IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v100y2019icp39-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Isn't it funny the children that are further away we don't think about as much?”: Using GPS to explore the mobilities and geographies of social work and child protection practice

Author

Listed:
  • Disney, Tom
  • Warwick, Lisa
  • Ferguson, Harry
  • Leigh, Jadwiga
  • Cooner, Tarsem Singh
  • Beddoe, Liz
  • Jones, Phil
  • Osborne, Tess

Abstract

Social work is an inherently mobile and spatial profession; child protection social workers travel to meet families in diverse contexts, such as families' homes, schools, court and many more. However, rising bureaucracy, managerialism and workloads are all combining to push social workers to complete increasing volumes of work outside their working hours. Such concerns lead to the perception that social workers are increasingly immobilised, finding themselves desk-bound and required to spend much of their working day navigating time-consuming computer systems. This immobilisation of social workers has considerable implications, restricting professionals' abilities to undertake the face-to-face work required to build relationships with families. However, until now, the actual movements of social workers, and how (lack of) movement affects ability to practice, remain unknown. In this paper we report on innovative research methods using GPS [Global Positioning System] devices that can trace social workers' mobilities and explore the use of office space, home working and visits to families in two English social work departments. This article presents unique findings that reveal how mobile working is shaping social care practitioner wellbeing and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Disney, Tom & Warwick, Lisa & Ferguson, Harry & Leigh, Jadwiga & Cooner, Tarsem Singh & Beddoe, Liz & Jones, Phil & Osborne, Tess, 2019. "“Isn't it funny the children that are further away we don't think about as much?”: Using GPS to explore the mobilities and geographies of social work and child protection practice," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 39-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:100:y:2019:i:c:p:39-49
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.02.029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918310880
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.02.029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mimi Sheller & John Urry, 2006. "The New Mobilities Paradigm," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(2), pages 207-226, February.
    2. Tanu Priya Uteng, 2009. "Gender, Ethnicity, and Constrained Mobility: Insights into the Resultant Social Exclusion," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(5), pages 1055-1071, May.
    3. Lynne J. Millward & S. Alexander Haslam & Tom Postmes, 2007. "Putting Employees in Their Place: The Impact of Hot Desking on Organizational and Team Identification," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 547-559, August.
    4. Barry Brown & Kenton O'Hara, 2003. "Place as a Practical Concern of Mobile Workers," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(9), pages 1565-1587, September.
    5. David Bissell, 2008. "Comfortable Bodies: Sedentary Affects," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(7), pages 1697-1712, July.
    6. Tom Disney, 2017. "The orphanage as an institution of coercive mobility," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1905-1921, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bose, Pablo S., 2014. "Refugees in Vermont: mobility and acculturation in a new immigrant destination," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 151-159.
    2. Lucas, Karen, 2012. "Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 105-113.
    3. Budd, Lucy C.S., 2011. "On being aeromobile: airline passengers and the affective experiences of flight," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 1010-1016.
    4. François-Xavier de Vaujany & Nathalie Mitev & Sytze Kingma, 2018. "Proceedings of the 8th Organizations, Artifacts and Practices Workshop, New Ways of Working (NWW): Rematerializing Organizations in the Digital Age. 20nd - 22th June 2018 Amsterdam," Post-Print halshs-01818149, HAL.
    5. Dominique Laousse & Sophie Hooge, 2015. "Innovative urban temporalities: conceptive and generative temporal regimes," Post-Print hal-01174923, HAL.
    6. Huib Ernste & Henk Van Houtum & Annelies Zoomers, 2009. "Trans‐World: Debating The Place And Borders Of Places In The Age Of Transnationalism," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 100(5), pages 577-586, December.
    7. Lin, Weiqiang, 2014. "The politics of flying: aeromobile frictions in a mobile city," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 92-99.
    8. Dominic Villeneuve & David Durán-Rodas & Anthony Ferri & Tobias Kuttler & Julie Magelund & Michael Mögele & Luca Nitschke & Eriketti Servou & Cat Silva, 2019. "What is Interdisciplinarity in Practice? Critical Reflections on Doing Mobility Research in an Intended Interdisciplinary Doctoral Research Group," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, December.
    9. Martin, Craig, 2011. "Desperate passage: violent mobilities and the politics of discomfort," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 1046-1052.
    10. Hjalager, Anne-Mette, 2010. "A review of innovation research in tourism," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-12.
    11. Champion, Tony & Shuttleworth, Ian, 2015. "Is internal migration slowing? An analysis of four decades of NHSCR records for England and Wales," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64617, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Pronello, Cristina & Camusso, Cristian, 2011. "Travellers’ profiles definition using statistical multivariate analysis of attitudinal variables," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 1294-1308.
    13. Lyons, Glenn & Jain, Juliet & Weir, Iain, 2016. "Changing times – A decade of empirical insight into the experience of rail passengers in Great Britain," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 94-104.
    14. Mahbubur Meenar & Bradley Flamm & Kevin Keenan, 2019. "Mapping the Emotional Experience of Travel to Understand Cycle-Transit User Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-21, August.
    15. Maira Worek & Barbara Covarrubias Venegas & Sonja Thury, 2019. "Mind Your Space! Desk Sharing Working Environments and Employee Commitment in Austria," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 83-97.
    16. Chengliang Liu & Qinchang Gui, 2016. "Mapping intellectual structures and dynamics of transport geography research: a scientometric overview from 1982 to 2014," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(1), pages 159-184, October.
    17. Gustafson, Per, 2012. "Managing business travel: Developments and dilemmas in corporate travel management," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 276-284.
    18. Aimée A. Kane, 2010. "Unlocking Knowledge Transfer Potential: Knowledge Demonstrability and Superordinate Social Identity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(3), pages 643-660, June.
    19. Wu, Yue-Fang & Hannam, Kevin & Xu, Hong-Gang, 2018. "Reconceptualising home in seasonal Chinese tourism mobilities," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 71-80.
    20. Pappas, Nikolaos & Papatheodorou, Andreas, 2017. "Tourism and the refugee crisis in Greece: Perceptions and decision-making of accommodation providers," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 31-41.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:100:y:2019:i:c:p:39-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.