Author: RSW Collective

Categories
Uncategorized

Social work at the end of the world: Again!

A Guest post by David Kenkel

Trigger warning: this post discusses bleak likelihoods that are painful to consider. The unmentioned backdrop to social work’s future is that the world has passed an ecological crisis point of no return and there is little chance that near-term catastrophe can be averted (see Bendall, 2018). This is a situation that the western world has not yet begun to face. This is a post about hope. Not hope that we can avert the coming environmental predicament, but hope that as communities face inevitable crisis, they will rediscover collective solidarity and wiser ways of living together. Social work can have a key role in this transition back to sanity. 

Continue reading “Social work at the end of the world: Again!”
Categories
Uncategorized

Sex marker change should not be up for debate? What social workers need to know

A guest post by Kendra Cox and Eileen Joy, University of Auckland

On February 25th, Tracey Martin, the Minister for Internal Affairs, announced that the much-anticipated Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill (‘the Bill’) has been parked until further notice. The Bill contains, among other small changes to deaths and divorces, a number of amendments to the current Act that would make it significantly easier for transgender, non-binary, gender diverse, and intersex people (‘gender diverse and intersex people’) to change the sex marker on their birth certificate to better reflect who they are. According to a Parliamentary press release, the Bill was deferred to clarify some legal concepts and to increase public consultation. There has been some talk over the fact that after public consultation—a standard select committee process—the specific section relating to sex self identification was added. This type of addition (specifically ss22A-J), after public consultation is completely normal, and reflects a democratic process whereby the committee responded to a large number of submissions who requested this change.

Continue reading “Sex marker change should not be up for debate? What social workers need to know”
Categories
Uncategorized

Understanding the Implications of the SOP

A further guest post by John Darroch

Just over a week ago I became aware of significant changes to the Social Work Registration Legislation Bill which I found deeply alarming. These changes are contained in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which was introduced into the House by Carmel Sepuloni on 21 December 2018. I wrote a blog post drawing attention to a range of risks I believed the Bill contained.   

Continue reading “Understanding the Implications of the SOP”
Categories
Uncategorized

Scopes of practice: A view from across the Tasman

A guest post by Justin Canty

John Darroch’s recent post  raises a number of crucial questions about the recently released Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to the draft amendments to the Social Worker Registration Act. Within the SOP appears another ‘SoP’ – scopes of practice – as a method for identifying and circumscribing who and what is subject to the Act. In this contribution to the discussion, Justin Canty presents some further questions about the nature of scopes of practice and their application in the proposed amendments.

When I started work in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2007, I found myself surrounded by discussions of scopes of practice. Many mental health social workers were confronting the flow on effects from the HPCA Act and efforts by various professional groups to carve out ‘restricted practices’ which only that professional group performed. The core of the interprofessional tension in the mental health context was psychosocial interventions. Who “owned” those? Which profession could claim them as their sole province? This was of especial concern for social workers as the only profession working in mental health not covered by HPCAA.

Jumping forward a decade and a bit, we find ourselves in a new struggle over the uses of scopes of practice and being recognised for what we do as social workers.

Continue reading “Scopes of practice: A view from across the Tasman”
Categories
Uncategorized

Scopes of Practice : An opportunity for ownership

A guest post by Amy Ross

Amy Ross writes a response to John Darroch’s article   “New supplementary order paper fundamentally changes social work registration bill – and should not proceed”.

Any registration of any profession by the state carries risk. The state has an appalling history of allowing atrocities to be undertaken by ‘officials’ and ‘professionals’ with the backing of the law. Therefore, registration for social work should of course be undertaken with vigilance and we need to ensure that implementing any legislation is done by us and does not erode the core principles of social work or allow the state to define our theoretical or ethical basis.

The first iteration of the Social Work Registration Bill tabled as a last act by Anne Tolley and the National Government posed enormous challenges to the future of our profession. The Social Work Community swung into action. There was a huge number of submissions (see the PSA one here) and an open letter petition that caught the attention of the new Minister Carmel Sepuluoni.

Continue reading “Scopes of Practice : An opportunity for ownership”