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‘Duty of care’ or ‘duty to care’: the responsibilisation of social work

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posted on 2023-05-22, 18:09 authored by Anthea Vreugdenhil
Sometimes the smallest of things can lead to big questions. A passing comment from a colleague about social work being one of the ‘caring professions’ led to a conversation about the meaning of care in social work. Turning to the Code of Ethics (Australian Association of Social Workers [AASW], 2010) for guidance, I discovered that care (or caring) is only mentioned eight times in the 41-page document, with another five mentions of ‘careful’. This surprised me, as I thought care would feature more highly given that a key purpose of the Code is to “identify the values and ethics which underpin ethical social work practice” (AASW, 2010, p. 10). The first mention of care in the Code describes how social work “provides humane service, mindful of fulfilling duty of care, and duty to avoid doing harm to others” (AASW, 2010, p. 12). This linking of ‘care’ with ‘duty’ was repeated throughout the Code with a focus on ‘duty of care’ or ‘taking due care’. This seemed to suggest that care, beyond a narrow sense of duty, might have little place in contemporary social work. I was not sure what to make of this, but I knew that it warranted further investigation. This chapter is the result and explores the interplay between the growing regulation of the social work profession and the meaning and practice of care in social work.

History

Publication title

Critical Ethics of Care in Social Work: Transforming the Politics and Practices of Caring

Editors

B Pease, A Vreugdenhil, and S Stanford

Pagination

38-48

ISBN

9781138225589

Department/School

School of Social Sciences

Publisher

Routledge

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Extent

21

Rights statement

Copyright 2018 Individual chapters, the authors

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in human society

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