A robust collective professional identity : the role of social work practice frameworks

A collective and robust professional identity helps distinguish social work from other helping professions. It also promotes a sense of belonging and professional purpose for practitioners. A collective sense of professional identity strengthens the influence of social work to achieve its aims; however, social workers practise in a neoliberal milieu. In this political climate, social work's influence and professional standing is being eroded and neoliberal processes, such as de-professionalisation and declassification, have increasingly obscured social work identities. In this thesis, I argue that a clearly identifiable, robust collective identity is essential if social work is to achieve a professional sense of purpose in the current political climate. In this qualitative study, I examined social work practice frameworks through an Assemblage Theory lens to understand their capacity to communicate social work's collective identity. Existing research has primarily examined practice frameworks relating to social work methods, skills and fields of practice, as well as textbooks and grey literature review frameworks for specific practice settings. However, there remains a need to scrutinise how social work practice frameworks can be used to represent the profession and strengthen recognition of the nature of social work. The background to the research examined codifying processes in the policies of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), the journal Australian Social Work, and Australian social work academic texts focusing specifically on social work practice terminology and descriptors. A review of this body of literature found vague terminology and inconsistent descriptors in the AASW polices, as well as a complete absence of journal articles discussing social work practice frameworks. In contrast, academic texts yielded more detailed information concerning social work practice frameworks, though information was also inconsistent when these texts addressed practice components and their assemblage. For this study, I interviewed eight social workers about their knowledge of and commitment to developing their social work practice frameworks, as well as their choice and assemblage of the components of those frameworks. Interview analysis indicated that codifying processes promoted an idiosyncratic approach to social work practice framework development. However, viewed through the lens of Assemblage Theory, an idiosyncratic approach weakens the capacity social work practice frameworks have for communicating social work's collective identity. Further, a vague approach seemed to reduce participants' confidence in their social work practice framework and its subsequent articulation to others, further weakening the framework's capacity for communicating participants' collective social work identity. My findings have informed the development of a social work practice framework model that has the potential to communicate a more robust collective identity while retaining the capacity to communicate practitioners' individual professional identities and their idiosyncratic practices. If social work is to increase its professional robustness in a neoliberal political climate, then a social work practice framework that facilitates the effective communication of social workers' individual identities, as well as the collective identity of the profession, is essential.