Managing Risk in Social Work

1. Stephen A. Webb
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland

2. This lecture is divided into three parts that focus on:
(a) Risk Management
(b) Risk Regulation
(c) Blame Culture

4. Little Britain character Vicky Pollard
The "don't-blame-me" mentality personified by
Vicky Pollard - the Little Britain character who
refuses to accept responsibility for anything - is
becoming more prevalent, according to a new
study.
Researchers say that young people increasingly
believe that their fate is out of their hands and
that parents, schools, government or bad luck are
to blame for their misfortunes.

5. Exasperated bank manager: "Ms Pollard, despite
having no job, you've run up debts of £50,000 on two
dozen credit cards. This considerable sum has been
squandered on video games, contraband cigarettes, a
wardrobe of genuine designer fakes and three weeks of
hard drinking in Torrevieja."

6. Vicky Pollard: "Yeah, but no, but no but yeah, but...
wot 'appened was it wasn't me, it was them banks, all
their cheap plastic. Don't go giving me the evils. Lloyds
HIV made me 'ave it. NatWestlife told me I must.
Anyway, Destiny's got loads more loans than me. She
bought Posh Spice's knickers. I ain't never done nuffink.
It weren’t meh”

8. risk management is concerned with collective or
institutional responses to risk situations in social
work.
Risk management is about systems, procedures and
guidelines and their operationalization in social
work agencies.

9. With the agency there is shared awareness and
understanding within the authority of: – the
nature and extent of the risks it faces; – the extent
and categories of risks regarded as acceptable (the
authority should formulate a sound policy on its
threshold to risk); – the likelihood and potential
impacts of the risks materialising; and – its ability
to reduce the incidence and impact on the
organisation of risks that do materialise; Here the
focus is on the IMPACT OF RISK

10. The social care agency ensures that there is regular
and ongoing monitoring and reporting of risk
including early warning mechanisms; Here the focus
is on the MONITORING AND REPORTING OF
RISK

11. Within the social care agency an appropriate
assessment is made of the cost of operating particular
controls relative to the benefit obtained in managing
the related risk; Here the emphasis is on a cost-
benefit analysis of managing RISK

12. The social care agency or the authority conducts, at
least annually, a review of the effectiveness of the
system of internal control in place; Here the focus is
on reviewing and annual monitoring (this
sometimes includes performance reviews)

13. The social care agency or the authority reports
publicly on the results of the review, and explains the
action it is taking to address any significant concerns
that it has identified. Here the emphasis is on
stake-holder INVOLVEMENT

14. 1. Predictive Hazards (i.e. those hazards one might
expect from any individual in similar
circumstances. Hazards such as - mental health
problems - physical frailty).
2. Specific Hazards (i.e. hazards, specific to the
individual's own situation such
3. Strengths (i.e. what is there in the situation to the
individual's advantage?).
4. Dangers (i.e. potentially undesirable results from
specific hazards).

15. We can identify a number of core components
associated with risk management in social work.
These include: Identifying risks, analysing risks,
evaluating and ranking risks, and treating risks
as part of what is called MANAGED CARE
PROGRAMMES

16. The Department of Health has been a key mover and
shaker in the development of risk management systems in
social work agencies. The Department of Health state that
“Risk management should be recognised as an
integral part of good practice and should be part of
the organization’s culture. It should be integrated
into its philosophy, practices and business plans
rather than be viewed or practiced as a separate
programme. When this is achieved, risk management
becomes the business of everyone in the
organisation.”

17. EXECUTIVE COMMAND/CONTROL
Board level responsibility for risk management is
clearly defined and there are clear lines of individual
accountability for managing risk throughout the
organisation, leading to the Board.

18. The organization’s senior management has
defined and documented its strategy for managing
risks, including objectives for, and its
commitment to, risk management. The risk
management strategy is relevant to the
organization’s strategic context and its goals,
objectives and the nature of its business.
Management ensures that the strategy is
understood, implemented and maintained at all
levels of the organisation.

19. A committee structure is in place, which supports the
risk management accountability arrangements within
the organisation and ensures that all
significant risks are properly considered and
communicated to the Board.

20. An agreed process for reporting,
managing, analysing and learning from
adverse incidents is in place, in accordance with social
care guidance.
An agreed process for reporting, managing, analysing
and learning from
complaints and claims is in place, in accordance with
NHS guidance.

21. A risk management process is embedded throughout
the organisation at all levels, including the Board,
with key indicators being used to demonstrate
performance. The whole system of risk management
is continuously monitored and reviewed by
management and the Board in order to learn and
make improvements to the system.

22. Social work is increasingly
regulated because of fears or
anxieties about risk. Risk
management systems are just one
method of regulating social work
practice.

23. Risk Regulation is defined as governmental
interference with market or social processes to
control potential adverse consequences to health
or social issues'. Risk regulation includes (1)
information gathering; (2) standard setting and
(3) behavioural change.

24. They analyse risk regulation in terms of regimes,
providing a powerful model for understanding
risk management in social work.
Analyzing regulation in terms of 'regimes'
(information gathering; standard setting and
behavioural change) allows us to see the rich,
multi-dimensional nature of risk regulation in
social work. Focusing not just on how social
workers seek to reduce risk, but how social work
itself is seen as a risky business and how social
workers have to be regulated. (GSCC code of
conduct)

25. As a good case study for understanding the regulation
of risk we can focus on paedophiles released from
custody is used. This will help us explore the
strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to
risk management and the idea of "blame culture".

26. The first being the adoption of better
communication systems (typically called for in
public inquiries such as the Victoria Climbie
Inquiry) and more collegial behaviour among the
various public sector bureaucracies involved
(social services, police, probation, psychiatry) in
the case management of released offenders. This
strategy can aid the risk management process by
increasing information flow between public
agencies and, increasingly, trusted third-sector
voluntary organizations.

27. The second response is the adoption of more
formal written procedures or checklists for risk
assessment and management of ex-offenders. The
purpose of such protocols is to improve risk
decision making, particularly in allocating scarce
resources. They also serve the important purpose
of limiting blame by forming the basis of a
procedural defense for professional practitioners if
registered offenders committed further offenses.

28. A third strategy, is the classic “not in my backyard”,
whereby local authorities refuse to provide public housing
for ex-offenders in their communities. (This strategy is
sometimes called the "silo-effect" in which public sector
authorities effectively try to pass the problem around from
one to the other, truancy offers another good example of
this) Here social services and housing organizations have
to shoulder increased burdens because a bias toward
conservative risk assessment by local police and probation
officials (seeking to protect themselves from blame in the
event of reoffense) lead to a large number of released sex
offenders.

29. So why are risk management and regulation
regimes increasingly hardened in social work?
Contemporary social care reforms have occurred
in a particular historical and social context, and
arguably one of the features of that context has
been the development of a climate of greater
suspicion and challenge for social care agencies.
Social workers repeatedly observe that they have
to "watch their back" or are constantly being held
accountable for their decisions.

30. Why has Blame Culture become so pervasive over the
past decade in social work? There are arguably two
reasons why this has occurred over the past decade in
the UK

31. Popular trust in various kinds of public sector institutions,
such as social work, has declined over the past decade,
with correspondingly growing suspicion of individuals in
positions of authority or expertise. Mary Douglas (1982)
claims that increasing egalitarian or sectarian cultural
biases in western-type societies since 1960s have created
more pressure to blame those at the top of powerful
corporations for the harm they do to the powerless.. The
power of the "service-user" might be part of this
explanation, in a world where everyone wants to make
"rights claims" even though they may often be
contradictory.

32. This claim relates to an increasing disposition to
‘negativity bias’ in society in a number of advanced
democracies. By negativity bias is meant the commonly-
observed cognitive tendency to pay more attention to
negative than to positive information and to value losses
more highly than gains of an equivalent amount. Perhaps
we can understand the post Iraq situation as based on a
politics of fear and anxiety around security and terrorism,
rather than optimism. Here there is a political tendency
for dissatisfaction to produce and shape citizens opinions
and beliefs.