An independent social worker is undertaking life story work with a young person about to leave care. She visits the social work team to look at the young person’s file. Part of the agreed work with the young person is that they will look at some particular parts of the social work record of her life together. The young person is adamant she does not want to do this in the office. The senior practitioner who meets the independent social worker shows little interest in the therapeutic aspect of the work and tells her it is management policy that she cannot take copies of any part of the file out of the office. The independent social worker outlines the stringent arrangements she makes to ensure security of service users’ records. The senior practitioner cannot find a written version of the policy, nor can she articulate the professional reasons behind it, but, when challenged, merely repeats the requirement.

Here the senior practitioner is not considering how applying the organisation’s rules on document security might, in this instance, hinder the therapeutic value of the work to the young person. An alternative approach would have been to discuss with the independent social worker the best way of combining the security and confidentiality of the young person’s records with her expressed wishes in relation to the direct work. The senior practitioner could then have offered to represent this to senior managers if she felt unable to take the decision herself.

An aspiration of this book is to empower social workers in providing professional leadership in moving away from the compliance-based practice illustrated by these practice examples towards a more thoughtful and humane conception of good practice.