ABSTRACT
The social worker is the front-line agent through which the agency exercises control, fulfils its responsibilities, offers resources for change and development, maintains the individual in society and enables the client’s interests to be represented in relation to the state and its citizens. However, one major area in which initiatives and originality are likely to vary lies in the extent to which social workers are able to go beyond the use of self in their work with clients. The London Borough of Brent spends almost eight times as much on meals on wheels as the London Borough of Bromley; and Nottinghamshire’s expenditure, per head of population, is nearly 40 times that in Warwickshire. Teamwork, as Harman says, ‘seems almost to have achieved the status of being fashionable’. And, in view of the slightly disarming tendency of some social workers to fall recklessly in love with passing fads and fancies, it is necessary to regard it with some caution.
