School of Social and Political Science

Description

In this seminar, Dr Jessica Toft presents one US state’s findings of social worker conditions under neoliberalism and the challenges it poses to professional discretion. Her team undertook a statewide anonymous survey and confidential interviews on the effects of intensified business management on social workers’ practice and working conditions in Minnesota.

Findings show that social workers experience considerable pressure to work quickly, take on more clients, often labor under commission-based structures, and more. Under such conditions, respondents report their practice discretion is markedly limited. Yet, social workers are resisting, and their varied examples deserve careful consideration and recognition.

Widely regarded as the most marketized welfare state among liberal democracies, the United States is considered “the canary in the coalmine” when it comes to the fortunes of social work. Given growing authoritarian politics and cuts to social welfare spending, historical evidence suggests that social workers will be further managerialized and stripped of professional discretion. Moreover, they will likely be directed to intensify the embedded disciplinary tools of the neoliberal welfare state. Yet, there are tested tools of resistance.

As a US social welfare historian, Dr Toft then invites attendees to learn from the United States’ historical record of how social workers have fought for professional discretion and better working conditions amid shifting political, social, and economic contexts. For example, asserting professional authority and professional unions are sites of engaged democratic civil society. This account illustrates that while social workers’ resistance may have been muted under neoliberal social welfare policies over the last 45 years, there is a lengthier history of social work solidarity in the United States that social workers can learn from for the professional fights ahead.

Keynote Speaker: Dr Jessica Toft

Jessica Toft, PhD, is an associate professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. She is Principal Investigator of The Impacts of Neoliberalism on Social Work Practice Project and of the Examining Social Work Unions in Historical and Contemporary Contexts Project. She is Vice President of the Social Welfare History Group, and past President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. She is under contract with Oxford University Press for the book: Citizenship Social Work: The Case for a Democratic Framework for Social Work. She began her career as a policy advocate for child welfare issues and has taught social welfare policy, history, and research methods courses for 25 years.

This is a fully online event. Registered attendees will receive the link to the online seminar shortly in advance on the day. Please ensure you check your emails!