Like a rejected child, the tenet of social work forms a confusing discipline that draws from all but belongs solely to neither medical, legal, psychological, philosophical, economical, educational, political, anthropological or sociological. Professionalism is therefore a problem because there has never been a discipline so confused and chaotic as social work. Social work is like a child wondering who your real parents were; trying to find its identity in the world of clear segregation and functions. Social work is important? Somewhat. Social work is scientific? Somewhat. Social work is an art? Somewhat.
The truth of the matter is that social work is chaotic and chaos is uncomfortable for the scientific-precise folks who demands evidence-based practice and KPI to produce an effective outcome. The notion of effective outcome is not the problem; the question would be what is an effective outcome to even decide what it is to be effective? Is the desired outcome for every individual case objective enough for a logical apple-to-apple comparison?
For example, if I have 10 same questions worth 10 marks each given to 40 students in a class - comparison is effortless. You can multiply the number of students in the class by tenfold and comparison is still effortless - since the test is upon 100 marks. Statistically speaking, you can churn out all the different reports and permutation easily with SPSS. However, it is not so clear-cut when you give one student two questions worth 10 marks each, another with six questions worth 3 marks each and the last with four question worth 7 marks each. How are you going to do your comparison in a meaningful way?
Precisely, the chaos in social work cases is such that every case is-same-yet-different. I could have ten clinically depressed cases; yes, they are the same (clinically depressed via psychometric test), but each would have different content, story, history, processes and outcome. Medically, we all know that all you need is more than two weeks of continued sadness that affects some level of normal functioning - tata! You have it - clinical depression. Logically, we all know that the problem lies with the fact (and reality) that the variation of issues are just too many. Surely, a researcher could try to control the variables; you can find depressed clients due to spouse having EMA. But surely a client in his/her first marriage experiencing EMA would be different from one that is experiencing EMA in his/her third marriage. Or a client experiencing EMA with no significant adverse parental experience verses another one with family history of divorce due to EMA. And the list goes on.
The social work game is just way too complex for a positivist paradigm. Therefore, a randomized trial test in a laboratory sense is difficult when you apply them to social science wholesale.
Therefore, there are more values when social work align itself with social epidemiological paradigm - that truth is relative, relational and contextual.
If my above claims is true, therefore social work is chaotic.
And if my fellow social workers are uncomfortable with chaos, then you are in the wrong profession. 'Orderly Singapore' is not what you would expect in this field because you will never find two cases that are truly alike. You must be able to comprehend various body of knowledge and critically examined them all with an appraising eye. And like a skillful artist, reassemble them in a meaningful fashion for purposeful intervention. One must connect theory with practice and practice with theory - this is therefore professionalism. Not one that is marked by virtue of discipline, but by the marriage of higher wisdom and humble ground work.
Enjoy chaos.
P.S: Courtesy from Eleen. :)
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