-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Ed Silverman, Social Work and Engaging with the Seemingly Incompatible Host Agency, Health & Social Work, Volume 47, Issue 4, November 2022, Pages 305–307, https://doi.org/10.1093/hsw/hlac023
- Share Icon Share
Extract
Take two.
I originally started this Viewpoint after reading the somewhat surprising and personally disappointing comments on a social work faculty Listserv regarding the “offensiveness” of social work participating and partnering with the current police culture to reimagine public safety practice. As a practitioner, administrator, and educator, I was concerned with this post and response, but also questioned whether I had become another aging baby boomer, way out of touch.
My personal mission in social work has evolved to train practitioners on both the micro and macro level. Competency, skills, ethics, and values are paramount—but developing ideological robots that mimic their professors, and protected from the realities of the front lines, was never my charge. In fact, I likely lost a potential job or two when asked the question: “What is the most important outcome of your teaching?” It turns out that developing professional competencies and organizational awareness to maximize the influence and contributions of those competencies pales in comparison to ideological enculturation.