Talk:Social work
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is supported by the Sociology WikiProject, which gives a central approach to Sociology and related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article Social work, or visit the project page for more details on the projects. |
| Start | This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. |
| High | This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale. |
Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. In case of need for further archiving, see Wikipedia talk:How to archive a talk page.
Previous discussions:
- Archive 1 (2001 to March 2005) - Disscussion on how to define Social Worker and to what extent extreme or unprofessional behaviour should be included in the entry. The user Clutch who was at the centre of the debate appears to have been banned - at least for the time being.
=Addition Requests
think we should take a look at the physician page There is a section on training and regulation that we should add and move things into. I also messed around and tried to organize the activities of SW section... feel free to modify as neccessary - but I think we need some sort of organization. Graniterock 07:35, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] North American Bias
If anybody has knowledge of Social Work from an International Context please add away. I know there is great diversity in the profession yet this article is very Clinically focused and ignores much of the community development / activist orientations that exist in many places around the title. I had a friend once tell me not to ID myself as a Social Worker in certain countries as they think of you as a troublesome activist (although not all activists are troublesome IMHO)
- I have made a few structural changes to the article and removed a bit of repetition, but feel that this is only really a start in sorting the page out. I hope to do more work soon as I'm aware that it's not really satisfactory as it is, but we're on our way! Peeper 16:00, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Hi...not sure if I'm doing this right as I'm brand new to Wikipedia, but I totally agree with this - the article is very North American in its focus. I made a few edits yesterday to broaden it out a bit. (Hope these were ok...friendly guidance appreciated while I'm a newbie.) Most of this article doesn't really reflect British Social Work at all. It was difficult but not impossible to amend the introduction to be less US-specific, but I think the answer will be to extend the use of '...in the UK' and '...in the US' sections (and other countries as users add them. Peeper 12:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
- What you did seems good to me. Generally Expansion (or adding details) is good if the additions are accurate, if you delete or remove anything major it's best to ask permission first and wait until you get some sort of response. When I got here there was a ton of really nitty gritty speciffic case law listed about negative Children's Aid type cases that required court intervention by somebody who had a grudge. Which really isn't relevant to a encyclipedia unless that case caused wide reforms to the profession. The ariticle over all needs more expansion in specific areas and probably some reorganization. I'll do it someday maybe when I have the time. But if you have the time in interest do what you think is best. If the article gets really big, we might wnat to consider making individual pages for different localities (ie US, Canada, UK and other countries as information is made availible) Welcome aboard. Granite T. Rock 02:21, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Proposed Deletions
Debating if entire Examples of Documented Abuses should be removed. If you look at other professions webpages ie. physician, they do not have such sections and we all know there are abuses in all professions. The goal is not to document extreame behaviour but typical. If need be, perhaps a second wiki entry should be created for the topic of Social Work Abuses. Unless we're talking international news which will be remembered for years it's not relevant for the audience of Wikipedia. However maybe we should go in baby steps. I propose that the following paragraphs either be deleted or shrunk into a few sentences because they effectively cancel each other out:
Also, there have been several scandals involving false testimony about alleged child sexual abuse. In these cases, often referred to as modern witchhunts, it is generally acknowledged that some social workers, not sufficiently trained and often overzealous, created false memories through suggestive questioning. Internationally, many courts are now rejecting this type of testimony.
It seems that many of the people that are associated with this type of behavior are not professional social workers at all, but mearly government or agency employees who have the job title of social worker. Professional social work, in the United States, requires a degree from an CSWE accredited social work program. In many states, workers are regularly hired without a degree in social work. It is hard to hold a profession accountable for people who are not really members of the profession.
Please reply in favour or against - if time passes and I hear nothing I will proceed. Graniterock 07:35, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
- I am in favor, the section could easily be shrunk or moved. Thanks! --Vorpalbla 3/6/05
-
- Thanks for the feedback I had already deleted an documented abuses section - I agree the critisms could definately be shrunk. If someone else doesn't do it... I'll get around to it when I have some time to draft something. Graniterock 04:27, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
I was looking for information on social work and that section seemed jump out. It doesn't really seem to be very NPOV to me. 205.211.52.30 15:03, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I am new to wiki as well. However, I have noticed that there is no reference made to social care workers. In the UK there has been an expansion of social care workers (usually known as support workers) who are meant to compliment the services provided by social workers and other health professionals. It would be nice to see a distinct article for social care workers, perhaps linking to care in the community, social work, etc. SH
GraniteRock and others....go ahead and delete....in another area of wiki the area of unreliable and unethical "professionals" can be addressed. We need to be very careful with any mention of abuse. For example, the Duluth Model is very questionable and is very heavily anti-male in tone. It is a fact that far more children die at the hand of female caretakers--but I'm surely not going to enter that in wiki.Homebuilding 20:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)9 9 06
The sentence "Social workers work with individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities, as members of a profession which is committed, theoretically at least, to social justice and human rights" (my bold) I don't think should have the "theoretically at least" comment in there. I don't think the wikipedia page on Doctor would state "a profession which is committed, theoretically at least, to saving lives", so why should this. I did remove this, but it's gone back, so I guess other people have differing POV on the matter. With the discussion above taken into account I understand why this may want to feature, but is the first paragraph the correct place? There aren't similar expressions in that place for Physician, Vicar, or Policeman. Chris Bradshaw 10:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I see this has been put in again by an anonymous user, this time with a "reference" of (Reichert, 2003). Anyone know if this is a paper/publication (that can be referenced properly), or just "some bloke down the pub in 2003"? Chris Bradshaw 08:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other Dicussions / Questions / Requests
I've been moving country specific information into their own categories. I feel this is important due to the diverse nature of international Social Work. I think the long term goal of these sections as they expand is to make country specific pages. --Graniterock 04:24, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] POV
Calling a fact POV has become a great way to get rid of it. For example creationists time and again call evolution 'a theory' meaning exactly that evolution is POV. I've seen this madness in many Wikipedia pages, and seen how in the space of a few months Wikipedia has decayed from balanced and factual to biased and dogmatic. By using this slick specious POV pseudoargument you are destroying Wikipedia. Please stop already.
absolutely!! homebuilding
[edit] Is social work a health science?
I would like to canvas opinion on whether social work should be added to category:health sciences along with health professions such as nursing, medicine, occupational therapy etc. --Vincej 09:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
-
- I think it's actually considered more of a social science, esp if you go by what dept SW is usually found in North America universities. However, I would have no objection including Social Workers in health sciences category as social workers do work along side of nurses, doctors and occupational therapists. Alot of social work jobs do occur in health science settings (ie hospitals). Up here in Canada its all the rage to call Social Work the helping profession, although nurses and etc. would also likely fall under that category as well. I see no reason why not to include SW in all 3 categories. :) Granite T. Rock 00:24, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
I have moved this article from category:applied sciences to category:health sciences. I am aware that this could be seen as controversial. Nevertheless, I believe social workers improve people's health (by my definition of the term) and I think that people looking at the list of health professions in the health sciences category whould expect to see it there. I'm keen to hear people's thoughts on this. --Vince 09:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
- No, in the United Kingdom at least Social Work is explicitly not a health science, although by its interdisciplinary nature it does relate to the health sciences. But to call it a health science in itself is misleading and far too narrowing given what social workers do. Social work intervention may improve people's health in a very broad sense, but this is not the accepted set of definitions used in the sector in Britain currently. Neither label is quite satisfactory so I think it should be in both if possible. I think Granite T. Rock has it about right. The spectre of different academic emphases in different countries raises its head - I'm never quite sure how far they can all be reconciled in a single article. But that's a whole other debate! Peeper 10:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Knowledge building in social work
I made some additions to this section, but it is still very incomplete. The history should be fleshed out. Particularly needed are discussions on the establishment of social work schools and the tensions that arose from that decision, and on studies of casework effectiveness, carried out in the 1940's and 1950's e.g. the Chemung county study. Joel Fisher's role should also be explored. There also needs to be a discussion of the scope and content of social work knowledge-building today. The discussion in the Encyclopedia of Social Work article is now very out of date. I said a little about direct practitioners and knowledge building, but much more could be said. Likewise, knowledge building in the social welfare policy field is usually left out of the discussion, but it is clearly part of the picture.161.185.1.100 22:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)HIinNY
