ABSTRACT
Most social workers in the global north operate in a context governed by New Public Management that is frequently restructured to reduce costs and enact funding cuts, and shaped by managerial models of work organisation and management. These overlapping contexts create conditions in which it is increasingly difficult to enact a social ethic of care, and when an ethic of care is enacted, it is almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of the individual social worker and may be restricted by workplace operating procedures and demands. This neglect is experienced at the individual level where workers are constantly, systemically (not just occasionally) rushed and compelled to provide technical, tightly controlled allotments of care to those in need. Drawing on international data from Canada, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia, this chapter argues that current managerial models undermine efforts to centre a social ethic of care, though many workers adopt an individual model of care ethics. The chapter also explores resistance strategies undertaken by social workers and other care workers to maintain a morally ethical stance despite their tightly constrained workplaces, and the movement of men into care work. The chapter argues that the auspice of practice is pivotal to whether care ethics can be enacted in individual or more social ways.
