Professional Accountability: Someone who is able to make decisions based on what is known, to the best of one’s ability and is able to stand by this decision. It’s about owning your decisions and your work. It’s about not blaming everything on management, as management can only make decision based on the information provided by the Social Worker.
As a manager this a pet peeve of mine – Social Workers who come to me with a definitive opinion of how things should go, I agree with them and the next conversation I hear with the clients is the Social Worker saying “my manager says this has to happen”) Professional accountability is about developing one’s ability to make professional judgments based on information gathered during the course of working with clients. Unfortunately, this is a skills that is lacking. I am not sure if this is due to fear or unwillingness, I just know I have seen it more than I care to.
Being a solid professional is very much about lettingyour experiences shape your practice and give you a firm foundation. It is about adjusting your interventions to meet the needs of your clients base. It’s about becoming stronger in what you do and allowing your experiences to not only make you more of a professionals but recognizing when your experiences identify gaps in your practice. The next step would be seeking out and undertaking training to address those gaps and make you a stronger professional. No one expects you to get this right the first time around but know yourself enough to be able to see you shortcomings and address them before others even recognize they exist. Stay ahead of the game and you move forward in your profession, creating a name for yourself as a professional with standards who is reliable and capable.
Social Work is not simply a job. It is a profession and a career choice to those of us who take what we do