7 - Valuing and Transgressing

Summary

Social workers frequently articulate the significance of their values to their professional identity/ies, collective and individual, as we saw in previous chapters. There have been many recent examinations of values and how these are (said to) underpin social workers’ and other health-and social-care professionals’ practice (see, for example, Hugman, 2005; Banks, 2012; Bell and Hafford-Letchfield, 2015). As we have already seen in earlier chapters, some commentators (for example, Clark, 2006) suggest that social work should be defined as a ‘moral’ activity, at least partly dependent on social workers’ own character(s) (see also Bisman, 2004; Holmstrom, 2014). Frequently mentioned values include commitments to taking action (often with other professionals) on behalf of disadvantaged or vulnerable people; for social workers specifically, professional commitments towards social justice (including equality and fairness) and human rights are significant (see, for example, O’Brien, 2011; Higgs, 2015). Some of my interviewees suggested, for example, that being non-judgemental was also important; an example given to me recently was of a social worker being inappropriately judgemental of a service user who was living in poverty and asking for a crisis loan by responding with the suggestion that she should first ‘turn off her television’ (presumably to save money).

I have identified a number of publications, for example, setting out the challenges of working effectively with communities in a globalised context (see, for example, Gray et al, 2008; Healey, 2008; Healey and Link, 2011). However, it seems to me that it is often difficult to pin down how social work values in support of social justice are translated into actual professional practice (see O’Brien, 2011; see also Chapter 8). Similarly, as we have already identified in Chapter 5, for example, there is a wider debate among social workers about how to link professional theory with practice, which is equally difficult to pin down.

Several of my recently interviewed informants were keen to discuss social work values, and all of these informants linked these to issues of social justice.