Reflection Paper for a Social Work in the Society

Reflection Paper for a Social Work Course
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Reflection Paper for a Social Work Course
The goal of social work is to provide specialized knowledge to clients that will enable them to tackle their problems and achieve positive outcomes. Clients today face numerous challenges in their communities, which makes it crucial for social work to provide practical solutions to real-life problems and have a significant impact on the clients' lives. Social work continues to experience growth with the increase of schools and practitioners that aim to offer mental, emotional, and financial support to millions of people. Two major approaches that involve an evidence-based or authority-based practice are used in social work (Gambrill, 1999). I feel both of these approaches offer varying outcomes to social workers, and it would be best to consider their effectiveness in the profession.
In an authority-based practice, social work entails imparting specialized knowledge to practitioners. It is then expected that extensive professional training and skills will help produce positive outcomes for clients. The approach is based on the assumption that social work is effective, and so more practitioners are necessary to fill the gap. This helps it avoid any rigorous and critical appraisal tests to determine whether an approach is creating positive outcomes. I oppose how an authority-based practice omits criticism about social work, which may shed light on areas for improvement. I also disagree with this approach as policymakers are unable to gauge the efficiency of social workers because there is insufficient evidence to back their claim of positive outcomes. It feels like the professional licenses and credentials automatically make one competent in doing social work. I also found out that in this approach, a reference to experts is common as it helps gives authority to any claim about social work. They say the experts know what is right and what is not, and I think doing this limits transparency in social work as material evidence justifying the claims by experts is not provided (Gambrill, 2001). I also believe this can easily lead to misinformation as clients are not involved in the decision-making process.
I find evidence-based practices superior because they help practitioners link their work to current research. They can access relevant research that can help boost their social service delivery to clients. This practice-relevant research also guides policymakers and stakeholders to incorporate provisions that will expand social work. One reason I like an evidence-based approach is it involves the client's feedback. They act as informed participants, which help social workers assess the effectiveness of various solutions. In this way, they can assess the quality of their interventions and devise better solutions for clients. I also find evidence-based practice elevates the standards of social work. The reason being it takes an integrated approach where practitioners combine solid evid...