Declassification of professional social workers: A personnel issue facing the human services

The author discusses the issue of declassification of professional social work positions within public service agencies. The manner in which declassification is occurring, the reasons for it, and some strategies to block the trend are presented. An underlying theme of the paper is that the core issue in declassificalion of professional social work positions is the profession's inability to define clearly its domain of expertise. From a personnel standpoint this relates to issues of job analysis and evaluation and the inability of professionals to establish the fact that their contribution to a social service agency is unique, and by implication superior, to that offered by individuals possessing different qualifications and/or experience.