Decision making is one of the most important aspects of social work. It can affect not only one element in the life of a person but immediately have an effect on all its further course for a group of people or an individual. The article Professional judgment and decision-making in social work by authors Brian Taylor and Andrew Whittaker is about the importance of such decisions. Additionally, the article emphasizes that it is necessary for social workers to be able to correctly assess the situation and condition of patients.
In modern practice, there are various approaches to decision-making, including horizontal and vertical. These approaches generally differ from country to country of application. Horizontal means making decisions through communication and shared discussion, finding compromises. At the same time, the vertical approach is more hierarchical and means that the decision is made by those who have more power in their position (Taylor & Whittaker, 2018). The absence of one standard approach is questionable since if social workers from different backgrounds find themselves in the same workplace, they may find it difficult to make uniform decisions.
In addition, modern research has found that listening skills are essential for supervisors. For practitioners, the ability to explore and pay attention to detail is important, as this will allow them to identify all the specifics of a particular case for making decisions in the future. Additionally, social practices are influenced by legislation that makes new implementations mandatory (Taylor & Whittaker, 2018). It can both positively influence the development of social work and negatively limit or incorrectly divide responsibilities.
The legislation of some countries, such as the UK, provides a guideline for social workers in making decisions. Therefore, they make choices based on policies and established norms, while this does not always correspond to their personal experience and knowledge, as the legislation restricts their choice to the existing options (Taylor & Whittaker, 2018). At the same time, there is a scientific debate that, in addition to recommendations, social workers should also apply their analytical skills and intuition (Taylor & Whittaker, 2018). It is assumed that in this way, they will be able to study all the characteristics of the patient’s case. It is conceivable that with a combination of recommendations, personal analytics and inferences, social workers would be able to achieve maximum efficiency in their judgments.
As the authors note, the social practice includes contradictions, such as the possibility of getting too close or distant from the patient. In this regard, the expertise of the employee is important in order to maintain the correct balance. Many conferences and projects are already being created that are engaged in risk assessment in relation to such decisions (Taylor & Whittaker, 2018). The main task of such projects is to find out under what competencies a social worker can make decisions beyond the provided recommendations.
In conclusion, due to the fact that social workers often find themselves in ambiguous and difficult situations, it is important for them to have analytical skills, and a readiness to make decisions and take responsibility for them. The lives of an entire family can depend on such decisions, which is why they have such meaning. Social workers should be provided with basic principles for dealing with all standard situations, but if specific situations arise, they should be able to make decisions at a specific point in time.
Reference
Brian Taylor & Andrew Whittaker (2018) Professional judgment and decision-making in social work, Journal of Social Work Practice, 32(2), 105-109, Web.