumed that a) social care practice will ‘eventually’ become a ‘professional’ activity and b) that this is a good thing. In as sense the question of ‘what is a profession?’ has been bracketed and the discussion over ‘what type of profession should it be?’ has begun to take over. Inevitably, however, the two questions are inextricably linked.

The literature has identified a number of barriers to the emergence of professionalisation in social care in Ireland. These have included a lack of professional identity (Farrelly and O’Doherty, 2005: 81); gender issues (O’Connor, 1992; Gallagher & O’Toole, 1999); institutional resistance; lack of organisation within the occupation itself (Share & McElwee, 2005: 54-55), bureaucratic and institutional diversity and fragmentation; and lack of independent knowledge base (Gallagher & O’Toole, 1999: 70, citing Lorenz 1994).

Hallstedt and Högström (2005b: 18) argue that the three main sets of actors in the professionalisation project are the practitioners themselves, the academic institutions and the state. In Ireland it appears that the emergence of a professional discourse has not been the result of any high level of organisational activity within the occupation itself. The representative body for social care practitioners (the Irish Association of Care Workers [IACW], now the Irish Association of Social Care Workers [IASCW]) has been notoriously fragmented and ineffective as an organisation (McElwee et al, 2003: 79) and has not been able to generate a sustained ‘push’ towards professional status.

The social care managers’ organisation (the Resident Managers’ Association [RMA]) has latterly been better organised and more representative of its membership base. It has, mainly through its conferences and publications, and involvement in state-sponsored consultative groups, had possibly a greater impact on the professionalisation process.

Within the educational field there has been an abrogation ofresponsibility at the higher level. The National Council for Educational Awards [NCEA] (now the Higher Education and Training Awards Council, HETAC), the ultimate academic accreditation body for social care education, has had no input tothe professionalisation debate. A working group established by the NCEA in 2001 to address the issue of social care education was dissolved and failed to issue a published report.

The Irish Association of Social Care Educators [IASCE], the representative body of the tertiary-level educators, has been more proactive, its members carrying out research on topics related to professional development; facilitating discussion of the issue of professionalisation at conferences; and supporting the production of the first text in the field (Share & McElwee, 2005a). The Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies has also carried a number of articles related to the academic and professional development of social care.

In addition a continual process of development has occurred in social care curricula, for example that spurred by the emergence of ab initio honours degrees at a number of institutions (eg Athlone IT, Limerick IT) and the development of complete new courses (eg at Blanchardstown IT, Dundalk IT). These developments are largely internal to the educational institutions concerned, sometimes informed by local state actors (eg from within the Health Service Executive). A more ‘public’ attempt at curricular change has been the development of the EirCan model, informed by collaboration between Dr Niall McElwee of Athlone IT and a number of Canadian academics ( This curriculum explicitly adopts a North American approach within the field defined as Child and Youth Care (CYC) – in contrast to the Northern Europeantradition of social pedagogy, of which more below.

Arguably the strongest influence has come from the state. In both Ireland and Britain, for example, there have been recent moves to explicitly regulate the social care field through the (re)constitution of professionalism through legislation and regulation. As of mid-October 2005, the Irish parliament [Dáil Éireann] is debating the most significant piece of legislation yet in relation to the professionalisation of social care practice: the Health and Social Care Professionals Bill (2004). The background to this legislation, and its possible implications, are explored in detail in Farrelly and O’Doherty (2005).

1. The problem of definition

Social care work has been defined, within the British context (Banks, 2004) and the European context (Lorenz 1994 – check ref) as one of the ‘social professions’.

In the irish context it is an increasingly difficult field to define. From a clear point of departure in the provision of care within defined institutional contexts (ie reformatories and industrial schools) ‘social care’ has evolved into a loosely linked set of practices that spans youth work, residential childcare, community childcare, educational work, community development and aspects of therapeutic practice.

As Farrelly and O’Doherty (2005: 84) point out (referring more specifically to the relationship between social care practice and social work), there is a blurring of boundaries, where: ‘traditional points of demarcation are less credible as a result of the changing circumstances surrounding the education, training and deployment of qualified social work and social care practitioners’. There are processes of convergence between (say) social work, social care practice and youth work, but at the same time a fragmentation of roles as new job titles and occupational identities are created (such as various types of project and community-based work). Interprofessional and interagency work may be on the increase, but at the same time the nature of the individual ‘professions’ involved is lee clear.

In the European context (and in particular in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands) the term social pedagogy points to a certain set of traditions, practices and professions (Petrie et al, 2005). It is itself a somewhat amoebic term: having ‘joint contents with many other occupational groups such as educational workers, social care workers, youth workers, youth workers, child welfare nurses, welfare nurses, and animators’ (Hallstedt and Högström, 2005b: 29). The genealogy of the term varies in different societies, in particular the divisions that divide, and the relations between, social pedagogy/care practice and social work vary greatly in different countries (Hallstedt and Högström, 2005b: 38).

In the United States and Canada the field is commonly referred to as child and youth care (CYC) (Charles et al, 2005). It tends to focus, as its name suggests, on the welfare of children and young people. Other professional groupings direct their efforts at the disabled or other client categories. The basis of CYC can be found in a multiplicity of locations (Charles et al, 2005: 31-32): in religious-run orphanages; in the ‘fresh air’ movement of the nineteenth century; in the state correctional facilities for deviant and criminalised youth; and in residential centres for indigenous young people, especially in Canada.

Since the 1950s the CYC field has seen the emergence of professionalising strategies. The CYC approach tends to be individualistic, therapeutic and case-based. It involves:

assessing client and programme needs, designing and implementing programmes and planned environments, integrating developmental, preventative and therapeutic requirements into the life space, contribution to the development knowledge and practice, and participating in systems interventions through direct care, supervision, administration, teaching, research, consultation and advocacy (Krueger, 2002, cited in Charleset al 2005: 33)

As with social care in Ireland, CYC has extended from its residential base into more community-based activities and strategies.

In Ireland, Farrelly and O’Doherty (2005: 84) suggest that:

the necessary expansion of education and training routes . . . has in turn generated a professional social care project concerned with determining the combination of theories, practices, methods, organisations, responsibilities and other features that characterise . . . social care work

This refers to the range of internal activities that are helping to coalesce, to some extent, the discursive constructions of social care practice. But there has been very little external discussion: for example there has been no forum within which the relationship between social care practice and social work can even be named, let alone debated.

2. The content of care professionalism

Arguably, social care practice was developed as a range of activities that people carried out within specific institutions – eg residential centres, Health Boards, voluntary organisations. With professionalisation has come a breaking of the nexus, to some extent, with specific organisations. The professional care practitioner becomes a ‘free agent’, a person that offers a portfolio of experience and who can lay claim to a certain range of competencies. The content of social care practice then inevitably becomes a much bigger issue. This is the question: what do social care practitioners do; what can social care practitioners do?

Banks (2004: 35-37) identifies key attributes of the contemporary social professions:

a)‘the calling to care’

b)co-option to welfare and control

c)commitment to change (eg anti-oppressive practice)

d)an ambivalence towards professionalisation

e)‘deprofessionalising’ trends (challenge to discretion and autonomy)

Thisdirects us to three key themes: the central position of the concept of ‘care’, itself a complex and contested concept (Brannen & Moss, 2003); the tension between control and emancipation, long a matter of debate within social work discourse; and the ambivalence towards the concept of professionalisation itself. These are issues that will be expanded upon below.

It is possible to suggest some key elements of the content of social care practice. These might include: the process of ‘being with another’; reflexivity; social awareness and the capacity for self-management.

In a recent piece of research, Swedish academics Hallstedt and Högström (2005b) review some of the key aspects of social care practice, which they alternatively term ‘social pedagogy’ and ‘social educational work’. We can debate the extent to which these characterise social care work in the Irish context.

They identify (Hallstedt and Högström, 2005b: 33; 47) ‘living in’ (ie sharing life space) and ‘close work with people in difficult situations’ as key elements of social pedagogy (see also Leason, 2005). This has also been described as the process of ‘being with another’ and even ‘keeping an eye out’ (Collander-Brown, 2005). Typically ‘the relations between the social educational worker and the clients generally are long lasting and intense’. Social pedagogy is about social relationships‘because a functioning relation is a necessary condition for a dedicated and unbiased search for optional actions’ (Hallstedt and Högström, forthcoming: 44). Thus the work of social pedagogy embraces sets of relationships; goals of action; particular methods; and specific competencies personal qualities. Overall, the work is related in some way to the question of integration in(to) society.

Drawing on the work of Danish writer Madsen (1995) (Hallstedt and Högström, 2005b: 48) suggest that ‘social educational work can be described as an exploration of the possibilities to change critical life situations and at the same time not to deprive the client of his autonomy’. This is pointing specifically to the tensions engendered by theasymmetrical power relationships between worker and client. Navigating this tension is one of the skills of social care work and may thus be an element of professionalism.

Hallstedt and Högström (2005b: 50) again drawing on Madsen, suggest that this rise to two requirements for social care work:first, ‘an ethical structure to minimise or delay the administrative structure of the relationship’. This refers to a professional ethics and a stance characterised by trust and a general will to meet the client on the same level. This is termed ‘the relational competence of the social educational worker’; second the social care worker requires the competence to ‘lead a critical discussion on life conditions’ in contemporary society, leading to a constructive pedagogical goal. This is termed ‘goal-directed social education work’.

At the root of this practice is an ability to communicate in an emancipatory manner (‘to side with the underdog’). This means operating at the client’s level and from that position engaging in open communication on the client’s situation (Hallstedt and Högström, 2005b: 53). The content of social care practice then can be seen as:

• the ability to recognise and deal with the asymmetrical relationship between practitioner and client: to turn that imbalance of power into a working relationship
• the ability to make use of broad social, cultural and theoretical knowledge to interpret another’s life
• the formulation of a constructive pedagogical goal or goals with reference to the actual client’s resources and the potentials for action
• (citing Madsen, 1995) ‘the synthesis of the communication should include an evaluation of the content, of the client’s life aspirations and resources, the culture, and ultimately of the potentials for action’.
• to reflect on the behaviour, to be aware of the quality of the current relationship, and to act in accordance with ethical principles

Ultimately, a very feature of care work is that it replete with uncertainty, ambiguity and unresolved (and perhaps irresolvable) tensions. Schön (1991) argues that this is in fact a feature of all professional practice: that it eludes the attempts of technocratic rationality to ‘pin it down’. He says that (1991: 19):