Social Workers' and Service Users' Causal Attributions for Poverty (Report‪)‬

A major portion of social work practice worldwide consists of the provision of services to people with needs and problems associated with living in poverty (Elliott, 1997; Healy, 2001; Hokenstad, Khinduka, & Midgley, 1992; Jones, 2002). These problems include insufficient financial resources to meet basic needs, underaccess to social goods; marginalization, oppression, and social exclusion; and feelings of shame, humiliation, and powerlessness (Beresford, Green, Lister, & Woodward, 1999; Lister, 2004). Among the factors that influence this practice are the perceptions of poverty and its causes that are held by a wide range of actors, including the general public and media, politicians, social and economic policymakers, social services management and supervisors, and social workers and service users themselves (Alcock, 1997; Bullock, 1995). The coming together of the various perceptions of the multiple actors creates a complex social discourse on poverty (Lister, 2004). This discourse not only shapes public perceptions of those living in poverty and the policies adopted toward them but also determines the contours of the professional encounter between social workers and service users who are living in poverty. It influences how social workers and their clients understand and define problems and the relevant strategies and intervention approaches for dealing with them (Bullock, 1995; Parsloe, 1990). Given the centrality of poverty and of the interaction between social work practitioners and service users to social work and its practice, this article explores social workers' and service users' attributions of the causes of poverty, with the aim of determining whether the participants in this interaction have similar views.