Social Work Fields of Practice

Historical Trends, Professional Issues, and Future Opportunities

Catherine N. Dulmus, Karen M. Sowers

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118240267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

A contemporary look at social work practice and the many career possibilities—with detailed coverage of important new and emerging trends

As the practice of social work continues to diversify, students need a clear picture of the current state of the field and an up-to-date source of information and guidance on emerging career opportunities. Social Work Fields of Practice provides both.

Written by a team of experts in their respective specialties, this book features a comprehensive overview of contemporary social work practice, discussing historical trends and demographics, professional issues, ethics, and diversity for each practice area. Both traditional areas and new fields are considered from a variety of perspectives, including the clinical, ethical, cultural, legal, theoretical, and technological.

Addressing the Council on Social Work Education's required competencies for accreditation (EPAS), Social Work Fields of Practice contains pedagogical features such as Key Terms, Review Questions for Critical Thinking, and Online Resources. It is the most timely, all-encompassing resource of its kind, covering:

• Child welfare
• Family-centered practice
• School social work
• Substance abuse
• Mental health
• Social work disability practice
• Gerontological social work
• Forensic social work
• Veterinary social work
• Military social work
• International social work
• Social work practice with immigrant and indigenous populations

With expert, in-depth discussions of the most important specialties and practice environments for today's social worker, Social Work Fields of Practice is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students preparing to enter this noble profession, as well as social workers seeking to expand their professional horizons.

Chapter 1

Child Welfare and Social Work Practice

Robin E. Perry and Alberta J. Ellett

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What are the many intervening events and variables that have led to the evolution of child welfare as it is today?

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Child welfare, as it is generally recognized and discussed in this chapter, includes child protective services, foster care, adoption services for children and their families, and, increasingly, prevention of child maltreatment. As a specialization, child welfare has a long and rich history within the profession of social work. The work in child welfare is perhaps more complex than any social work practice area due to the risk of serious injury to children in multiproblem families, federal mandates, public scrutiny, court and multiple oversight mechanisms, underfunding, and high employee turnover. This important work needs the attention of professional social workers with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and values to work with clients affected by parental conditions such as substance abuse, mental illness, limitations, and involvement with the legal system. Unlike in most areas of social work, child welfare workers regularly make home visits to work with their clients and to transport children and parents (typically using their own vehicles). They are expected to make expert decisions about child safety, and spend considerable time in court with their cases. In addition, child welfare work is situated within a complex external sociopolitical environment that influences the size, minimum qualifications, and direction of the workforce, funding for employees and services to clients, continuously changing legal mandates and attendant practice issues, and ongoing public scrutiny. Thus, recruiting and retaining professional social workers to do this important work while remaining committed to child welfare is an ongoing challenge.

Pecora, Whitaker, Maluccio, Bart, and Plotnick (2000) cite the American Humane Association when reporting an estimated increase in reports of maltreatment from 669,000 in 1976 to 2,178,000 in 1987. By the 1990s, the rate of maltreatment in the United States was being referred to as an epidemic (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1990). Four National Incidence Studies provide the best incidence data on maltreatment

to date. Although there have been some modifications in procedures used, debate regarding the significance and meaning of findings and recommended modifications to future studies (Children's Bureau, 2000; King, Trocmé, & Thatte, 2003; Rogers, Gray, & Aitken, 1992; Sedlak, 2001), the National Incidence Studies conducted in 1979 to 1980 (NIS-1), 1986 to 1987 (NIS-2), and 1993 to 1995 (NIS-3) suggest an increase in the rate of maltreatment incidence (as a rate per 1,000) from 9.8 to 23.1 or from 625,000 to 1,553,800 incidents (Sedlak, 1988, 1991; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996). Reports of maltreatment by state officials may not capture the true incidence rates of maltreatment.

In 1995, data collected via the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported that approximately 1.1 million children were victims of abuse and neglect (a figure significantly less than NIS-3 estimates in 1993 to 1995) and a victimization rate of approximately 15 children per 1,000 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1997). This rate of victimization resulted from nearly two million reports of maltreatment related to three million estimated children. These same reports suggest a decrease in the victimization rate between 2001 and 2009 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010) from 12.5 children per 1,000 to 10.1 children per 1,000. Regardless, the estimated 762,940 victims that came to the attention of child welfare agencies in 2009 is a significant number. The observed decrease in victimization rate, however, is not realized in the rate of report of maltreatment. Between 2001 and 2009, the rate (and number) investigated from maltreatment has increased from 43.2 children per thousand children (3,136,000 children) to 48.1 children per thousand (3,635,686 children). The most recent NIS-4 study (on data collected between 2005–2006) corroborates some of these observed trends, reporting a decrease in the child maltreatment rate between 1993 and 2005–2006 from 23.1 children per thousand to 17.1 children per thousand. There was also a slight decrease in the national incidence of endangerment standard from 41.9 to 39.5 children per thousand across the two studies (Sedlak et al., 2010). Although noteworthy gains have been made in reducing the rate of maltreatment in the United States over the past decade, child maltreatment is still an issue of concern for society.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide information and timely discussion of historical trends, current issues, and future projections in child welfare as they relate to the development and continued professionalization of child welfare within the larger social work profession. The focus and scope begins with historical trends in child welfare and their interface with social work education and practice. Included in this chapter are: (a) an analysis of historical workforce trends and professional issues, (b) a discussion of the current professional status of child welfare, (c) child welfare research, and (d) future projections and recommendations about the continued professionalization of child welfare. Questions the readers may wish to ponder as they read this chapter include the following: What are the major influences that social work has had on child welfare policy, practice, and research over the past 100 years? What leadership role does the profession currently have (or should it have) in child welfare within the United States? What impact does/would the reprofessionalization of child welfare have upon the quality of practice and child welfare outcomes?

History of Social Work and the Child Welfare Partnership

Child Welfare Workforce and Professional Social Workers

Concern for the welfare of children within the U.S. social work community likely began with children being placed in orphanages rather than in almshouses. This practice was subsequently followed by the enlightened practice of placing more than 200,000 children with Midwestern farming families via the orphan trains begun by Charles Loring Brice of the Children's Aide Society of New York, beginning in 1852 and ending in 1929. When youth who were placed on farms ran away and reported their mistreatment, Brice sent agents to do home studies to assess families before the orphan train arrived. Early efforts to meet the needs of dependent children were run by religious and private charity and aide societies until additional assistance was needed, resulting in the public/private mix of child welfare services that continues to the present. Thus, the early evolution of child welfare is rooted in social work and the need for professionals to intervene in the lives of troubled children and their families.

Throughout most of the 20th century, there was debate (that ebbed and flowed at different times) regarding the defining features of social work and whether social work deserved professional status. In 1915, Abraham Flexner spoke at the Conference on Charities and Corrections to address the question of social work as a profession. He concluded that it was not, preferring to title it a semiprofession due to its lack of an educationally or intellectually transmissible skill or technique, and a knowledge base founded on scientific literature (Flexner, 1915). Flexner's speech was profound and had a mobilizing effect on social work at the time (Austin, 1978; Deardorff, 1930; Hodson, 1925). Indeed, the formation of the Association of Training Schools of Professional Social Work in 1919 (renamed the American Association of Schools of Social Work in 1933, hereafter referred to as AASSW) and the American Association of Social Workers (hereafter referred to as AASW) in 1921 represented structured efforts toward training and monitoring practice and providing a representative association for all social workers.

One of the main tasks of the AASSW and the AASW was to distinguish professional social work from the practice of the well intended (early charity work) and to convince society (and more particularly government authorities) that social workers were educated in “proven methods of service.” These tasks, however, proved formidable in Flexner's opinion, given the inability to pinpoint the time when charitable acts became professional activities (Flexner, 1915).

By the time the AASW was formed in 1921 (West, 1933), social work practice had diversified beyond providing relief to the poor into the fields of mental hygiene (Lee & Kenworthy, 1929; Lowrey, 1926; Macdonald, 1920), medicine (Bartlett, 1957; Cannon, 1913), education (Culbert, 1933; Meredith, 1933), child and family services (Pumphrey & Pumphrey, 1961; Walker, 1928) and criminal justice (Brown, 1920; Williamson, 1935). Consequently, there were a variety of associations and organizations already formed (or in the process of forming) that social workers (professionally trained or not) could, and did, belong to. These included the Family Welfare Association of America (formed in 1911); the American Association of Hospital Social Workers (formed in 1918) (Deardorff, 1930); the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA in 1920); the American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers (formed in 1922 as a section of AAHSW, from which it separated in 1926); the National Association of School Social Workers (formed in 1919); the International Migration Service; the National Association of Traveler's Aid Societies; the National Committee on Visiting Teachers; and the National Probation Association. The diversity of settings in which self-ascribed social workers could be found led Walker (1928) to conclude: “It was suggested that social work was ‘not so much a definite field, as an aspect of work in many fields,’ and that social work has grown up to supply the shortcomings of the professions, whose development may not yet be completed” (pp. 88–89). These findings were reinforced by Conrad (1930) and Abbott (1933). Conrad notes that in a program review of 24 of the 29 accredited schools in 1928, 13 were graduate programs, of which nine would admit students who did not possess any undergraduate degree. Further, there were 42 different courses of study. Abbott described most school curricula in the 1930s as having a “frequently inadequate organization” (p. 145).

The first schools of social work (and year formed) included: the New York School of Philanthropy (1898), the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (1901),¹ the Boston School of Social Work (1904), the Philadelphia Training School for Social Work (1908), and the Missouri School of Social Economy (1908). Interestingly, none of these early schools had a primary focus on child welfare issues or training, despite the import child welfare issues had for early leaders in social work and identified links between child welfare and social work practice at that time.

These early schools were considered private institutions structured to: (a) train individuals to meet the service/administrative needs of Charity Organization Society (Richmond, 1897), (b) further the academic study (pragmatic study) of the effects of poverty and attempted solutions/charitable relief acts (Conrad, 1930), and (c) teach skills specific to the distribution of relief and personal and family rehabilitation (Devine, 1915). These curricula priorities were in response to the demands of agencies in the communities in which schools were formed, not necessarily to address the demands of all populations served by social workers throughout the United States. As a result, each school varied in form and focus. The philosophy guiding the structure of each school reflected the diversity of opinions regarding the role and mission of this newly developing profession. Hence the emphasis on medical social work in Boston, economics and rural poverty in Missouri, social reform and public aspects of social work and social research in Chicago, and the “intensive study of personality factors entering into problems of social maladjustment” (Abbott, 1933, p. 146) in the New York and Pennsylvania schools. This would change over time. By 1928, there were 29 accredited schools of social work in the United States of which 17 (58%) had courses (not necessarily a specialization) in child welfare (Conrad, 1930).

In its infancy, social work was closely aligned with child welfare issues and children's services (protection, placement, care, etc.). The influence and advocacy of Jane Addams, who was elected president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1909 and the only social worker to receive a Nobel Peace Prize (in 1931), along with Lillian Wald, who was originally a nurse by trade, led to the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children in 1909 and the subsequent formation of the U.S. Children's Bureau in 1912. The influence of Florence Kelley (another prominent social work leader) cannot be...