Assignments

· Discussion 2: Identifying as a Professional Social Worker, the Code of Ethics, and Your Field Placement

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· In your own words, describe the primary mission of the social work profession. For your response, imagine you are describing this to a friend or family member.

· Define what constitutes an ethical dilemma.

· Give an example of an ethical dilemma you might encounter in your field experience (i.e., internship). This could involve your own actions, the actions of a supervisor, or an agency policy.

· Identify the Code of Ethics that applies to the ethical dilemma you described.

· Describe what you would do to address the situation. Be specific in identifying your dilemma and in identifying what part of the Code of Ethics applies.

References:

National Association Of Social Workers (2017). Code of Ethics Of the National Association of Social workers:

https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English

Council on Social Work Education. (2015). 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards for Baccalaureate and Master’s Social Work Programs. Retrieved from http://www.cswe.org/File.aspx?id=81660

Discussion 2: Evidence Based Practice

Competent social workers have many types of skills to complement a wide variety of theoretical knowledge. This skill set and knowledge base is often informed by research. Whether research is quantitative, qualitative, or a mixture of both, the information that well-formed studies yield contribute to the knowledge base of the social work profession as a whole.

For this Discussion, consider how evidence-based research informs social work practice. Think about how research findings translate into social work actions.

Post your explanation of how research informs a social worker’s application of the steps in the process of evidence-based practice. Be sure to explain how research contributes to what a social worker may do in practice. Please use the Resources to support your answers

References:

Yegidis, B. L., Weinbach, R. W., & Myers, L. L. (2018). Research methods for social workers (8th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

· Chapter 1, “Toward Evidence-Based Practice” (pp. 1-23)

Evidence-Based Practice and Social Work: An Illustration of the Steps Involved.

PRACTICE FORUM

The current focus of the health care system involves a commitment to the process of considering evidence when making decisions (Donald, 2002). The principles of an emerging paradigm referred to as evidence-based practice (EBP) are ideally suited to fulfill this commitment. "Evidence-based practice is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of clients" (Gibbs & Gambrill, 2002, p. 452). Theoretically, EBP works by converting information from thousands of studies into risk estimates and thereby provides a framework for addressing questions asking "what is the chance that" certain things harm or benefit people, according to a fair and scientifically rigorous process (Donald).

EBP offers social work practitioners and administrators a philosophy of practice that is compatible with obligations described in the profession's code of ethics and educational accreditation policies and standards (for example, informed consent, to draw on practice- and policy-related research findings) (Gambrill, 2003). Unfortunately, however, Gambrill noted that the philosophy and technology of EBP described in health care are typically not described in the social work literature. "If social workers do not take the time to comprehend the systemic, client-oriented vision of EBP, then we risk losing critical opportunities to decrease gaps between professional, ethical obligations and accreditation standards and what is done in everyday practice" (Gambrill, p. 18). Thus, in an era in which social workers must defend their domain from encroaching disciplines, adding the role of evidence-based practitioner to the plethora of other social work roles is fundamental. Using the vaccine safety dilemma as an example, we present the five steps involved in EBP and demonstrate their utility to social work practice.

EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE

Step 1: Converting Client Needs into Answerable Questions

The first step of EBP involves converting client information needs into answerable questions (Sackett, Richardson, Rosenberg, & Haynes, 1997; Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosenberg, & Haynes, 2000). Questions that lend themselves to searching for the best evidence must be specific enough to generate an answer in an electronic search, by designating the patient population or problem, identifying the intervention or area of interest, identifying a comparison intervention or status if applicable, and designating measurable outcomes (Gibbs, 2003; Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt, 2002). Features of a well-built question include the client type or problem, the intervention or what you (the social worker) might do, an alternate course of action, and what you (the social worker) would like to accomplish (Gibbs).

Example

Social workers working in a health care domain are confronted with an array of client concerns and needs. One example of a client concern stems from the current health care debate about the safety of childhood vaccines. An increase in the number of vaccinations that children receive has yielded an increase in adverse events following vaccinations and thereby an increase in parental concern about the safety of vaccines (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2002; Gellin, Maibach, & Marcuse, 2000). Using this as an example, the client type is children, the problem is adverse reactions to vaccines, the intervention is vaccines, an alternate course of action is no vaccines, and what you (the social worker) would like to establish is the probability of vaccine adverse reactions based on data from empirical studies. Incorporating these features to form an answerable question would result in the following: "If a child receives a mandatory childhood vaccine, what is the probability of the child's developing an adverse reaction to the vaccine?"

Assignment: Peer Reviewed Social Work Journals

Reflect on the importance of using articles from peer-reviewed journals compared to information from the Internet. Ask yourself who evaluates the accuracy of information that you might obtain websites like Wikipedia and what form of accountability there is to ensuring that information is up-to-date, reliable, and valid.

Review the Final Assignment: Article Review and Critique in Week 10 for this class. Note that you will have to locate an empirical research article from a peer-reviewed journal. Begin to search for an article. Practice navigating the databases in the library by searching topics of interest. (Note: At this point, you do not need to identify the actual empirical research article. The goal of this assignment is to begin getting comfortable navigating the databases in the library)

For this Assignment, complete the following:

· Identify a list of 10 peer reviewed social work journals from the library that you might find helpful relative to your social work practice interests.

· In a 100-150 word paragraph, discuss why using research studies from peer reviewed journals is important to the development of knowledge in social work. For example, discuss the advantages of having articles reviewed by other scholars and researchers. Then using a case illustration, describe how articles from peer-reviewed journals can help to inform your social work practice decisions with clients, communities, agencies, and/or social work policies.