Investigating the quality of social work. An experience of self-assessment with Italian social workers

Abstract

Evaluating the quality of social work practice is becoming increasingly important for various reasons, among which are changes in the welfare system and the reduction of resources. Meanwhile, it is acknowledged that evaluating the quality of social work is a highly complex task. Different meanings are attributed to the concept of quality and the concept of quality in itself is linked to the notion of social work identity, nature and aims, which is an object in transition. Although performance appraisal systems are spreading, a common understanding about what is ‘good social work practice’ is lacking, also within the professional community. In Italy, social workers seem missing in the arena of investigating and indicating which criteria can be used to evaluate social work practice. To counteract this weakness, a participative research-intervention project was developed from 2006 to 2011, aimed at supporting social workers in evaluating their work. During workshops with practitioners a self-evaluation tool was designed by means of asking social workers for the possible criteria to be used to define ‘good social work practice’. This paper presents the structure and methods adopted throughout such project, focusing on both the self-assessment questionnaire and the emerging notions of quality of social work.

La valutazione nel servizio sociale sta diventando sempre più rilevante a causa della contrazione delle risorse e dei profondi cambiamenti in atto nei sistemi di Welfare. Allo stesso tempo si riconosce la complessità della valutazione nel servizio sociale, dovuta sia ai diversi significati che vengono attribuiti al concetto di qualità da parte dei diversi soggetti che hanno interesse agli interventi sia al fatto che la valutazione della qualità è strettamente legata al concetto di identità del servizio sociale, concetto mobile e connesso ai diversi contesti sociali. A fronte di una sempre più ampia diffusione di sistemi di valutazione, la comunità professionale degli assistenti sociali sembra incerta nell'assumere la sfida di indicare i criteri utilizzabili per definire la qualità della pratica del servizio sociale. Per contribuire a questa colmare questa carenza, si presenta un progetto di ricerca intervento sviluppatosi negli anni 2006–2011, volto a sostenere gruppi di assistenti sociali nella costruzione e utilizzo di uno strumento di valutazione. L'articolo presenta sia il metodo usato sia la struttura del questionario. Facendo riferimento all'esperienza di uno di questi gruppi, viene discusso sia l'uso di uno strumento strutturato sia l'individuazione dei criteri individuati per descrivere la qualità del servizio sociale.

Keywords:

• Social work evaluation
• self-evaluation
• social work quality
• participative evaluation
• reflexivity

Parole chiave:

• Valutazione del servizio sociale
• qualità del servizio sociale
• auto-valutazione
• valutazione partecipata
• riflessività

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the guest editors and anonymous reviewers whose helpful suggestions and comments led to decisive improvements in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Teresa Bertotti, PhD, is an assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Milano Bicocca, Italy. She is experienced in direct work with families, managing child protection services and innovative projects. She has been actively involved in professional training and developed research studies on social work practice, social work evaluation and social services organisations, mainly in the field of child and family services. She is currently a member of the Executive Board of the European Association of school of Social Work (EASSW). Her research interests include evaluation, social workers’ competences and professionals’ relationships with organisations.

ORCID

Teresa Bertotti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3670-0709

Notes

1. The Italian laws provide two levels of University qualification: an undergraduate three-year course, which provide the title of ‘simple’ social worker (type B) or a two-years master's degree course as a ‘specialized social worker’ (type A).

2. The team that developed this project consists of Ugo De Ambrogio, Ariela Casartelli, Francesca Merlini and the author.

3. SWOT analysis is generally associated with strategic planning and is used in organisational science. Although it can be seen as distant to social work the general approach appeared to be valid.

4. The questions used to check how far the social worker was practicing these indications were mainly self-evaluating questions, or asking for a graduation, thus creating a space of reflection related to professional actions. As an example, for the relational item quoting ‘is able to identify resource and capabilities of users', the question asked to state in a four steps scale ‘how often do I devote specific attention to users’ resources' (very frequently, quite frequently, rarely, never). Or as another example, the indicator of the organisational criterion ‘being informed on the most important laws on its field of action' asked if the practitioners have a quick possibility to consult bylaws and legal references (paper or virtual materials).

5. During the research project, nine different sets of evaluative criteria were defined, one for each workshop, and around 150 compiled questionnaires were collected.