The Demands of ECM for Social Workers - Essay Example

Moreover, an important issue for social workers is unquestionably balancing their relationships with both the family and the state (Johns, 2009). It, therefore, follows that social workers work within an organizational culture that is highly prescriptive and calculated to ensure that social workers comply with the rigid legal and ethical responsibilities imposed upon social work as an organizational practice. Complicating matters for social workers is the fact that both the purpose and role of social work have been under the spotlight since its introduction (Adams et al, 2002).

Several debates have culminated into the broad classification of the role and purpose of social work into “therapeutic helping approaches; maintenance approaches”; and “emancipatory approaches” (Adams et al, 2002, p. 3). With the introduction of Every Child Matters (ECM) together with the Children Act 2004, the role and purpose of a social worker, a highly visible public service, undoubtedly faces enormous pressure reconciling its role and purpose as a provider of social justice and its commitment to the paramountcy of the child’s welfare in collaboration with other professionals, public agencies and private agencies.

In the meantime, social workers are required to work under immense public scrutiny and under the pressure associated with calls for the more efficient delivery of services and greater accountability (Brannen, 2009). The demands of ECM for social workers’ collaboration with other agencies, particularly in the assessment of the needs of children are therefore compromised by an existing set of problems. Inundated by caseloads, when tied together with a need for highly trained professionals calls into question whether or not social workers have the wherewithal to effectively and accurately identify and respond to a child in need (The Protection of Children in England, 2009). 

This essay will identify and analyze the challenges confronting social workers in the framework of the ECM. This paper begins by analyzing the ECM and the rationale for multi-agency cooperation within the ECM framework. The second part of this paper will identify and analyze the challenges for social workers within the multiagency framework of the ECM in the context of organization theory. The final part of this paper makes suggestions for aiding social workers in overcoming those challenges.