Seeing flowers through the mist: how social workers in disability services retrospectively view their educational experiences related to case management in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This article is principally designed to examine social workers’ retrospective views on their past educational experiences with case management in disability services to supply a deficiency that very little literature attention has been paid to how prior professional education shape their case management practice. Using qualitative methods, 13 social workers selected by purposive sampling were invited to participate in in-depth interviews. The qualitative data were analysed to generate some themes. Three themes found are “from ‘rarely heard of it’ to ‘remember it being referred to’”; “buy a lottery ticket before starting a field placement”; and “Ambiguity”. These themes indicate that social work education related to case management was lagging behind, which may exacerbate social work’s polarisation and lead to social workers’ confusion about their professionality. As a result, an urgent need for greater knowledge of case management in university education and in-service training should be addressed in Hong Kong.

本文主要目的是考察残障者个案管理服务中社会工作者对于以往教育经历的看法，以期弥补文献中有关社会工作者早期教育经验对个案管理实践影响之相关文献不足。本文运用质性研究方法及通过目的抽样，邀请了十三位社会工作者参与深度访谈，并基于对质性数据形成三个分析主题，分别是：“从’极少听到’到’记得有被提起’”； “实习前祈祷能够用到”；“模凌两可”。这些主题反映了社会工作教育中有关个案管理的教育是滞后的，这将有可能加剧社会工作的两极分化及导致社会工作者对于自身专业性认同的怀疑。因此，在香港，大学社会工作教育和在职培训中加强有关个案管理知识的教育培训迫在眉睫。

KEYWORDS:

• Case management
• social workers
• social work education
• disability services
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.