‘Proud of what I do but often … I would be happier to say I drive trucks’: Ambiguity in social workers’ self-perception

Abstract

A public perception of social work research programme commenced 10 years after the introduction of limited professional registration of social workers in New Zealand. A first study explored public perceptions of social workers via a telephone survey. In a second study, social workers were asked, amongst other questions, how they thought the public would respond to the same questions about their profession that were asked in the first survey. An online survey accessed the views of 403 social workers and generated rich quantitative and qualitative responses, including to two very specific open questions (the focus of this article), first about social workers’ expression of pride and second, felt stigma as potentially encountered in their professional and personal domains. These two concepts, pride and stigma, constitute organising constructs in this article, along with aspects of professional identity expressed in participants’ imagining of the public view: ambivalence, hard work, difficult journeys, professional virtues, and being misunderstood. The complexity of a social work professional identity is further examined.

Pogledi na strokovno identiteto in njeno oblikovanje v času izobraževanja na Fakulteti za socialno delo Univerze v Ljubljani

“…Tako socialne delavke in delavci opravljajo različne delovne naloge v mnogih organizacijah, kot so centri za socialno delo, bolnišnice, osnovne šole, vrtci, domovi za stare in drugi socialnovarstveni zavodi, varne hiše, nevladne organizacije. Čeprav je to lahko razumljeno kot prednost socialnega dela, saj lahko v različnih okoljih prispeva tisto, kar v njih manjka (Flaker, 2010), pa številni avtorji in avtorice poudarjajo, da to hkrati pripomore k pomanjkanju prepoznavnih temeljnih značilnosti stroke tako v doživljanju socialnih delavk in delavcev samih kot tudi v očeh strokovne in širše javnosti (Loseke in Cahill, 1986;Zufferey, 2011;Beddoe, Staniforth in Fouché, 2019, gl. tudi Bardmann, 1996.…”

“…Novejše raziskave (npr. Weiss, Gal in Cnann, 2004;Sha, Wong, Lou, Pearson in Gu, 2012;Wiles, 2017;Beddoe, Staniforth in Fouché, 2019) kažejo, da je poleg problematike pomanjkanja prepoznavnih temeljnih značilnosti stroke socialnega dela in oteženega razmejevanja od drugih sorodnih strok ključna ovira pri vzpostavljanju strokovne identitete vpliv nacionalnega, socialnega in ekonomsko-političnega konteksta. Zaradi delovanja na različnih področjih naj bi bila vloga stroke socialnega dela v javnem sektorju pogosto nejasna, hkrati pa naj ne bi bilo razvidnosti dejanskih odgovornosti, ki jih imajo zaposleni.…”

What creates the public’s impression of social work and how can we improve it?

“…Olin (2013: 93) asserted that "a positive image is important to the vitality, effectiveness, acceptance, and funding of the profession." Public perception of the profession is likely to impact upon its ability to attract social workers to the field (Legood et al, 2016) and negative public perception can impact on the identity, esteem and likely practice of social workers (Beddoe et al, 2019;Legood et al, 2016).…”

Public trust of social workers in Sweden: A repeated cross-sectional study

“…Public distrust can also reduce the chances that social services programmes will gain support (Reid & Misener, 2003), and complicate recruitment of staff (Gibelman, 2004; Legood et al, 2016). Furthermore, trust is an essential condition for social workers to establish a professional mandate, not only in relation to the public but also in relation to other professionals (Beddoe et al, 2019).…”