Ambiguities in Decision Making: Social Work's Response to ‘Glue-Sniffing’ in Scotland

This paper examines how social workers make decisions about which cases of ‘glue-sniffing’ require intervention, in the context of a government policy which construes the problem primarily within the arena of parental responsibility. Using data from interviews with social workers and research on ‘glue-sniffing’, it shows that social workers were frequently reluctant to deal with cases. It explains that this has to do with factors such as organizational priorities, lack of resources and, in particular, the ambiguous status of ‘glue-sniffing’ within their own professional discourse. It concludes that the complex interplay of these factors means that government policy is not translated into practice in any simplistic manner.