What is it about?
The article is about the legal powers social workers need to protect adults with care and support needs, such as older people with dementia or disabled people (known as adult safeguarding). Social workers are central to this work and local authorities are required by law to look into concerns raised about adults with care and support needs. However, in England, there are limited legal powers to back up the professionals, if there is obstruction from family members. In Scotland, on the other hand, a comprehensive set of legal powers has been introduced, including a power of entry and banning a third party (such as a family member). The article reports research exploring views about whether further legal powers are required for social workers in England, and sets these views against ideas of autonomy (the ability to decide things for oneself) and ideas about what it is to be vulnerable.
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Why is it important?
Protecting older and disabled people from abuse is one of the most important roles of local authority social work services as well as being of wide public concern. There has been much debate about appropriate legal powers and what impact they might have on professionals' ability to protect adults with care and support needs. Exploring professionals' views and thinking about how these reflect wider debates will help in developing thinking about this important question.
Perspectives
This article reflects underpinning debates about the nature of autonomy (the ability to make free choices) and vulnerability. Increasing powers might be thought to reduce individual autonomy, if this it believed to be an indivisible quality that exists whatever constraining influences are in operation. However, more nuanced views about the effects of undue influence and long-term abuse on a person's ability to make decisions requires rethinking the need for legal powers. In addition, it is important for social workers undertaking this difficult work to examine their preconceived ideas about these issues when making decisions and recommendations that do not require legal enforcement, but can also strongly influence individual choice.
Dr Martin J Stevens
King's College London
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Practice perspectives and theoretical debates about social workers’ legal powers to protect adults, Journal of Social Work, August 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1468017318794275.
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