Social Care Work in the Recent Past: Revisiting the Professional/Amateur Dichotomy

Social Work Education as Preparation for Practice: Evidence from a Survey of the New South Wales Community Sector

“…One important issue of contention has been the professional status and aspirations of social work (Healy & Lonne, 2010;McDonald & Jones, 2000). For example, one study has challenged social work's claims to distinctiveness, arguing that some groups of practitioners without formal qualifications, in this case Catholic Sisters, share many of the values and principles social work claims as its own (Hughes, 2008). In another study, social work education has been criticised for failing to develop graduates with a strong sense of self-efficacy as practitioners, with explicit criticism of the ''professional project'' in social work (McDonald, 2007), although other studies have drawn more optimistic conclusions (e.g., Agllias 2010).…”