Professionalizing Social Work Paving Way to Competent Practitioners

Abstract

The social work profession has a history of more than a century in India. However, whether the profession needs to be standardized is still debated and commented upon. Consequently, the profession's knowledge base and education remain on loose ends. About these issues, competent practice has not yet been made possible. Developing a regulatory body for Indian social work can help create and regulate a competence-based social work education. Students and practitioners, with such advantages, can become the best of their competent selves. The study's purpose was to find the relevance of a regulatory social work body in the
competence of social workers. It assessed the competence of Indian social workers practicing outside India and helped to better understand the impact of a professional social work body on the competence of practitioners. The study utilizes a socio-demographic profile and two standardized measures – the General Self-Efficacy scale by Ralph Schwarzer and the Intercultural Effectiveness scale by Tamra Portalla and Guo-Ming Chen. Competence is measured in terms of knowledge of the professional social work body, general skills, self efficacy, and intercultural competence. The results gave the expected assumption that professional bodies influenced the improvement of practitioners' practice.