Postscript
Abstract
At the time of completing this book (June 2020), most of the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, with various regimes of lockdown, quarantine, social distancing, isolation and closure. The multi-agency meetings we have studied in this book are likely to have taken on new forms as the world – and health and social care – come to terms with this new reality. We quoted Hughes et al (2011, p 136) in Chapter 2, that the practice of meetings that are ‘face-to-face … in close proximity’ would not comply with current social distancing requirements. Yet most of these meetings are essential for the everyday work of social welfare professionals and are consequential for the lives of service users.
We do not know what multi-agency meetings look like at the moment. There seems to be a variety of responses between different countries and settings. It is likely that most of the meetings we observed have been postponed, scaled back or are taking place virtually, although there are some reports of plans to organise meetings with social distancing restrictions (Turner, 2020b). For example, we understand that the rehabilitation meetings described in Chapter 3 were postponed but are restarting with social distancing. Child welfare meetings (examined in Chapters 4 and 8) are taking place using virtual meeting or teleconference applications, according to official local authority websites in the UK. These websites provide little detail of how virtual meetings currently are being organised.
Abstract
At the time of completing this book (June 2020), most of the world is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, with various regimes of lockdown, quarantine, social distancing, isolation and closure. The multi-agency meetings we have studied in this book are likely to have taken on new forms as the world – and health and social care – come to terms with this new reality. We quoted Hughes et al (2011, p 136) in Chapter 2, that the practice of meetings that are ‘face-to-face … in close proximity’ would not comply with current social distancing requirements. Yet most of these meetings are essential for the everyday work of social welfare professionals and are consequential for the lives of service users.
We do not know what multi-agency meetings look like at the moment. There seems to be a variety of responses between different countries and settings. It is likely that most of the meetings we observed have been postponed, scaled back or are taking place virtually, although there are some reports of plans to organise meetings with social distancing restrictions (Turner, 2020b). For example, we understand that the rehabilitation meetings described in Chapter 3 were postponed but are restarting with social distancing. Child welfare meetings (examined in Chapters 4 and 8) are taking place using virtual meeting or teleconference applications, according to official local authority websites in the UK. These websites provide little detail of how virtual meetings currently are being organised.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- From a collaborative and integrated welfare policy to frontline practices 9
- Examining talk and interaction in meetings of professionals and service users 33
- How chairs use the pronoun ‘we’ to guide participation in rehabilitation team meetings 63
- Working within frames and across boundaries in core group meetings in child protection 83
- Alignment and service user participation in low-threshold meetings with people using drugs 115
- Sympathy and micropolitics in return-to-work meetings 141
- Negotiating epistemic rights to knowledge concerning service users’ recent histories in mental health meetings 171
- Relational agency and epistemic justice in initial child protection conferences 197
- Conclusion 225
- Postscript 241
- Index 247
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- From a collaborative and integrated welfare policy to frontline practices 9
- Examining talk and interaction in meetings of professionals and service users 33
- How chairs use the pronoun ‘we’ to guide participation in rehabilitation team meetings 63
- Working within frames and across boundaries in core group meetings in child protection 83
- Alignment and service user participation in low-threshold meetings with people using drugs 115
- Sympathy and micropolitics in return-to-work meetings 141
- Negotiating epistemic rights to knowledge concerning service users’ recent histories in mental health meetings 171
- Relational agency and epistemic justice in initial child protection conferences 197
- Conclusion 225
- Postscript 241
- Index 247
