Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 1) | страница 120

Risk Assessment

Dear Students of Social Work,
Managing risk in cases
We hear about how social workers and caseworkers should conduct risk assessment and consider how to manage the risks. In reality, activities such
as risk assessment, risk management, monitoring risk and actual risk-taking
should be considerations for both practitioners and managers. All of these
should be part of the assessment process.
However, as services expand and assessment or a lack of it becomes more
widespread, there is greater reliance on managerialism implicit in corporate
risk management strategy. Some may even advise that this takes the form of
an automated risk assessment system. But as one researcher, Cooper et al
(2003) would argue, such systems can decrease the chances of being able to
identify and manage risk productively.1
So what has happened in some social care and case management settings is
that escalating assessment, monitoring and quality control procedures and
systems take priority over the personal care dimensions of service delivery.
While it is not completely bad, there is a need to balance such defensive
practice where risk avoidance dominates, with professional assessment and
risk taking. We need to recognise and acknowledge that risk is part of everyday life from which we can learn. To create positive change we need to move
away from an over reliance on risk assessment systems which are ‘automated.’

Risk moves along a continuum
So how should we think about risk and how can we look at risk during our
assessment of cases? Risk can be defined as ‘the possibility of beneficial and

1 Cooper, A., Hetherington, R. and Katz, I. (2003). The Risk Factor: Making the child protection
system work for children. London: Demos.
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