ABSTRACT
Since New Labour's election to office in 1997 there has been a surge of mental health policy initiatives designed to modernise mental health services. At the same time, wider invigoration of debates over social models of mental health are taking place, particularly the emergence of social inclusion as a core objective of UK mental health policy. In summer 2004 the Social Exclusion Unit's report Mental Health and Social Exclusion announced a programme of activities intended to increase social inclusion of people with mental health problems, with a significant role for implementation allocated to the social care sector. This has been contemporaneous with a comprehensive reconfiguration of the organisational position of mental health social work, which has been relocated from local authority social service departments into National Health Service trusts. Mental health social workers now find themselves managed within multidisciplinary team settings in which social care is a minority player.
