Social Work: Professional Development and Training

With the advent of the Australian Government Job-Ready Graduates Package and the recent campaign to #savesocialwork in Australia, it seems timely to consider the implications of this move for professional development and training. A large part of the social work response to the Higher Education reform has been to position social work as an allied health profession. This seems a good and somewhat pragmatic move. Social work programs have largely been moving into health faculties within Australian universities for decades now, despite band funding arrangements positioning social work subjects as Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. We might ask ourselves what such a move will do to us as a profession.

Health Professions Australia (2020) defines an allied health profession as:

having a direct patient care role and may have application to broader public health outcomes; a national professional organisation with a code of ethics/conduct and clearly defined membership requirements; university health sciences courses (not medical, dental or nursing) at AQF Level 7 or higher, accredited by their relevant national accreditation body; clearly articulated national entry level competency standards and assessment procedures; a defined core scope of practice; and robust and enforceable regulatory mechanisms.

Given this emphasis on patient care and the need for a defined core scope of practice, it is likely there will be impacts for higher education providers in terms of curricula. It will also provide a challenge for our accrediting body in Australia because for a profession with a diverse set of practice fields, it will be no mean feat to describe the scope of social work practice. Therefore, it seems to me that the move to conceive social work as an allied health profession raises again the issue of the breadth, depth, and scope of contemporary social work knowledge and practice. Recall that the definition of social work adopted by the Australian Association of Social Workers is the Global Definition of Social Work:

Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing. (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014)

How will we as a profession imagine, develop, and maintain the depth and breadth of scope in social work practice in the face of the temptation to neoliberal instrumentalism? Such questions are not new. Swain’s (2017) reflection on social work via the annual Norma Parker Address outlined various debates and concerns raised about the impact of changing economic and social policy on service delivery and how this ever-changing environment affects the status of social work as a profession. This move to allied health may address these issues, as social work is likely to experience the need for a larger focus on research as a way of producing evidence for social work interventions. One outcome of this move may also see social work in Australia experience a more intense focus on professional development post-qualification.

This somewhat prescient Issue of Australian Social Work (January, 2021) is a themed issue with a focus on professional development and training, including articles that run the gamut from education through to professional training. Interest in post-qualifying professional development, including further study, is likely to be laid down in experiences in social work education (Jivanjee et al., 2015). A number of articles in this Issue have examined aspects of social work education. A scoping review of online social work education by Afrouz and Crisp (2021) outlined the evidence for its effectiveness as a pedagogical strategy. Hodgson et al. (2021) discussed the need for more research on doctoral education in Australia, as a first step towards strengthening social work engagement in research training. Newton (2021) offered a deeply reflective and moving discussion about the needs of Aboriginal scholars and teachers in the academy, arguing for departments of social work to pay more attention to supporting Aboriginal staff and offering practical strategies for creating collaborative learning environments founded on respect and mutuality. Fostering rich engagement with cultural and other differences (Wonson et al., 2021) placed the discussion within the context of short-term study abroad programs. These authors highlight the potential for these programs to make an important contribution to student enrichment, while also drawing attention to significant barriers for some students in participating in them.

A number of articles present research on professional development emerging in a range of practice fields. Supervision as a workforce retention strategy is considered in research by Cortis et al. (2021), while Ling et al. (2021) outlined the use of common humanity scenarios in professional training as a route to promoting empathic concern in practitioners. Research on rural, regional, and remote social work practitioner access to continuing professional development was explored by Hudson et al. (2021), who found that “workload and time constraints coupled with distance from the location of [continuing professional development] combine to create significant challenges for social workers in attending training” (p. 31). Likewise, Cleak et al. (2021) advocated for sustained attention to ensuring that health workers, in particular allied health and nursing staff, are offered domestic and family violence (DFV) training because it has been well established that health professionals constitute an important first response for victims of DFV.

This Issue also includes contributions to the COVID-19 Knowledge Exchange Project, submitted in response to the Editor’s recent call for articles outlining practitioners’ responses to the pandemic. Christine Vo’s reflection focuses on the adaptive measures taken in an intensive care unit, while two other contributions discuss social work practice in the context of working with patients in oncology: Jo Di Ciero outlines the need for a strong presence, both physical and remote, as a way of supporting families experiencing isolation and separation during the pandemic; and Sonia Boparai, Jenna Carrigg, Cynthia Holland, Caitlin Kennedy, Fiona Nguyen, Tee Pham, and Birsen Sozer describe the social work response in oncology where the epicentre of the Victorian COVID-19 outbreak occurred. Of note is the impact on culturally and linguistically diverse families. Suzanne Edelmaier reflects on practices of home visiting within the context of a community rehabilitation program affected by COVID-19, highlighting the adaptive capabilities of social workers. These knowledge-exchange articles point to social work values as crucial for ensuring patient-centred care, even under pandemic conditions, and may be a pathway to future research into the effects of the pandemic on social work practice.

Whatever the current policy exigencies, changing practices, and higher education environments might mean for the future, the theme that most strongly emerges from these contributions from social work research and practitioner commentary is professional commitment to self-determination, social justice, and the human rights of the people we serve. Social work can, and no doubt will, make a home for itself among the allied health professions but we will need to continue to draw on knowledge from the arts, humanities, and social sciences because this offers us the widest repertoire of understanding about the human condition. We will need to continue to develop and hold onto our own norms of scholarship and evidence, privileging the knowledge of people who experience violence, poverty, structural inequality, racism, and mental distress in order to support practices of recognition and respect. Social work may act as an influencer, a bridge, and an ambassador across disciplinary differences as opportunities for collaboration and new ways of learning emerge. If we can hold to these values and practices then we might also preserve the depth and breadth of social work knowledge and skills.