Ian Shaw - Evaluating in Practice

Ian Shaw
University of York, UK

First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Ian Shaw 2011

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Shaw, Ian, 1945
Evaluating in practice. - 2nd ed.
1. Social workersRating ofGreat Britain. 2. Social serviceGreat Britain
Evaluation.
I. Title
361'.00684dc22

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shaw, Ian, 1945
Evaluating in practice / by Ian Shaw. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Rev. ed. of: Evaluating in practice. 1996.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7857-1 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-7546-7858-8 (pbk) 1. Social workers
Rating ofGreat Britain. 2. Social workersSelf-rating ofGreat Britain. 3. Social
serviceGreat BritainEvaluation. I. Title.
HV40.8.G7S53 2011
361.0068'4dc22

2010048848

ISBN 9780754678571 (hbk)
ISBN 9780754678588 (pbk)

This book is much more than a second edition of the book I wrote in the 1990s. The more I engaged with its writing, the more the book became almost new-born, with little of the text, yet all of the vision, that engaged me the first time round. Perhaps one of the most obvious differences is around the balance between making a general case for something I believe was entirely original, and elaborating supporting examples. Almost all of the earlier worked examples remain untroubled where they were in the first edition. Those in the following chapters are by and large newly minted and more fully worked out, and reflect the growing vigour of qualitative social work research, the emergence of the journal Qualitative Social Work that has provided a congenial home for explorations of qualitative research and practice, and occasional international responses to and developments of the arguments in the original book. For colleagues and friends around the world who have been involved with me in each of these developments you know who you are I am deeply grateful.

Equally apparent to those who found and read the 1996 edition will be the considerable diversification of methods that have become grist to my mill. Visual methods and arts-inspired developments were entirely absent from the first edition, but figure extensively here. Ethnography in its rich diversity life stories, narrative and simulations have all greatly expanded their claim on the authors and readers attention. Finally, as I signal in the opening chapter, I have given less space to developing critiques of mainstream positions with which I disagree. Not because I have shifted what I would say on those issues. I have written extensively on such issues in recent years and interested readers can find these sources if they are so minded. If I have shifted, it is perhaps in the direction of more deeply affirming, here and elsewhere, the view I expressed rather strongly in of the 1996 edition of Evaluating in Practice , that while vigorous arguments and positions are just what we do need, partisan, sentimental unreflective advocacy does nothing to help.

I open and close this edition with the same words. Evaluating in practice challenges social work to new understandings and new methodologies and it holds the promise of keeping social work honest.

Ian Shaw
March 2011

I am grateful to the social workers and probation officers whose views provide an important contribution to the early chapters in this book. They were willing to talk at length and on the record about their evaluating practices.

Acknowledgements are due to the following:

From Mending Wall: The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem, published by Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
A P Watt Ltd on behalf of Graham Swift for permission to use the quotation from graham Swifts novel, Waterland .
Bloomsbury Publishing and Curtis Brown, for the extract from Margaret Atwoods novel Robber Bride .
Curtis Brown Ltd., London on behalf of the Estate of Malcolm Bradbury for the extract from Malcolm Bradburys novel, The History Man , published by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd
Permission from Little, Brown Book Group to quote an extract from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, published by virago. Also Farrar, Straus and Giroux, holders of USA and Canada rights.
Random House and United Agents for permission to quote Dannie Abses poem Song for Pythagorus from his New and Collected Poems published by Hutchinson.
Easy Rider Music for extracts from the songs Love Minus Zero/No Limit and Ballad of a Thin Man by Bob Dylan.
Finally, the drawings in are reproduced with the kind permission of Dr Kerri Kearney, assistant Professor, Educational Leadership, at Oklahoma State University. The original colour versions of the drawings can be seen at http://education.okstate.edu/drawing-out-emotions.

I have three aspirations in writing this book. First, I am convinced social work will be greatly enriched if accomplished within a framework for embedding qualitative evaluation and inquiry as a dimension of good practice in social work. Second, I aim to persuade readers of the central significance of a methodological practice in social work that adapts, infuses, inhabits and translates social research methods as a dimension of the different stages of social work assessment, planning, intervention, review and outcomes. Finally, I hope to facilitate good practice by exemplifying the argument through extensive worked examples and exercises.

Several aspects of these aspirations need emphasising. First , I am writing about practice and not about research or evaluation. The case developed will be about evaluation and inquiry as practice tasks just as much as assessment, planning, intervention and review are practice tasks. But second , this book departs radically from almost all mainstream views of social work, in that evaluation is not seen as a self-contained phase of practice as one more way of fracturing the social work process but as a dimension of every phase.

Third , the book is not about the specific application of research or evaluation findings to practice but about the method of inquiry and evaluation. This distinction was helpfully made by the late William Reid: