Peter Nelson

Abstract: This article explores the professional boundaries guidance for social workers. It presents research findings from the formal literature, from agency codes of practice, from telephone interviews with regulatory and professional bodies and from an exercise using ‘snowballing techniques’ in which informants responded to brief scenarios illustrating boundary dilemmas. The findings suggest that formal research plays little part in the guidance that individuals use to help them determine professional boundaries. Similarly, only 10–15 per cent of informants made regular reference to regulatory and professional codes of practice, with an even smaller percentage quoting specific sections from these codes. A slightly larger group (15–20 per cent) made fairly regular reference to their agency's policy documents. However, a clear majority relied on their own sense of what is appropriate or inappropriate, and made their judgements with no reference to any formal guidance. Agency guidance tended to ignore the ambiguous areas of practice and seemed to act as an insurance policy, brought out and dusted off when something goes awry. The authors caution against ever-increasing bullet points of advice and prescription, and advance a notion of ethical engagement in which professionals exercise their ethical senses through regular discussion of professional boundary dilemmas.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider epistemological issues relating to the assessment of social work students and explore the potential benefits of using a second opinion in assessment of marginal or failing students on practice placement.

TL;DR: A ‘trade-off model’ has been developed as an output of the research to explain the competing demands on families and emerge about the importance of tailored advice and information to families vulnerable to cold-related harm.

TL;DR: There is a need for further research to understand the impact of post‐qualifying study on candidates' social work practice, and the appetite for a wider choice of post-qualifying modules suggests that providers will need to collaborate within and across regions in order to achieve a critical mass of candidates for more specialist or focused learning.