Thinking about quality from Social Work: opinions and proposals

Abstract

Social Work is a profession committed to social transformation and social welfare. That is why the social praxis carried out by Social Work professionals contributes not only to the quality of life of the people, groups and communities with whom they intervene, but also to the quality of the service provided in public, private or third sector entities. The aim of
this paper is to explore the opinions on quality from the discipline of Social Work, focusing the analysis on the most outstanding aspects of the profession and on the way in which
the people who participated in this study define quality. For this purpose, a research was carried out with 210 participants with the profile of Social Work: professionals, university
teachers and undergraduate students of all courses of public and private universities. In the same way, a mixed research has been chosen, predominating the qualitative approach and the exploratory and descriptive design. An open-ended questionnaire was used in order to allow the participants to express their views and meanings. Likewise, the discourse was analyzed using the Maxqda program, establishing different categories. Finally, it was possible to describe the salient aspects of the profession, to define quality from the perspective of Social Work, and to identify some attributes that bring quality to professional practice in both intervention and research. Social Work is a is a committed profession
currently facing great challenges, which may be the opportunity to achieve the transformation
that the profession and society demand at this time. Quality can be established as an indispensable tool for the work of Social Work.