Frontline social workers' courses of action in casework settings : the relevance of personal background, professional training and practice environment

Abstract

Accountability in social work practice has become an important issue that social workers have to address. Social workers are expected to practice responsibly and professionally. This is a qualitative inquiry of social workers’ account of their lived experiences and direct practices. By adopting the Three ‘P’s Framework I had proposed, I focused on understanding and examining social workers’ experiences related to the three major domains, namely ‘Personal Background’, ‘Professional Training’ and ‘Practice Environment’. Twenty Hong Kong Registered Social Workers were interviewed. All of them had casework practice duties. A three-interview structure was adopted that allowed the research participants to revisit reflectively their personal biography and practice experiences in their own contexts. Rich and detailed data were obtained as a result. The narrative data were transcribed, and then, coded according to the Three ‘P’s Framework. Their stories exemplified the relevance of the three domains (Three ‘P’s) to social work practice. Twenty-one themes were identified and classified into the three domains. Each domain does not operate in isolation. Through trajectory analysis, the dynamic interplays of the three domains have been shown. The findings highlight the importance of social workers’ ‘selves’ in the social work intervention process and how their ‘selves’ relate to their professional training and practice environments. While social workers are affected by the three ‘P’s, they still can respond to such influences by exercising their own agentic selves. This study illuminates the understanding of the development of social workers and calls for more attention for the ‘soft’ human components in the social work sector. Social work educators should take into account not only the ‘professional training’ domain but also the ‘Personal Background’ and ‘Practice Environment’ domains. As good social workers should be self-sensitive, it is essential for social workers and social work students to gain an understanding of their ‘deep selves’. They should realize how their ‘selves’ affect their practices. Social work organizations should also adopt a bottom-up and informal CPD approach to support social workers to be reflective and reflexive.