ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the balance across teaching, social work, nursing and medicine, but in these professions it remains a significant aspect of practice as it might be. That the balance between love/desire and engineering is somewhat more weighted towards engineering in the case of doctor than in the case of teacher. There is a tension in how to balance the use of theoretical and tacit knowledge, which often takes place in the shadow of societal and policy debates. It considers what a Bionian lens focused on the practice of the caring professions more broadly, as opposed to just that of teachers, has to tell us about developments in policy. Social policy is largely implemented by people; most often those people are professionals in public service. Social science and social policy needs to take account of agency because individual agency does change trajectories, on both a personal and wider canvas.
