ABSTRACT
G Gatekeeper This tenn is used in urban sociology to refer to a kind of infonnal patron who can connect those he or she knows in the locality to powerful others in larger social networks. In social policy the tenn seems to be used in a more negative sense to refer to those who control access at the boundaries of organisations. People who work as receptionists are typically described as gatekeepers. They work at a point at which role ambiguity and confusion of infonnation on the part of the applicant are particularly significant. More recently, in sociolegal studies the police have been referred to as 'gatekeepers' to the penal process. This emphasises the place of discretion in decision-making at this 'entry point' to the legal system. Hall, A. (1974) Point of Entry: a Study of Client Perception in the Social
Generic 'Generic' as a welfare tenn was introduced into a social work training to point a contrast with 'specialist' and to refer to a social worker not trained according to one of the then recognised specialisations (child care, psychiatric social work, probation, medical social work). The idea was connected to a conviction that social work was a single profession, that the difference in practice in different sorts of agency were not so great that 'social work' was a more or less happy grouping of occupations, and that it was one profession (that a common training would demonstrate that more often than not social workers were dealing with much the same problems in the same general ways). The first 'generic' social work training courses started at the London School of Economics in 1954, but 'generic' training is now less rapturously embraced, partly because a
GESTALT THERAPY
distinction has slowly emerged between 'basic' common training irrespective of future career prospects and more advanced training in specialisation and partly because the content of 'basic' training has been increasingly enlarged. A distinction has also been gradually forged between generic training and general practice to the same level regardless of any particular client group. Timms, N. (1968) Language of Casework, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
pp.26-44. Vickery, A. (1973) 'Specialist: Generic: What Next?', Social Work
Today, 4, 262-6.
