Risk at the Boundaries of Social Work: An Editorial

Authors

Rory Crath, Smith CollegeFollow
Jeremy Dixon, University of Bath
Jo Warner, University of Kent

Author ORCID Identifier

Rory Crath: 0000-0002-5855-0940

Document Type

Editorial

Publication Date

1-1-2023

Publication Title

Health Risk and Society

Abstract

In this editorial we introduce a special thematic collection of articles which focus on how risk operates, or is conceptualised, at the boundaries of social work practice. The collection includes theoretical, empirical, and practice-oriented articles, each of which critically engages with contemporary debates about risk and social work and its complex intersections with boundary making in diverse fields. These fields include social work with older people, child sexual abuse and exploitation, and people with learning disabilities. We begin the editorial with a brief account of how social work can be defined and the competing ideological traditions that underpin differing forms of social work in practice, policy, and research. We also point to the contrasting nature of risk studies in relation to social work, ranging from the pragmatic concern with measuring and managing risk, to critical analysis of how and why risk is conceptualised and socially constructed in particular ways. We provide an overview of each of the five articles that comprise the special issue, their intersecting themes, and how they animate in different ways the idea of boundaries and boundary making. In the final section of the editorial, we consider the possibilities for the future direction of theoretical and empirical work in this field.

Keywords

adult protection, child protection, decision-making, Risk, social work

Volume

25

Issue

1-2

First Page

1

Last Page

8

DOI

10.1080/13698575.2023.2172142

ISSN

13698575

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Recommended Citation

Crath, Rory; Dixon, Jeremy; and Warner, Jo, "Risk at the Boundaries of Social Work: An Editorial" (2023). School for Social Work: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/ssw_facpubs/76