Education for the Social Services MIRIAM HUTTON* I have always been intrigued by the plastic button boxes which have several compartments and are so constructed that shaking the box is all that is required to sort the different sized buttons into the appropriate sections of the box. I wish that we could have such a box for sorting the educational dilemmas which face us in the social services. In the absence of such a box, I would like to explore some of the educational issues which affect the education of social workers and others who are employed in the social services. Social workers have traditionally been considered as the primary staff for the social services. Indeed, social work has often been confused with or equated with the social services. In North America social work has been further identified as meaning professional social workers who have received their professional training in a post-baccalaureate pro- gramme in a university. In reality of course the majority of staff employed in the social services have not had professional social work training. Many "social workers" have received their training on the job. In fact the MSW (Master of Social Work) graduates formed an elite group, who though trained for practice, were very rapidly promoted to supervise, train, and administer. This contributed in part to the recent movement in Canada (and even more recently in the United States), to the development of undergraduate programmes for profes- sional education in social work. In addition we have had, with the rise of the community college, new programmes of one and two year's duration which have produced "social service workers" or "welfare workers." This diversity of preparation, while providing promise of more adequately meeting the needs of the social services, has produced some fragmentation and creates a number of problems. If one thinks of the social services as a system, one can identify a range of personnel employed or utilized by this system (Briggs, 1973). These would include those directly involved in providing "human services" such as intake workers (who assist new applicants), supportive or counselling staff, community workers, treatment staff, educators, along with supervisors, co-ordinators, administrators and so on. (Of course people may often function in more than one capacity.) There may also be homemakers, foster parents, institutional house staff, child care workers, volunteers, and other staff from related disciplines such as home economics, psychology, nursing, and child development. Clearly this diversity in tasks, roles, and functions requires a corresponding diversity in education, or vocational preparation. For the purposes of this paper, however, I shall confine myself to those com- ponents of the system whose training is normally included in higher education. (A broader definition of higher education to include life long learning and all adult education would •Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Manitoba 24 Miriam Hutton of course include many more components.) In this paper I shall refer to the formalized programmes attached to educational institutions such as community colleges and universities which offer vocational or professional education for entry into a human services career, or which provide advanced education for social workers. I exclude, for this paper, in-service training in agencies, and continuing education of a short term or non-formalized nature. In 1972 at an international congress of schools of social work, Dr. Jan de Jongh present- ed a paper entitled "A Retrospective View of Social Work Education." In this he suggests that in North America, the tying in of social work education to the graduate level of the university has had negative effects. Among the negative effects he specifically notes are that "training is also restricted to a small number of students and made very expensive, thus creating social work as an elite profession," and also that "official social work training systems and their graduates were severed from the main stream of social activities and from the great and greatly needed mass of workers in the social field who all were in want of some kind of social knowledge and skill." Conversely he suggests that social work in England and Europe failed to develop fully social work methodology and professional competence because they were constituted at an undergraduate level. He then goes on to propose that in social work we need different levels of training with possibilities of movement from one level to another and that "the universities should be an organic element." In the United States Werner Boehm (1958, 1968) had already predicted that social work education would need to concern itself with "preparing graduate, undergraduate, and even associate degree programs for the performance of less complex functions lying on the lower end of the professional continuum." This notion of a continuum was reinforced by Bisno (1959), Guzzetta (1972), and others, and as a result has begun to be talked of in social work education. It seems appropriate if one thinks of the undergraduate programme in social work being a foundation for the master's programme, which in turn is a foundation for even more advanced study. The major curriculum study (Boehm et al, 1959 to 1962) of the Council on Social Work Education even recommended that preparation for social work begin at the undergraduate level. However, this was rejected by the membership and until 1970 schools wishing accreditation for their social work programmes were required to have a two year programme at the master's level. This decision to hold the master's pro- gramme as an appropriate locus for professional education seems to be based on the assump- tion that social work is, or ought to be, professional, and that the complexity of both the social situations and the wide range of knowledge used by social workers requires graduate school preparation for practice (Abbott, 1931; Boehm, 1959; Campbell, 1967; Ripple, 1974). Probably concern over the maturity of graduates and some concern over professional identity and status were important here as well. The preoccupation with "profession," and the assumption that it is the norm is reflected in the terminology used to describe various levels of practice. Thus we find professional, pre-professional, sub-professional, para-professional, non-professional, and associate professional, all being used to describe people who are employed in the social services. The status acquired by being a professional is considerable. Perhaps for a vocational grouping composed mainly of women and dealing with the "un- washed and the unlovely" it was very necessary to strive for this in the past. Perhaps also in an age when even the obituary columns of most major newspapers have little meaning to most readers it is important to recognize that being a professional may help individuals to find a sense of identity and purpose in a world which is increasingly complex and imper- 25 Education for the Social Services sonai. But to have a professional category implies an elitism which runs contrary to the egalitarian thrust of our times. In the social service system it implies superior or inferior status for employees. This dilemma has produced problems in morale, particularity for lower status personnel. This is no doubt compounded if agencies are not clear about roles and expectations, and do not differentiate tasks clearly. In any case the assumption that education for the social services was synonomous with professional education for social work, which in turn was seen as graduate level preparation, has had profound implications. If one accepts this, one defines professional practice and then redefines practice for the other levels in response to this. For example, professional practice might be seen to include a specialized body of knowledge and skill, relative autono- my in decision making, a code of ethics, and a commitment to service, and to continuous learning. The para-professional then might be expected to have a lesser body of knowledge and skill, less autonomy in decision making. Because he is assumed to work under a profes- sional, he might not be required to develop his own code of ethics, and to be less concerned with service or educational goals. An alternative approach might be to examine the value base and philosophical stance appropriate to the whole of the social service system, and to then examine what is required to provide social services to society. We can then designate diverse functions within this for which appropriate educational provision could be made. In this approach the professional nature of social work is played down, and the differentiation of tasks and functions for each grouping employed in the social services becomes more important. We can think therefore of social work education or we can think of education for the social services. The one implies professional education with pre-professional and post- professional components. One can argue about whether or not baccalaureate education is professional or pre-professional, and whether or not one requires a generic core, or foundation, and whether or not specialization ought to occur at the master's level or at the post-master's level. The community college is designated as providing an inferior or sub-professional training which is considered adequate for some tasks. (One can see why this may be threaten- ing to some social workers, who see the community college as debasing professional education.) The alternative is to consider education for the social services, requiring a range of personnel with a variety of educational backgrounds, each with a unique identity and legitimate func- tions and roles (Austin, 1972; Briggs, 1973; Segal, 1974). (A parallel from the health services would be that medicine, nursing, physiotheraphy, occupational therapy, and pharmacy all have a distinctive place in the health services system.) The term continuum would not be appropriate for this alternative because the individual components are not necessarily depend- ent on each other.