Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T04:51:44.261Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

42 - Social Worker Decision-Making

A Framework for Legally Literate Accountable Practice

from Part V - Other Legal Decision-Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2024

Monica K. Miller
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Reno
Logan A. Yelderman
Affiliation:
Prairie View A & M University, Texas
Matthew T. Huss
Affiliation:
Creighton University, Omaha
Jason A. Cantone
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
Get access

Summary

Social workers make decisions every day involving the protection of children and/or adults who are at risk of, or are experiencing, abuse and neglect, exercising power and authority derived from law. Social workers must act within the law: “doing things right.” Accountable, legally literate practice additionally includes standards from administrative law when statutory duties are used. However, decision-making frequently also raises ethical dilemmas, including whether, when, and how to intervene in people’s lives. Practice must, therefore, be ethically literate: “doing right things.” Human rights, equality, and social justice issues will also feature in social work decision-making: “right thinking.” This chapter presents a framework for social worker decision-making that is legally and ethically, but also emotionally, relationally, organizationally and knowledge, literate. It proposes that this framework is transferable across the different jurisdictions within which social workers practice, and that it helps social workers to make good as well as lawful decisions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banks, S. (2013). Negotiating personal engagement and professional accountability: Professional wisdom and ethics work. European Journal of Social Work, 16(5), 587604. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2012.732931.Google Scholar
Bingham, T. (2011). The rule of law. Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. (1999). Accountability, administrative law and social work practice: Redressing or reinforcing the power imbalance? Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, 21(3), 235256. https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069908410571.Google Scholar
Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. (2006a). Broadening the vision: Law teaching, social work and civil society. International Social Work, 49(3), 376389. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872806063411.Google Scholar
Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. (2006b). The role of law in welfare reform: critical perspectives on the relationship between law and social work practice. International Journal of Social Welfare, 15(1), 1926. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2006.00603.x.Google Scholar
Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. (2016). Practising social work law (4th ed). Palgrave.Google Scholar
Braye, S. & Preston-Shoot, M. (2020). Legal literacy: Change project. Research in Practice.Google Scholar
Braye, S., Orr, D. and Preston-Shoot, M. (2013a). A scoping study of workforce development for self-neglect work. Skills for Care.Google Scholar
Braye, S., Preston-Shoot, M., Johns, R., Cull, L-A. & Roche, J. (2005). Knowledge review: Teaching, learning and assessment of law in social work education. Social Care Institute for Excellence.Google Scholar
Braye, S., Preston-Shoot, M. & Wigley, V. (2013b). Deciding to use the law in social work practice. Journal of Social Work, 13(1), 7595. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017311431476.Google Scholar
Brisebois, K., Kernsmith, P. D., & Idalski Carcone, A. (2013). The relationship between caseworker attitudes about kinship care and removal decisions. Journal of Family Social Work, 16(5), 403417. https://doi.org/10.1080/10522158.2013.832459.Google Scholar
Carpenter, J., Langan, J., Patsios, D. & Jepson, M. (2014). Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards: What determines the judgements of Best Interests Assessors? A factorial survey. Journal of Social Work, 14(6), 576593. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017313504180.Google Scholar
Carson, D. (2012). Reviewing reviews of professionals’ risk-taking decisions. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 34(4), 395409. https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2012.753729.Google Scholar
DeNard, C., Garcia, A., & Circo, E. (2017). Caseworker perspectives on mental health disparities among racial/ethnic minority youth in child welfare. Journal of Social Service Research, 43(4), 470486. https://doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2017.1299827.Google Scholar
DeRoma, V. M., Kessler, M. L., McDaniel, R., & Soto, C. M. (2006). Important risk factors in home-removal decisions: Social caseworker perceptions. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 23(3), 263277. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-006-0047-8.Google Scholar
Duffy, J. (2011). Explicit argumentation as a supervisory tool for decision making in child protection cases involving human rights issues. Practice, 23(1), 3144. https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2010.532546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmaliach-Mankita, H., Weiss-Gal, I. & Gal, J. (2019). Preparing social workers to affect policy: the parliament as a venue for training. Social Work Education, 38(4), 530543. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2018.1542423.Google Scholar
Everson, M. D., & Sandoval, J. M. (2011). Forensic child sexual abuse evaluations: Assessing subjectivity and bias in professional judgements. Child Abuse & Neglect, 35(4), 287298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.01.001.Google Scholar
Hope-Hailey, V. Searle, R. & Dietz, G. (2012). Where has all the trust gone? Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.Google Scholar
International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW] & International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW] (2014). Global definition of social work. IFSW.Google Scholar
Lynch, D. & Forde, C. (2016). “Moral distress” and the beginning practitioner: Preparing social work students for ethical and moral challenge in contemporary contexts. Ethics and Social Welfare, 10(2), 94107. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2016.1155634.Google Scholar
Mason, B. (2019). Re-visiting safe uncertainty: Six perspectives for clinical practice and the assessment of risk. Journal of Family Therapy, 41(3), 343356. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.12258.Google Scholar
Morrison, T. (2007). Emotional intelligence, emotion and social work: context, characteristics, complications and contribution. British Journal of Social Work, 37(2), 245263. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcl016.Google Scholar
Munro, E. (2010). Learning to reduce risk in child protection. British Journal of Social Work, 40(4), 11351151. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcq024.Google Scholar
Munro, E. (2012). The Munro review of child protection. Progress report: Moving towards a child centred system. The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life (1995). The seven principles of public life. The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
O’Connor, L. and Leonard, K. (2014). Decision-making in children and families social work: The practitioner’s voice. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 18051822. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bct051.Google Scholar
Pedersen, M. J., Stritch, J. M., & Thuesen, F. (2018). Punishment on the frontlines of public service delivery: Client ethnicity and caseworker sanctioning decisions in a Scandinavian welfare state. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28(3), 339354. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muy018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillippo, K. L., Kelly, M. S., Shayman, E., & Frey, A. (2017). School social worker practice decisions: The impact of professional models, training, and school context. Families in Society, 98(4), 275283. https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.2017.98.40.Google Scholar
Pike, L. and Wilkinson, K. (2013). How to get Learning into Practice. Research in Practice for Adults.Google Scholar
Preston-Shoot, M. (2010). On the evidence for viruses in social work systems: Law, ethics and practice. European Journal of Social Work, 13(4) 465482. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691450903471211.Google Scholar
Preston-Shoot, M. (2011). On administrative evil-doing within social work policy and services: law, ethics and practice. European Journal of Social Work, 14(2), 177194. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691450903471229.Google Scholar
Preston-Shoot, M. (2019). Making good decisions: Law for social work practice (2nd ed). Red Globe Press/Macmillan International.Google Scholar
Preston-Shoot, M., McKimm, J. & Thurnham, A. (2013). Outcomes of law teaching in social work education: Further findings from a cohort study. Social Work Education, 32(5), 607625. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2012.695344.Google Scholar
Preston-Shoot, M., Roberts, G. and Vernon, S. (2001) Values in social work law: strained relations or sustaining relationships? Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 20(2), 137150.Google Scholar
Sachs, A (2009). The strange alchemy of life and law. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Whittington, C. (1977). Social workers’ orientations: an action perspective. British Journal of Social Work, 7(1), 7395. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a056811.Google Scholar
Zifcak, S. (2009). Towards a reconciliation of legal and social work practice. In Swain, P. & Rice, S. (Eds.), In the shadow of the law: The legal context of social work practice (pp. 427438). The Federation Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×