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Social Sciences for Social Work
(SWK 2012)

: Examine the meaning of the concept of social exclusion and discuss how social work may respond to the reality of social exclusion.

The paper will look at ‘what is social exclusion’ and demonstrate how various groups and individuals are affected by it. It will further examine ‘what is social work’, its tasks and how these address social exclusion. This paper cannot examine all aspects of social exclusion, but will use examples of where social work is relevant in dealing with the issue. This paper looks at social work practice in particular in addressing issues arising from; poverty, unemployment, social policy and social work practice in relation to the social
(The Seebohm report, 1968). This created generic social work which saw children and families affected by poverty, domestic violence and mental illness as members of a community. There followed an expansion in social work services and casework as a means to potentially address the issues affecting the lives of those most marginalised in society. Davies (2002) argues that social work has lost the potential of casework and capacity of generic working to address family problems for those most marginalised. It can be argued that generic social work, with a focus upon the whole family, lost credibility partly as the result of high profile cases reported in the media when things went wrong e.g. the death of children Maria Coldwell (1965) and Jasmine Beckford (1984) when social workers were criticized for focusing upon the family and missed the abuse specific to the child. However this is equally true today with the death of Peter Connelly (2007) regardless of fresh organizational framework specialist practitioners, development of children trusts and new legislation, Children Act 2004, prompted by the death of Victoria Climbie (2000). The social work practice issue is around the