Generic or specialist profession? Identifying social work in community learning disability teams

Social work is integral to community learning disability teams (CLDTs), however there is little research on how social workers discharge their statutory duties within them. The purpose of this paper is to report a study designed to describe what social workers do within a CLDT (anonymised as Maples). The question addressed is: what is the social work role in CLDTs and how is this accomplished?

Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in a CLDT in London during 2011/2012. This involved interviews of professionals and observations of “everyday” social work practice. Data were analysed using constructivist grounded theory.

Social work practice in Maples could be categorised along five domains of practice, namely: case management, safeguarding, assessments, mental health practice, and duty. The accompanying professional activities within these domains are described in Table I, with a subsequent focus on the less researched domains of case management, assessment, and duty.

This research is one of the few to delineate the professional activities of social workers within CLDT. By showing what professionals do, it has important implications for policy – example personalisation – and role effectiveness.