Читать книгу Social Work Research Methods - Reginald O. York - Страница 42

Social workers take jobs in agencies where they are taught how to deliver certain services. Their orientation program will include the collected opinions of staff and supervisors about how best to implement the service. Often social workers do not question these practices, nor do they subject them to scientific inquiry.

Should you, as a social worker, engage in practices that have been found to be effective and not to harm clients? Of course, you should! In fact, it is a requirement set forth in the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). At a minimum, you should review the literature with regard to service practices for this purpose.

Several decades ago, there were far fewer publications revealing evidence about social work practices. With the enormous number of such studies today, there is no excuse for a social worker to ignore all this evidence. And if there is little evidence, it seems that you would have an ethical obligation to engage in the scientific study of your practices. You will learn how to do this in this book.