Continuing Professional Development: Standards And Practices In European Associations Of Social Work

Abstract

Pursuing professional development through continuing education in social work field, at any stage, is a principle and a practice that must be followed by each social worker that want to be fully equipped to assist, care and protect those in need. Continuing education is considered essential in providing quality social services for vulnerable individuals, families and groups, being one of the reasons why all the associations of social workers, from all over the world, have developed their own standards in this area. This paper wants to be a resource for social workers, by examining the standards and practices of continuing professional development (CPD), implemented by several European professional organizations in the field of social work. The content of nine professional organizations from Finland, Republic of Ireland, England and Romania websites was analysed and several standards on professional development, codes of ethics and codes of practice in the field, issued by those organizations, together with the literature in the field were studied. The findings show that in each country there are institutions that regulate profession of social work and support social workers engaging in continuing professional development, there are specific standards and legislation and own practices that can be followed, but there is a gap between European countries regarding the resources offered to social workers in accessing and recording their CPD activities, the number of credit points offered by regulating bodies and the cooperation between employers and social workers in supporting the latter accessing CPD.