Social Work Education: International and local Perspective

Erasmus Mundus Programme – University of Turku, Finland

Shorena Sadzaglishvili, PhD, MSWIlia State University

Head of Master and Doctoral Programs in Social Work shorena_sadzaglishvili@iliauni.edu.ge

16.10.2015

PLAN• Social Work as a Science • Social work as a Professional Practice • Social Work as a Global Profession

Is Social Work a Science?

Brekke 2012, 2013; Sommerfeld, 2014; Marsh, 2012; Anastas, 2014; Shaw, 2014; Longhofer

and Floersch, 2012.

• Social work education has historically been grounded in professional practice; • Social work has no unique subject matter or methodology; • This profession is made up largely of master’s level practitioners who as a

group do not have the research sophistication that is found among doctoral graduates from other fields;

• Social workers have not contributed towards the scientific advances and evidence based treatments relevant to social work as much as other professionals such as psychologists, psychiatrists and sociologists;

e.g. The total number of social work journals and the impact factors of these journals indicate that social work’s contribution to the expanding social science knowledge based has relatively restricted. • Social work textbooks and journals exemplify the “piggyback” approach to

social work that is to embrace knowledge from any discipline relevant to profession that interferes with defining itself as a social science;

• Social work as a science is missing from social work’s mission statements, codes of ethics and accreditation documents.

Compare:

• American Psychological Association, the "APA seeks to advance psychology as a science, a profession, and as a means of promoting health, education, and human welfare.“

• National Association of Social Workers:Promote, develop, and protect the practice of social work and social workers; and Seek to enhance the effective functioning and well-being of individuals, families, and communities through its work and through its advocacy.

Whitaker, Weissmuller & Clark, 2006

42%

58%

US National Study of Licensed Social WorkersThere is a little evidence that practitioners see

themselves as scientific

58 % - self reported doing some research

The employment statistics shows a significant presence of social workers in health and human service jobs, whereas social work researchers account for less than 1% of all researchers actively involved in federally funded projects (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012)- Anastas, 2014

Gap between Science and Practice • Several national reports of the US indicated that there is a 20-year gap

between knowledge generated from the best clinical research and the utilization of that knowledge in health and mental health sectors (Brekke, Ell and Palinkas, 2007).

• Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) The goal of EBP is the integration of: (a) clinical expertise/expert opinion, (b) external scientific evidence, and (c) client/patient/caregiver perspectives to provide high-quality services reflecting the interests, values, needs, and choices of the individuals we serve.

• The association of evidence-based practice with a scientific paradigm can produce tension for social workers who recognize the importance of reflective, interpretive and humanist responses to the personal and social conditions encountered in practice (Plath, 2006).

• The notion of contradiction between evidence based practice and critical reflective practice in social work (Payne, 2002)

• It is associated with much older discussions related to the relationship between science and art in social work (Boehm, 1960).

Evidence based practice or Critical Reflective practice? Science or Art?

• The capacity to reflect on action • To engage in a process of continuous learning.• To pay critical attention to the practical values

and theories which inform everyday actions.

Kolb's Experiential Learnning Cycle

Top-down"” OR ” Bottom up” Approach

EBP provides Science informed practice: Scientific Practitioner? (Rosen, 1996)

Development and Implementation of evidence based or evidence supported practice interventions e.g. problem solving therapy, ACT, etc.

The development of social work science may cause a non-rational fear among social workers that social work “by becoming scientific” can lose its “heart” (Boehm, 1960).

Social work is An Applied Science:

• Interdisciplinary (several disciplines working jointly from their discipline-specific bases to integrate, combine, or synthesize perspectives, concepts, and/or theories to address a common problem) and

• Transdisciplinary (a collaboration between several academic disciplines and practitioners in professional fields outside academe to address a complex real-world problem) research.

• Integrating multidisciplinary knowledge in a transdisciplinary way.

• Social work as an integrative discipline provides new applications of existing theories (from social sciences and humanities) to problems in life and develops new social work integrative theories, “indigenous knowledges” (IFSW) and models and guides in solving critical social work problems.

• “Action Science” – Sommerfeld (2014). This approach of action science goes beyond evidence-based practice. It does not evolve from adding and meta-analyzing empirical data rather than it composes specific theories of action so called “technological knowledge” comprising of multidisciplinary knowledge (Sommerfeld, 2014). Treatment/Intervention Research Scientific Explanation how treatment affects the causal factors. ´How treatment works? Effectiveness

• “Translational Science” (Fong, 2012). Translational science takes both research informing practice competency and the practice informing research competency and operationalizes them to tie the researcher and the practitioner more closely together. The goal of translational science is to support research that will build the models and methods needed to bridge the science and service communities, and thereby directly affect the provision of services in all of these usual care settings across sectors and populations.

Community Based Participatory Research / Critical Action Research or Intervention Research

• Research informing practice competency• Practice informing research competency

Science, Research, University

Service Community,

Practice

Critical Action Research: This research-as-activism process leads to social change

• The study of marginalized, oppressed, disenfranchised, or disadvantaged populations—with the aim to promote social justice among these populations.

• Critical action researchers do this by questioning the social implications and moral issues of action and by seeking shared understanding of the social action.

• Critical action research takes the concept of knowledge-as-power, and equalizes the generation of, access to, and use of that knowledge.

• An ethical choice that gives voice to, and shares power with, previously marginalized and muted people.

• Action research is change oriented and accomplishes this by involving the people under study as co-researchers, thereby providing them with the tools to effect change themselves.

• The stakeholders (including research subjects or participants) of the research work with the researchers to define the problem and set the research agenda, find new ways of seeing the situation, and work toward solutions.

• The process empowers both the researchers and the research participants because the research effort allows discovery and exploration of power differentials in the research relationship as well as in the community under study.

• Critical action research follows a collaborative cycle between participants and researchers of reflecting, planning, acting, observing, reflecting, replanning, and so on. Recognizing and articulating a social problem.

Elizabeth DePoy and colleagues in 1999 suggested a model of critical action research that includes the following:

• Convening a steering committee from among all stakeholder groups• Identifying the scope of the research and the type of social change

desired• Selecting a collaborative research team• Training lay researchers on the research team in research methods• Designing the study, including research questions and methods• Conducting the study and analysis• Reporting the findings in accessible formats to all stakeholder groups• Acting on the findings by planning and following through with social

change• Identifying a steering committee for follow-up inquiry

The Markers of a Social Work Research

• It is consistent with social work’s core constructs, professional purpose and ethical code

• Systematic approach - contextual factors having critical role in realization of individual’s full potential (biopsychosocial and person-in-environment)

• It explicitly promotes social change and the social justice (empowerment, inclusion, reducing disease and increasing health) (Payne, 2006 )

Institutional Response to Development of Science of Social Work – Building Social Work Knowledge for Effective Services and Policies

• AASWSW - The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, 2009 Grand Challenge

• CSWE – Council of Social Work Education • GADE - the Group of Advancement of Doctoral Education in social work

(1970)• ANSWER - Action Network for Social Work Education and Research • SSWR - the Society for Social Work and Research • IFSW, IASSW• NASW etc. • Swiss Society of Social Work SSSW – (2006) the delegates of the Swiss

Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences unanimously elected the SSSW a new member of the Academy after having thoroughly evaluated the scientific performance of Swiss Social Work Science over the last 10 years . (2013)

Grand Challenges InitiativeRaising vital scientific questions ?

• Grand Challenges were announced on January 17, 2015 in New Orleans at the annual Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) Conferencehttp://aaswsw.org/grand-challenges-initiative/

• The Grand Challenges share a commitment to a strong scientific base; building on strengths of individuals, families, and communities;

• Grand Challenges will accelerate social innovations to address vexing problems in our society.

• To generate innovative scientific solutions, but also engage in policy development and other socio-political approaches to change.

• One of the aspirations of the Grand Challenges is to build a more cohesive society that fights exclusion and marginalization, creates a sense of belonging, promotes trust, and offers pathways for social and economic mobility for everyone.

Steps toward Social work as a Science: Georgia

• To strengthen social work doctoral education, to prepare high impact researchers, high quality social science research in line with academic standards;

• Acknowledgement of social work scientists within national academy of science;

• To develop intellectual scientific community at the University that will be able to undertake interdisciplinary and trans disciplinary research (Research Centers), to enhance academic environment (research culture) enabling successful collaborations between qualified scholars;

• Advocacy: social work research can be utilized in different sectors, to facilitate informed decision-making processes and bolster the country’s development. To encourage greater interaction between Georgian academic researchers, civil society/community members, and government policy makers;

• State Funding Institutions: Building social work knowledge for effective services and policies (e.g. NIMH, NIH, ASWR – Institute for Advancement of Social Work Research and etc.).

Social Work Professional Practice

• Implementation of Continuing Education Practices; • Professional Doctorate; DSW • Agency based research / Academy (Science,

Universitiy) and Practice (Agency) Collaboration; • Implementation of Translational science – to bridge

the science and service communities: (1) to speed the use of promising and evidence based practices (2) to train service researchers to develop and participate in interdisciplinary investigative teams;

• Include researchers in academic teaching process

Social Work as Global Profession

• Global social work should have its broader super national concerns and content – global issues are answered from the global perspective, but within the ecological contexts of each country.

• Cross national comparative social work and policy research. Methodological innovations and not simple comparison between social welfare systems.

• International social work experts – who possess a unique body of knowledge and skills that can positively effect the national and international social situation, especially in helping to find sustainable solutions to recurrent local, state, national and international social problems.