‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’? Exploring Social Work’s Epistemic Contribution to Team-Based Health Care

Abstract

From its inception, the social work profession evolved in tandem with public health, and has historically contributed to public health efforts to restore, protect and promote public health principles. In recent times, however, the most prominent role for health-related social work is in hospital-based, multidisciplinary teams. Curiously, scant attention has been paid to the place of social workers’ knowledge—their ‘epistemic contribution’—within this medical context. This article reports the findings of a scoping review that examined the role and function of social work knowledge in healthcare teams. Thematic analysis of the literature revealed four key themes: (i) a lack of clarity and visibility—‘Ok, what is my role?’; (ii) knowledge Hierarchies—‘Jack of all trades and master of none’?; (iii) mediator and educator—‘Social work is the glue’ and (iv) public health principles—‘We think big’. Findings show that despite social work’s epistemic confidence, and alliance with broader public health principles and aims, its knowledge can be marginalised and excluded within the multidisciplinary team context. The article introduces Fricker’s theory of ‘Epistemic Injustice’ as a novel framework for inquiry into health care teams, and the mobilisation of social work knowledge within them.

Placing equity at the heart of eHealth implementation: a qualitative pilot study

“…Of interest, was the observation by one healthcare professional that eHealth technologies disturb the "etiquette" and "seriousness" of healthcare provision, suggesting that professional resistance to eHealth implementation may be driven not only by concerns about client risk and safety, but by a fundamental unease about the threat eHealth poses to the rituals, norms, and power structures inherent within traditional healthcare systems and processes. This finding is consistent with previous research, which highlights the professional cultures, power and sociohistorical forms of legitimacy that underpin healthcare systems, and that privilege certain views and approaches over others [37]. It highlights the critical need for implementation science to move beyond a basic focus on individual attitudes and beliefs about eHealth to illuminate the underlying forces; the social, historical, and cultural factors that determine which voices are privileged, and which are misrepresented, in the decision to use or refuse eHealth.…”

Strengthening the relationships between different parties: Boundary-spanning competencies in hospital social work

“…The first entailed ways of being sufficiently informed, being sensitive to different types of salient information from several sources and putting together information to get a clearer picture of a particular situation to act adequately. Although sharing information is identified as a social work competence (Bosma et al, 2010; Cootes et al, 2021), less is known about strategies on how to be informed. The findings thus contribute to specifying prerequisites to the competence of sharing information.…”

“…Social work involves relationships with individuals, between individuals, with individuals in groups, between individuals and organisations, and between organisations (Harsløf et al, 2017; Moon et al, 2019). In the health social work literature, the social worker’s role of strengthening the relationships between different parties has been expressed using different terms: broker (Craig and Muskat, 2013; Moore et al, 2017), glue (Cootes et al, 2021; Craig and Muskat, 2013), negotiator (Schot et al, 2020) and coordinator (Moore et al, 2017). Although these are recognised roles of hospital social workers (HSWs), the research literature has, to a limited degree, specified which competencies are prominent in fulfilling these roles or functions.…”

“…Although these are recognised roles of hospital social workers (HSWs), the research literature has, to a limited degree, specified which competencies are prominent in fulfilling these roles or functions. Despite a range of studies investigating professional competencies amongst HSWs (Bosma et al, 2010; Cootes et al, 2021; Nicholas et al, 2019), the specific competencies that HSWs need in order to coordinate, convey and translate information between different parties has received little attention. Therefore, the current study brings in Van Meerkerk and Edelenbos’ (2020) framework to contribute to understanding the boundary-spanning competencies needed by HSWs to conduct these professional activities, both in the context of acute and critical illness and beyond.…”

Indigenous social work with older persons: An international perspective

“…It is a perspective of the constructivist tradition in a post-modernist discourse. Knowledge mobilization approaches in social work have gained considerable attention, especially in practice involving multidisciplinary teams and work on transnational issues where differences across societies affect the way in which they are constructed (Cooke et al, 2021; Cootes et al, 2022; Das, 2020). In addition, if critical relevant knowledge for practices is not mobilized, social work could continue to suffer from an epistemic injustice in which its knowledge is marginalized and excluded from such contexts (Cootes et al, 2022).…”