Social Work Assignment Anti Oppressive Practice Safeguarding

Introduction

Social work with adults operates at the intersection of legal duty, ethical commitment and relationship-based practice. This model assignment examines an anonymised adult safeguarding scenario and demonstrates how anti-oppressive practice (AOP), the Care Act 2014 and core professional values can be drawn together in a single piece of reflective case analysis. The scenario, the service user and all identifying details are fictional and are presented purely as reference material for learning purposes only; they do not describe a real person or case. The purpose of the analysis is to show how an undergraduate social work student might move from description of a situation to the critical application of theory, law and values, and finally to defensible recommendations for practice. In doing so, the assignment models the reasoning expected at undergraduate level: not simply naming a theory or a statute, but explaining how each one shapes the social worker’s conduct and the outcomes experienced by the person at the centre of the enquiry. Throughout, the discussion keeps the individual’s rights, voice and wellbeing in focus.

Case Background

The case concerns “Mrs A”, a 68-year-old woman of British-Caribbean heritage who lives in rented accommodation in an English city with her adult son, “David”, who is her unpaid carer. Mrs A was diagnosed with early-stage vascular dementia two years ago and also lives with limited mobility following a stroke. She receives a weekly package of domiciliary care and a modest occupational pension. A referral was made to the local authority adult social care team by a district nurse, who observed that Mrs A appeared withdrawn, had lost weight, and had unexplained bruising to her forearms. The nurse also noted that David managed all of his mother’s finances and had recently cancelled two of her care visits, stating that the family “did not need strangers in the house”. During the initial home visit, Mrs A was quiet and deferred to her son on every question, while David was reluctant to allow the social worker to speak with his mother alone. These observations, taken together, triggered a concern that Mrs A might be experiencing neglect and financial abuse, and that her ability to express her own wishes was being constrained. Before her stroke, Mrs A had worked for many years as a school catering assistant and remains a practising member of her local church, where she has a wide circle of friends. These relationships, and her evident pride in her independence, are important strengths that any intervention should seek to build upon rather than overlook. The following analysis treats this scenario as the basis for a section 42 safeguarding enquiry.

Identifying the Safeguarding Concerns

Adult safeguarding begins with the careful identification of what is actually being observed, rather than the premature labelling of a family as abusive. In Mrs A’s situation, several categories of potential harm are present. The unexplained bruising and weight loss raise the possibility of physical neglect and inadequate nutrition; the cancellation of care visits points to a reduction in Mrs A’s access to independent support; and David’s sole control of his mother’s finances, combined with her deference and silence, suggests a risk of financial abuse and coercive control. It is equally important, however, to avoid assuming malice. David may be an exhausted carer struggling without adequate support, and the family’s wish to keep “strangers” out of the home may reflect previous negative experiences of services or a cultural preference for family-based care. A proportionate response therefore holds two possibilities in mind at once: that Mrs A may be at risk, and that the family may themselves need help. A single indicator, viewed in isolation, might have an innocent explanation; it is the pattern and accumulation of concerns, set against Mrs A’s apparent inability to speak freely, that warrants a formal response. The task of the enquiry is to gather information in a way that protects Mrs A while respecting her relationships, and that privileges her own account of her life above the assumptions of professionals.

The Legislative and Policy Framework

The legal foundation for the enquiry is the Care Act 2014, which placed adult safeguarding on a statutory footing in England. Section 42 imposes a duty on the local authority to make, or cause to be made, enquiries where it has reasonable cause to suspect that an adult with care and support needs is experiencing, or is at risk of, abuse or neglect, and is unable to protect themselves because of those needs (Great Britain, 2014). Mrs A clearly meets these criteria: she has care and support needs arising from dementia and the effects of her stroke, there is reasonable cause to suspect neglect and financial abuse, and her ability to protect herself may be limited. The enquiry is further shaped by the wellbeing principle in section 1 of the Act and by the six safeguarding principles set out in the Care and Support Statutory Guidance (Department of Health and Social Care, 2014). Running alongside the Care Act is the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which requires that Mrs A be assumed to have capacity unless it is established otherwise, that she be supported to make her own decisions, and that any decision taken on her behalf be in her best interests and the least restrictive option (Great Britain, 2005). The Making Safeguarding Personal approach reinforces this by insisting that safeguarding be done with the person, not to them, and that it be organised around the outcomes the individual wishes to achieve (Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, 2019).

The six statutory safeguarding principles provide a practical checklist against which the social worker’s response can be tested, as the table below illustrates.

Applying Anti-Oppressive Practice to the Case

Anti-oppressive practice provides the critical lens through which the law and policy above are enacted. AOP is concerned with recognising how power operates in people’s lives and within the helping relationship, and with working in ways that reduce rather than reinforce disadvantage (Dominelli, 2002). In Mrs A’s case, several overlapping sources of potential oppression are visible, and a useful tool for mapping them is Thompson’s PCS model.

The Personal, Cultural and Structural (PCS) Model

Thompson (2021) argues that discrimination and oppression operate at three interconnected levels. At the personal (P) level are the individual attitudes and actions of those involved, such as a practitioner who assumes that an older woman has little to contribute to decisions about her own care. At the cultural (C) level are the shared assumptions and values of a society, including the ageist belief that cognitive impairment erases a person’s preferences, or stereotypes about how Black Caribbean families “look after their own”. At the structural (S) level are the institutional arrangements that distribute power unequally, including underfunded adult social care, a shortage of culturally appropriate services, and the disadvantages Mrs A may have accumulated across a lifetime shaped by racism and gender inequality. Reading the case through the PCS model prevents the social worker from locating the problem solely within the family and encourages attention to the wider conditions that produce vulnerability. It also guards against the opposite error of treating Mrs A as a passive victim rather than as a person with her own strengths, history and preferences.

Empowerment, Partnership and Minimal Intervention

AOP translates these insights into concrete practice commitments. Dalrymple and Burke (2006) emphasise empowerment and partnership: the social worker should seek to speak with Mrs A alone, in an unhurried way and using accessible communication, so that her own voice can be heard rather than filtered through her son. Where appropriate, an independent advocate should be offered, in keeping with the Care Act duty to arrange advocacy for people who would otherwise face substantial difficulty in being involved. The principle of minimal intervention requires that any action taken be proportionate to the risk and no more restrictive than necessary, so that Mrs A’s relationship with her son, which may be a source of comfort as well as a potential source of risk, is not severed without good cause. Any interference with Mrs A’s family life must also be justified under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life and permits state intervention only where it is lawful, necessary and proportionate. Anti-oppressive practice also demands cultural competence and humility: the worker must neither ignore the family’s heritage nor allow cultural stereotypes to excuse harm, but should instead explore with Mrs A what matters to her and how she wishes to live. In this way, AOP converts abstract commitments to social justice into the detail of how a home visit is actually conducted.

Professional Values and Ethical Decision-Making

The conduct of the enquiry is governed by a clear framework of professional values. Social Work England’s Professional Standards require social workers to promote the rights, strengths and wellbeing of the people they work with, and to practise in ways that are fair, inclusive and respectful of diversity (Social Work England, 2019). The BASW Code of Ethics anchors the profession in the principles of human rights, social justice and professional integrity (British Association of Social Workers, 2021). In Mrs A’s case, these values can come into tension. The commitment to self-determination supports Mrs A’s right to make her own choices, including the choice to continue living with her son; the commitment to protection recognises that she may be at risk of serious harm. Banks (2021) describes exactly this kind of ethical dilemma, in which competing principles cannot all be honoured at once and the practitioner must reason carefully towards a defensible course of action. Resolving the tension does not mean overriding Mrs A, but rather supporting her capacity, exploring her wishes and intervening only to the extent that her safety and rights require. Ethical practice here is relational and reflective rather than narrowly procedural, and it asks the worker to remain transparent about the limits of confidentiality where there is a risk of serious harm.

A related tension concerns information sharing. Mrs A is entitled to confidentiality and to control over information about her life, yet effective safeguarding depends on timely communication between the social worker, health colleagues and, at times, the family. Parrott and Maguinness (2017) note that the ethical practitioner neither shares information indiscriminately nor withholds it rigidly, but exercises professional judgement, sharing what is necessary, with those who need to know, for a clearly justified safeguarding purpose. Being open with Mrs A about what will be shared, and why, is itself an anti-oppressive act, because it treats her as an active participant in the enquiry rather than as an object of professional scrutiny.

Critical Reflection on Practice

Structured reflection helps the practitioner to learn from the case and to examine their own role within it. Using Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (Gibbs, 1988) as a framework, the social worker might begin by describing the home visit and acknowledging the feelings it provoked, perhaps discomfort at David’s reluctance or anxiety about confronting a family. Evaluating the encounter honestly would reveal that deferring to the son, however polite, risked silencing Mrs A and reproducing the very power imbalance the enquiry was meant to address. Analysis informed by AOP would prompt the worker to ask whose voice was being privileged and why, and to notice any of their own assumptions about age, disability or ethnicity. The conclusion drawn is that a second visit should be arranged specifically to spend time alone with Mrs A, with communication support and, if she wishes, an advocate present. The resulting action plan commits the worker to person-centred methods and to checking their own reasoning with a supervisor. Reflection of this kind, as Mantell and Scragg (2019) argue, is not an optional extra but a core professional discipline that guards against routinised and potentially oppressive practice.

Recommendations for Practice

Drawing the analysis together, a number of recommendations follow for the continued handling of this case:

1. Hear Mrs A directly. Arrange a further visit to speak with Mrs A alone, using accessible communication and offering an independent advocate, so that her wishes and desired outcomes shape the enquiry from the outset.
2. Assess capacity properly. Undertake a decision-specific mental capacity assessment in line with the Mental Capacity Act 2005, supporting Mrs A to participate and avoiding any blanket assumption of incapacity based on her diagnosis.
3. Respond proportionately. Match any protective action to the level of assessed risk, keeping intervention to the least restrictive option and preserving Mrs A’s valued relationships wherever it is safe to do so.
4. Support the carer. Offer David a carer’s assessment under the Care Act 2014, recognising that unmet carer need may be contributing to the situation, while remaining alert to any signs of coercion or financial abuse.
5. Work in partnership. Coordinate with health colleagues, including the district nurse and GP, and record decisions transparently in order to satisfy the accountability principle.
6. Use supervision. Take the case to reflective supervision to test assumptions, manage the ethical tensions identified, and ensure that practice remains anti-oppressive throughout.

Conclusion

This analysis has demonstrated how an undergraduate social work student can integrate law, theory and values in response to an adult safeguarding concern. The Care Act 2014 supplies the statutory duty and the guiding principles; the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Making Safeguarding Personal approach ensure that Mrs A’s rights and voice remain central; and anti-oppressive practice, read through Thompson’s PCS model and the commitments to empowerment and partnership, keeps attention on the operation of power at the personal, cultural and structural levels. Professional values and structured reflection bind these elements into a coherent and defensible approach. The central lesson modelled here is that good safeguarding is not a mechanical application of procedure but a thoughtful, relationship-based practice that protects people without disempowering them. As a piece of reference material, this sample is intended to illustrate that reasoning; it should support a student’s own learning and must never be presented as their own work.

References

Banks, S. (2021) Ethics and Values in Social Work. 5th edn. London: Red Globe Press.

British Association of Social Workers (2021) The BASW Code of Ethics for Social Work. Birmingham: BASW.

Dalrymple, J. and Burke, B. (2006) Anti-Oppressive Practice: Social Care and the Law. 2nd edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Department of Health and Social Care (2014) Care and Support Statutory Guidance. London: Department of Health and Social Care.

Dominelli, L. (2002) Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit.

Great Britain (2005) Mental Capacity Act 2005. London: The Stationery Office.

Great Britain (2014) Care Act 2014. London: The Stationery Office.

Local Government Association and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (2019) Making Safeguarding Personal. London: Local Government Association.

Mantell, A. and Scragg, T. (eds.) (2019) Reflective Practice in Social Work. 5th edn. London: Sage/Learning Matters.

Parrott, L. and Maguinness, N. (2017) Values and Ethics in Social Work Practice. 3rd edn. London: Sage/Learning Matters.

Preston-Shoot, M. (2020) Adult Safeguarding and the Role of Social Work. London: Local Government Association.

Social Work England (2019) Professional Standards. Sheffield: Social Work England.

Thompson, N. (2021) Anti-Discriminatory Practice: Equality, Diversity and Social Justice. 7th edn. London: Red Globe Press.