An assessment of social work education and family agency practice

Abstract

While not universally true, it appears overwhelmingly clear that there are significant differences regarding education for clinical social work between practitioners and educators. As one whose professional career has been almost entirely concerned with the delivery of casework service, I am not able to speak for those whose social work practice has been in other areas, but as a clinician I know that important differences have been apparent for at least a decade. The "posit ion paper" by Pinkus and her co-authors presented here is but one recent expression of that gap, and I am in general agreement with the paper 's content . In 1972 the Family Service Association of America adopted a s ta tement regarding casework agencies and schools of social work which expressed concern about the preparation of students for practice in family agencies. In a paper presented at the National Conference of Social Welfare in 1972, Sidney J. Berkowitz observed about recent M.S.W. graduates: "They appear to lack basic understanding of individual and family behavior, to say nothing of beginning competence to apply such knowledge. This has required many agencies to invest much time, effort , and money in on-the-job training in order to prepare beginning practit ioners to start to work with some sense of security and professional direct ion." In this past year at a number of meetings of executives and directors of professional services of family agencies I have cont inued to hear the same distress expressed. An old adage suggests that where there is smoke there must be fire, so I hope our colleagues in education will finally take note of the smoke and at least consider that the house may be on fire. For the past 10 years one of my major responsibilities has been the employment of caseworkers and participation in their evaluations. It is from this experience that I have to confirm that, with a few notable exceptions, schools of social work are failing to graduate competen t beginning clinical practitioners. Most of these graduates do not know the difference be tween a clinical diagnosis and a psycho-social one, nor are they able to appreciate the significance of each to their work with individuals and families. They do not understand how to determine goals with their clients which are based on a diagnostic assessment. These graduates know words like resistance, defenses, transference, etc., but they do no t understand their full import, and how to use this understanding in a beginning way with their clients. The result o f these