Fried Social Worker® Blog

Let me begin by repeating the question I posted some time ago: Is the social work manager exempt from the value of service expected of front line social workers? Seems to me that the answer any social work supervisor makes to this question will significantly impact the way that supervisor treats his or her front line staff.

If the social work manager perceives himself/herself as primarily responsible to serve the agency’s board of directors, then staff and clients will suffer. Conversely, if the manager sees the needs of clients as overarching, the staff and the agency may suffer. There has to be a healthy balance of service directed toward all three for the manager to be effective on any long-term basis.

Unfortunately, it seems from the social workers I’ve been in contact with, that many social work managers consistently ignore legitimate needs of their front line staff in the service of pleasing their agency’s board and clients. This is most unfortunate.

Those managers who are unwilling to address issues facing their front line social work staff may do well to review section 2 of the Code of Ethics, which pertains to ethical responsibilities toward colleagues. That’s right, I said colleagues. If you are a social work manager and you have other social workers under your authority, do they cease to be your colleagues? Did they lose their entitlement to basic professional courtesy just because you outrank them in the agency?

How you use your rank may not matter to your agency’s upper echelons, but within the profession it matters a great deal. Or it should. At least that’s how I understand the Code of Ethics. If all social workers … from the lowest to the highest paid and most powerful within the organization … have an ethical responsibility to serve, then don’t social work leaders have an obligation to serve other social workers who are subject to their authority?