Dr Katheryn Margaret Pascoe explores social workers’ experiences of bureaucracy. Yes, it’s not a happy story, but someone’s got to tell it!
Social work is mired in bureaucracy, particularly in the UK. It is one of the key reasons why practitioners leave the profession and is exacerbating the retention crisis we are currently experiencing. Change needs to happen to constrain managerialism in order to free up social workers to practice social work. However, in order to bring about change and improve the retention of social workers, we need to fully understand how social workers experience bureaucracy and what can be done about it.
This episode features Dr Katheryn Margaret Pascoe who has conducted a systematic synthesis of studies of the experiences of social workers of bureaucracy. The review provides an up-to-date and comprehensive picture, so it is a good way to obtain an overview of the issues involved.
Dr Katheryn Margaret is a lecturer and early career researcher in social work and social policy at Cardiff Metropolitan University. With a practice and research background in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, she recently completed her PhD at Ulster University as a Horizons 2020 Marie Curie Co-fund Fellow.
The full text of the paper discussed in this episode can be accessed here:
Katheryn Margaret has also published an open-access practical guide for conducting a systematic literature review which can be accessed here.
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