Exploring the Development of Professional Identity with Newly Qualified Social Workers

This paper discusses the experiences of newly qualified social workers as part of a research project exploring professional identity. Drawing on literature in this area and a subset of data from a larger study involving Australian practitioners, it is argued that while several studies explore experiences of identity, the phenomenon remains under-researched, especially in Australia. Seventeen people participated in three in-depth, semistructured interviews across a 12-month period. A subset of the data explores how participants were actively motivated and benefitted from reflecting on their identities through the research process. Findings indicate newly qualified social workers appreciate meaningful opportunities to critically reflect upon their social work identities. It is concluded that further research is needed, to understand the identities and needs of newly qualified social workers in Australia.     

Social Workers as Boundary Spanners: Reframing our Professional Identity for Interprofessional Practice

One of the more difficult tasks for social work educators is socializing students into a professional identity. Social identity theory provides a lens to consider what is needed for a social work identity that will continue to be salient for students as they move into practice. Framing social workers as boundary spanners might offer students a professional identity that is congruent with core values, reflects what social workers do and places less emphasis on old debates about the profession. It also positions students well for work in the increasingly interprofessional realms of health and social care. I consider how social workers are well equipped to meet the demand created by ‘joined-up working’ for people with boundary-spanning expertise. Seeing ourselves as boundary spanners is one way to reconcile our professional and interprofessional identities, thereby increasing the chances that our students will continue to identify as social workers when they move into interprofessional practice.     

Professional Identity for Clinical Social Workers: Impact of Changes in Health Care Delivery Systems

The recent rapid changes in funding and delivery of mental health services have impacted professional identity for social workers. A study of 127 clinical social workers in 3 different practice settings explored the sense of fit between personal and professional values: How much are they in concert and how much are they in conflict? Social workers described values in their own words. The sense of strain between values varied according to workplace setting. Implications for theory, research, practice, and training are discussed.     

Surviving Hegemony Through Resistance and Identity Articulation Among Outreaching Social Workers

An understanding of outreaching social work in Hong Kong is viable through an analysis of discourses constructed and experienced by social workers. The discourses address hegemony by the government and consent, resistance, and identity arising from social workers. These discourses were the focus of the present study, which relied on repeated in-depth interviews with 20 practitioners in the outreaching social work field. The results give insight in three main ways: they unfold the discourses of hegemony and consent in terms of effectiveness, accountability, and social control; they address the discourses of resistance in terms of incompatibility, social defense, and others; and they examine professional identity in terms of respect for self-determination, relationship building, youth development, and unionization. All the discourses and identities emerged from a process of international spillover. Moreover, the study found that social workers realized that the hegemonic crisis triggered identity development because of the need to preserve the profession. The study implies that the social work profession has high levels of commitment and internationalization, both of which help proliferate the profession.     

Supervisor Intervention with Troubled Workers: A Social Identity Perspective

Supervision has evolved from managing anddirecting workers to supporting workers. Supervisors arekey people that workers go to for assistance withpersonal problems. This article reviews thecontributions of various theoretical models to ourunderstanding of supervisor intervention with troubledworkers and identifies factors that have been leftunexplored in the research. From this analysis, Iexplain how social identity theory may provide a frameworkthat overcomes many of the limitations of the existingknowledge in this area. Social identity theory has thepotential to capture the more personal aspects of the helping process between supervisors andworkers that go beyond workers job performance andproductivity, including supervisors beliefs andattitudes, personal experiences, and socialidentification with the organization and the workgroup.     

A Conceptual Framework for the Professional Socialization of Social Workers

With the Council on Social Work Education revised Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, professional socialization has become a matter of policy. The social work literature is characterized by a dearth of conceptual models and systematic research regarding professional socialization. The conceptual framework for the professional socialization of social workers presented herein provides a discrete definition and clarifies what was formerly an ambiguous understanding of the elements of professional socialization. Potential applications of this framework include its use as a foundation for systematic research and a bridge between competencies and signature pedagogy and in informing field instructor training and the integration of theory and practice for students and practitioners.     

Insights on Professional Identification and Licensure from Community Practice Social Workers

ABSTRACT

This article describes a qualitative study designed to explore both how community practice social workers identify professionally and to examine their view towards professional regulation. Thirty-five MSW-level social workers in a large metropolitan region who self-identified as community practice social worker participated in in-depth interviews. The respondents shared their views regarding professional identification as social workers and the impact of professional identity on their work as community practitioners. Approximately half of the respondents indicated that they only sometimes or never identify as a social worker. The respondents were generally critical of the licensing burden placed upon them as community practice social workers.     

Transition and Adjustment to Professional Identity as a Newly Qualified Social Worker

This article discusses the lived experience of professional identity during the transition from student to newly qualified practitioner. Current literature emphasises the first year of practice as an important time of transition to a job-role as student social workers move into postqualification practice. However, little research has explored how professional identity is experienced during this significant transition period. A phenomenological research project was undertaken with 17 newly qualified social workers in Australia. Three in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with each participant across the first 12 months postqualification period. Participants described how they resolved personal, relational, and professional questions about becoming and being a qualified social worker. The findings indicate a need for educators, employers, supervisors and the profession to consider how to better integrate professional identity within curricula, policy, and systems of support, including supervision.     

Migration of Professional Social Workers: Reflections on Challenges and Strategies for Education

International migration of social workers has had, in recent years, a substantial influence on the political agenda of different countries in the world, and is fraught with challenges. In some countries, recruitment of internationally qualified social workers has even become an important strategy to meet staffing demands and to fill shortages in the social work profession. This paper aims to promote debate on the key role of social work educators in assisting social work students and practitioners to practise within both a national and an international context, by reflecting on specific practice examples from Canada, England and South Africa. We explore challenges, as well as possible strategies for adaptation in new contexts, such as the facilitation of additional training, globally comparable social work programmes, and the development of a stronger professional identity, based on integrated social work values. We conclude that by enabling a stronger professional identity through the development of professional virtues, social workers will be empowered to become more confident practitioners and internationally more adaptable.     

Advocating the Clinical Social Work Professional Identity: A Biographical Study

Aiming to portray the clinical social work (CSW) professional identity, the present biographical study examines the CSW knowledge and practice domain boundaries as they appear from the perspectives of three Greek mental health social workers who have advocated for the professionalization of CSW. The practitioners' perspectives are studied in relation to their demographic characteristics, education and training, and multidisciplinary relationships. A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed that these practitioners retained their nuclear social work identity and felt their skills and interests to be different from those endorsed by the present generic social work education and practice system. The study also revealed differences in the educational qualifications and routes that each of the three practitioners followed in order to be able to identify themselves as ‘clinical social workers’. Although the common denominator in the practitioners' perspectives was their training in psychotherapy, the type of psychotherapy training pursued and the experience of personal psychotherapy differentiated each practitioner's ability to theorize on the CSW practice identity. The research data were filtered through a psychodynamic lens to reveal the dynamics of the unconscious processes within the relationships formed between individuals and organizations.     

Identity and Self-Presentation in the House/Ball Culture: A Primer for Social Workers

Members of the house/ball subculture, a segment of the population of young men and transgendered people of color who have sex with men in the United States, are examined in relationship to self-identity and presentation. To enhance cultural awareness and understanding for helping professionals, historical backdrop, categories of identity, theoretical applications, and insight concerning the social network and fluidity of self within the house/ball community are described and examined. Case illustrations demonstrate the importance of cultural competence concerning this marginalized population, especially when considering HIV prevention and care, health disparities, violence, and poverty.     

Social Workers and PACs

Abstract

This paper examines the role of state Political Action for Candidate Election committees during the 1992 election cycle and assesses the extent that these state committees carried out their identified purpose. Using a survey questionnaire of the state chapters' executive directors, the authors examine the structure of the P.A.C.E. units and the activities they undertook, and assess the overall level of effectiveness of P.A.C.E. efforts at the state level. While P.A.C.E. activities were significant, considerable development is needed at the local, state, and national levels to increase the impact of social workers relative to other interest groups.     

Social Workers and Fortune-tellers

Today, it is not uncommon for people in difficult situations to consult fortune-tellers but they do not necessarily tell their social worker — who also may not ask. Past predictions can be a powerful unspoken influence affecting current behaviour.     

Mission Possible; Building Social Work Professional Identity through Fieldwork Placements in China

Social work training programmes in China have increased rapidly in the last decade. Their growth mirrors the increase in social problems that China faces as its economy develops and the disparities between rich and poor multiply. There is little recognition either by the government or citizens of the profession of social work and so no clear idea of what it might achieve. Thus the development of social work in China faces many difficulties among which is a dearth of professionally qualified social workers to teach, and to supervise fieldwork placements. This paper discusses a collaborative MSW programme between the University of Hong Kong and Fudan University in Shanghai. It analyses the growth in professional identity of nine students in the programme undertaking their first supervised fieldwork placement in Shanghai. They were asked to write 500‐word statements before and after their placement about their understanding of the role of social workers and their sense of professional identity. An analysis of these statements forms the basis of this article. The article addresses the issue of whether the construction of a professional identity will rest with members of the embryonic profession or with government bureaucrats largely concerned with the maintenance of stability and the management of social change.     

A Study of Work Participation by Graduate Female Social Workers: Some Implications for Professional Social Work Training

Work participation of graduate women social workers, 40 to 60 years old was studied. The average extent of work for the total group was 61 percent of the time since graduation. Extent of work was related to marital status and to the sequence of marriage and social work training. Teenage committment to work had no effect on the extent of work later in life. Higher work rates were associated with more advanced age, fewer children, and more work experience in the pregraduate period Remedial activities at the community, school, agency, and student levels that begin at the time of professional education and could help increase the extent of work activity are discussed in this paper.     

Actors in Search of a Character: Student Social Workers' Quest for Professional Identity

This article presents a case study of the professional socialization of neophyte social workers. Drawing primarily upon interviews of the 14 members of a senior class in an accredited social work program, the article presents an analysis of student interns' attempts to dramatically realize the occupational identity of social worker. Contrasts between their experiences and the experiences of student doctors are stressed in order to illustrate the reflexive relationship between the historical and the biographical processes of professionalization.     

Engineering Identity: Gender and Professional Identity Negotiation among Women Engineers

This article considers how women in a gendered profession, engineering, construct their professional identity in response to workplace interpersonal interactions that marginalize it. Using data from interviews with women engineers, it also explores how these interactions influence the engineers' sense of self and belonging in engineering. The interpersonal interactions place professional identity on the periphery and can overly validate gender identity. I discuss two types of identity construction strategies employed by the participants in response to these marginalizing interactions: impression management tactics and coping strategies. Although the data demonstrate that participants may be left feeling devalued or ambivalent towards their identity or fit in engineering, some interactions are more validating and offer a sense of belonging. This article also reflects on how the engineers' actions may, in fact, represent forces for change in the gendered culture of engineering.