ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at current trends in the delivery of social work in mental health contexts – the workforce implications, new team structures, implications of joined-up services, the personalisation agenda, the need to develop and use the knowledge base for mental health social work – all of which seem to present social work with both threats and opportunities (Gould 2006a). On the negative side, many social work practitioners feel that their expertise will be marginalised by the dominance of clinical
professions within integrated structures; this anxiety came to be symbolised by the replacement of the Approved Social Worker by the generic concept of the Approved Mental Health Professional in the 2007 Mental Health Act, as discussed in Chapter 8.Many of the transformations have been taking place under the umbrella of the post-1997 New Labour government’s modernisation agenda, a policy direction that has had uncertain
implications for social work. A trio of Department of Health papers in 1998 created a platform for this development: Modernising Health and Social Services (Department of Health 1998a) made the case for better coordination of services through formal partnerships, more consultation with service users, and a stronger evidence-based approach in health and social care; Modernising Social Services (Department of Health 1998b) set out a new institutional architecture for the governance of social care, proposed the creation of a General Social Care Council to regulate the workforce and was ultimately to lead to the setting up of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) to develop the knowledge base; and, finally, Modernising Mental Health Services (Department of Health 1998c) reinforced these modernisation themes but with specific reference to ‘joined up’ mental health services, developed in partnership with service users and carers, and with a comprehensive approach to service development and access.
