ABSTRACT
Maintenance theory is a concept developed by Martin Davies over various editions of the Essential Social Worker. Bartlett, in writing about social functioning, draws upon a wider tradition which, as a result, provides greater possibilities than maintenance. Two key questions emerge in any assessment of social functioning: what are the environmental demands on the person? What are his or her coping capacities? There is what she calls an ‘exchange balance’, between people’s coping and environmental demands. Bartlett alighted on the notion of coping, and this is a further important dimension of social functioning. Maintenance, social functioning and coping are different concepts, but related and not contradictory. While they are consistent with each other, they together enable us to gain a deeper understanding of what they are about by relating them to each other. Social work is concerned with social exclusion, but only certain aspects. It is in relation to these aspects that issues of maintenance, social functioning and coping arise.
