[The Montana Professor 22.1, Fall 2011 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]

Social Work in Montana and Beyond: Reflections on a Century of Practice

Ryan Tolleson Knee
Social Work
ryan.tollesonknee@umontana.edu
UM-Missoula

Janet L. Finn
Social Work
UM Missoula
janet.finn@umontana.edu

• 
  —Ryan Tolleson Knee
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  —Janet L. Finn

Setting the stage

Cleverly crafted slogans that portray Montana as "the Treasure State," "the Last Best Place," and "Big Sky Country," partially capture the unique opportunities its residents have to bring meaning into their lives by forming relationships with an incomparable land and the unassuming people who occupy it. For some, the opportunities for meaning lie in its mountainous terrain and cascading waters, as national parks and millions of unspoiled acres provide backyard playgrounds that few states can match. For others, the relationship to land has been more precarious and intertwined with economic security while working to make a living in the agriculture, timber, and mining industries and contending with harsh weather conditions, global market fluctuations, and sizeable tax burdens. Meaning is also embedded in the near mythic characterization of Montanans as "salt of the earth" people who share an appreciation for the state, a hard-driving work ethic, and a pioneering spirit that fosters camaraderie among people who value quality of life over financial prosperity.

This characterization of the relationships between Montana's land and its people reveals one part of a nostalgic story but also masks a more complicated tale. Recent population changes and the influx of professional-class and part-time residents in western Montana have challenged many traditional land stewardship practices and questioned well-established norms regarding the state's funding of public utilities, education, and social services. Few employment opportunities—combined with more qualified applicants—has limited the potential for residents to attain meaningful and well-paying careers, and an ongoing population decline in the rural counties of central and eastern Montana has resulted in a steady out-migration of high school and college graduates, an aging demographic, and an increase of wealthy part-time residents as the new occupants of longstanding family farms and ranches. These new tensions, along with drastically changing technologies and a growing dependence on a service and tourism economy, have not been captured in Montana's slogans yet have created a challenging context for the emotional and economic well-being of individuals, families, and communities.

Many Montanans, young and old alike, bear the daily burdens of poverty, physical and mental illness, violence, neglect, isolation, racism, and other forms of suffering that negatively affect their lives and life chances. Throughout the state more and more residents face job, housing, and food insecurity, under- or unemployment, and lack of access to affordable health care. Jobs paying living wages are increasingly scarce in Montana. According to the US Census Bureau, 15% of Montanans are living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Nineteen percent of children under 18 and 25% of children under five years of age live in poverty (Montana Kids Count, 2010). Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamp program) has increased by 25% between 2008 and 2010 (Montana Kids Count, 2010). The conditions are even more difficult for single female-headed households and Native American families. Thirty-two percent of female-headed households and 58% of those with children under age five live in poverty. Forty percent of American Indian children in Montana live in poverty, many of them in extreme poverty (Seninger, 2007). In addition to the realities of poverty, many children are also subject to abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Over 3,000 Montana children enter the foster care system annually as a result of treatment that leaves them at risk of serious harm (Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, 2006). Montana's population is also increasingly older (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Demographic projections predict that 40% of the state's population will be over 65 by 2030, the third highest proportion in the nation (Bureau of Business and Economic Research, 2007). The state faces a growing demand for health and social supports to meet the needs of the elderly and the challenges of rural isolation and service delivery. Montana also has the second highest rate of veterans per capita in the nation (Foster, 2010). It is estimated that nearly 20% of veterans returning from combat duty in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a roughly equal number are affected by traumatic brain injuries (Tanielian & Jaycox, 2008; Williamson & Mulhall, 2009). Thus, to appreciate the meanings and address the contexts of the diverse lives of many Montanans we need a more complex picture—one that includes histories of suffering, struggle, and resilience; recognizes unequal access to opportunity; and encompasses the indefatigable efforts of individuals and groups to meet human needs and advocate for human rights for all, especially the most vulnerable.

The social work profession is situated in the heart of this more complicated picture that is too often relegated to the shadows of public consciousness. Ethical, effective social work practice requires concerted attention to the complex meanings and contexts of people's everyday lives. Contemporary social work demands a critical sense of history—not only of individuals and the places that shape them but also of the policies, programs, and practices purportedly designed to support individual and collective well-being. Social workers bring their knowledge and skills to bear in practices of healing, support, and advocacy at the nexus of personal struggles and social issues. According to the "official" definition offered by the Council on Social Work Education,

Social work practice promotes human well-being by strengthening opportunities, resources, and capacities of people in their environments by creating policies and services to correct conditions that limit human rights and the quality of life. The social work profession works to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and oppression. Guided by a person-in-environment perspective and respect for human diversity, the profession works to effect social and economic justice worldwide. (CSWE, 2001, rev. 2004, p. 2)

In this essay, we put social work in the spotlight, providing an overview of the profession, its roots and development, its current status, and its tensions. We pay particular attention to the emergence of social work in the Progressive Era to illuminate some of these embedded tensions (Abramovitz, 1998). We highlight the development of social work and social work education in Montana and situate that development in a broader historical and social context.

The emergence of social work as a profession

Social work, borne from acts of kindness and caring, is a profession that attempts to re-establish symmetry in disrupted relationships and helps people regain control of their lives by providing emotional support; building stronger alliances among family members, neighbors, and communities; and ensuring that policy makers establish laws that uphold and support basic human rights. Social work is also a profession whose history is implicated in efforts to intervene in the lives of those labeled "different," "deviant," or "deficient" by certain prevailing standards of the day. Too often, people whose poverty, ethnicity, gender, or racial or sexual identity mark them as different have been the primary focus of intervention, wherein the line between care and control was often blurred. Popular ideologies of reform have informed practices that were often imposed on "others"—the poor, immigrants, minority groups, persons with disabilities—"for their own good" (Abramovitz, 1998). Thus, history provides a cautionary tale that the profession must both acknowledge and continue to grapple with today.

Social work as a profession in the United States was forged around the turn of the 20th century through the efforts of social reformers who were responding to the human fallout wrought by the combined forces of immigration and industrialization. By the late 1800s, widespread poverty, the growth of urban slums, and the challenges of "assimilating" culturally different groups posed social, economic, and political problems for the young nation. Two distinct modes of intervention, the Charity Organization Societies and the Settlement House Movement, emerged in response to these conditions. The Charity Organization Societies saw social problems as the result of individual deficits, such as lack of moral character, discipline, or personal capacity. They sought to intervene through "scientific philanthropy," that is, a systematic effort to identify personal shortcomings and provide proper support and guidance. The Settlement House Movement, in contrast, focused on the social environment and conditions that contributed to poverty and personal strife. They sought change through education, advocacy, and social action. Thus, the emergent forms of social work practice were in tension with one another from the start, with one emphasizing person-changing interventions and the other focusing on the need to change adverse social conditions. Both, however, advocated a systematic, scientific approach to their work, variably influenced by the emerging disciplines of psychology, sociology, and psychiatry (Davis, 1967). Both also embraced a curious blend of moralism and science in their enterprises. These organizations also became vehicles for the entry of women, primarily educated, white, middle-class women, into the emerging helping professions and into social welfare policy arenas.

Social work as a profession came into its own during the Progressive Era as reformers advocated for systematic approaches to individual and social welfare and sought to expand the reach of both voluntary organizations and the State into poverty alleviation, child care and development, education, mental health, juvenile justice, and elder care. Reformers also brought with them certain values, biases, and assumptions rooted in their own social experiences that shaped their beliefs about "proper" parenting, child rearing, living arrangements, and overall family and community life, often in sharp contrast to the beliefs and practices of the targets or recipients of their endeavors. By the early 1900s, practitioners had built the foundation for a theoretically grounded applied science of social work, which was then formally adapted to the arena of professional academic study. Schools of philanthropy, established initially in New York and Chicago, offered training in a scientific approach to social problems. Social workers learned to conduct research, analyze social policy, manage organizations, and deliver services (Finn & Jacobson, 2008).

The development of social work in Montana

Much of the historiography of social work focuses on the developments and activities of professionals in the urban centers of the nation's East Coast and Midwest. Less attention has been paid to the emergence of social work on the frontier in general or Montana in particular. However, it could be said that Montana and social work "grew up" together. Montana Territory was no stranger to formal and informal initiatives of support and reform that served as early prototypes of social work. For example, Catholic religious orders, such as the Sisters of Providence and the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, were intrepid travelers in Montana territory, ministering to the health, education, and welfare of the ill, illiterate, and indigent in mining camps, emerging cities and towns, and Indian Country (Brinkel, 2005; Savitt & William, 2003). Early reformers, both faith-based and state-based, left significant legacies that included the establishment of hospitals, schools, and institutions to care for poor and dependent children and adults throughout the state.

Reformers in Montana were also guided by the prevailing ideologies of the times that included assumptions regarding racial superiority. American Indian people were often the involuntary recipients of these efforts, perhaps most blatantly realized in the forced removal of Native children from families and tribal communities to church and government boarding schools where they were to be "civilized" and "assimilated" into white society (George, 1997). Throughout the Progressive Era, thousands of American Indian children, including those from Montana tribes, were placed in boarding schools and denied access to families, native languages, and cultural practices. Lone Wolf, an 8-year-old Blackfeet Indian boy was taken from his family in 1890 and placed in the Fort Shaw boarding school. Lone Wolf describes the incident:

"It was very cold that day when we were loaded into the wagons. None of us wanted to go and our parents didn't want to let us go. Oh, we cried for this was the first time we were to be separated from our parents.... Nobody waved as the wagons, escorted by the soldiers, took us toward the school at Fort Shaw. Once there our belongings were taken from us, even the little medicine bags our mothers had given us to protect us from harm. Everything was placed in a heap and set afire" (Dyck, 1972, p. 24).

Abuse and neglect of children in boarding schools was widespread. A 1928 investigation into the boarding school system resulted in a highly critical report that prompted some reforms efforts and signaled a decline in the popularity of this form of cultural intervention. (Meriam, 1928)/1/

As Montana moved from territory to state in 1889, efforts at providing social services became more systematized and institutionalized. For example, following the national trend, reformers made the plight of destitute children a social issue and called for political action. In response, in 1893, the Montana state legislature passed Senate Bill 52 authorizing the establishment of the Montana State Orphans' Home to "accept all destitute, foundling, or orphaned children under the age of 12" (Toole, 2003, p. 16). During this era, many children of unemployed and homeless families were placed in county poorhouses to become eligible for public assistance in the form of food and shelter and were then transferred to the state orphanage. "Orphans" proved to be something of a misnomer as many youngsters had at least one living parent. Poverty and illness were often the limiting factors in parents' ability to care for their children. Unfortunately, poor families residing in isolated areas of Montana had no means to visit their children in Twin Bridges and were financially unable to provide for the children's basic needs; as a result, many were indentured to farms and ranches and never reunited with their families (Toole, 2003).

Montana was also on the cusp of national concern over the welfare of abused and neglected children. Societies for the prevention of cruelty to children were forming across the country by the 1890s, and many were under the supervision of social work professionals by 1900 (MacLeod, 1998). Most were initially established with the dual mandate of preventing cruelty to children and animals as earlier laws regulating the care and treatment of animals were adapted as a model for humane treatment of children. The State of Montana founded the Bureau of Child and Animal Protection in 1903. In his inaugural report, Bureau Director Otto Schoenfeld spoke to the need for state action to protect the interests of helpless children and intervene in the lives of "badly started" children both for their interests and those of the state. If the state failed its children, he argued, it would pay the price through taxation to support jails, prisons, hospitals, and asylums down the road (Schoenfeld, 1904).

Over the course of the 20th century child protection was to become a core domain of social work theory and practice. The U.S. Children's Bureau, founded in 1912, brought professionally trained social workers (as well as other professionals) into a sphere of national influence in policy making and public advocacy. The early work of the Bureau focused on protecting children from labor exploitation and later branched into concerted attention to maternal and child health and welfare. Among its advocacy efforts were support of the mothers' pension program, which provided a basic subsidy to poor women raising children on their own and of the Sheppard-Towner Act, which provided federal support for maternal and infant health care (Ladd-Taylor, 1994).

On the Montana scene, two of the state's first trained social workers were making important contributions in these arenas of advocacy for women and children. Born into a Methodist family that shunned card playing, dancing, and alcohol consumption, Maggie Smith Hathaway was a former school teacher and Lewis and Clark superintendent who traveled 5,379 miles in five months to lobby for women's suffrage to skeptical citizens across Montana (Tascher, 1954, p. 65). As a legislator, she helped to create Montana's mothers' pension system, which received nearly unanimous support from the state legislature in 1915. She went on to advocate for an eight-hour work day for women and for the outlaw of the manufacture and sale of liquor (Tascher, 1954, p. 73). She later became Secretary of the Bureau of Child and Animal Protection where she successfully separated the investigative protocols for animals and children, lobbied for legal reform addressing child rape and incest cases, and decreased the state's dependence on the State Orphans' Home at Twin Bridges as a way to feed and clothe the children of unemployed parents (Tascher, 1954; Toole, 2003).

Perhaps more well-known in arenas of social reform, advocacy, and justice is Jeannette Rankin. While widely recognized as the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, Rankin is less often acknowledged for her background in social work. Rankin, who was born and raised on a ranch near Missoula, earned a degree in biology at The University of Montana. While traveling on the East Coast, her exposure to the conditions of urban poverty prompted her to enter studies in the emerging field of social work. Rankin attended the New York School of Philanthropy from 1908-09. She worked in child welfare, studied social legislation, and became active in the suffrage movement before running for public office. Upon election, Rankin advocated for the rights and well-being of workers, women, and children. After leaving Congress, Rankin worked as a lobbyist for the National Consumer's League where she played a key role in the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act (Smith, 2002). Rankin and Hathaway were among the many women who used the social work profession as an entree into the public arena where they had greater influence in crafting social policy that would improve the conditions of people's everyday lives.

Other efforts at Progressive Era reform had more controversial agendas. For example, many helping professionals, including social workers, were taken with the claims of the eugenics movement and became active in promoting the principles of the "science of human betterment." Assumptions regarding superiority, difference, and the inheritability of deviance informed the direction of interventions. Professionals crafted an impressive array of classification and calibration systems to measure and codify pathologies. A new lexicon of labels emerged to classify as "morally deficient," "morons," "imbeciles," and "of bad blood" those with cognitive, behavioral, and developmental problems as well as those who had failed to adopt Anglo-American language, behaviors, and moral values (Day, 2003; Dubois & Krogsrud Miley, 2005). The power to classify, measure, and label energized emerging professional expertise.

A number of social reformers in Montana embraced the eugenics movement. In an effort to prevent undesirable genes from spreading, the 1923 legislature passed the state's eugenics law that authorized physicians to sterilize patients residing in state institutions. A total of 256 people were sterilized, 184 women and 72 men; 80% were considered mentally deficient and the remainder, mentally ill (Paul, 1965, p. 406). The 1924 Biennial Report of Montana State Hospital made the case for the urgent necessity of the law and addressed the challenging task of gaining permission from relatives who often had to be convinced of the need for sterilization of their loved ones. The authors of the report decried the slow and conservative pace of the Eugenics Board, when "it is known that 670 patients of all grades of imbecility, insanity, and epilepsy have been discharged from Montana State Hospital alone since the Eugenics Law went into effect" (Montana State Hospital, 1924, p. 24).

The Progressive Era is instructive in thinking about the history, current status, and future of social work. Reformers drew attention to glaring injustices and sought to both improve the social functioning of individuals and create public policy that would promote collective well-being. Some of their efforts resulted in significant improvements in the conditions of everyday life; other efforts inflicted further emotional harm on vulnerable people in compromised situations. Despite—and sometimes because of—professional training, we can become blinkered by our own biases and ideologies and infatuated with the latest intervention trends of the times. Too often, in assessing our professional "progress," we have failed to listen to the voices and acknowledge the experiences of those most directly affected by our actions. For example, as recent testimonies from Native American adults who were children in residence at the St. Ignatius boarding school during the 1940s and 1950s document, abusive practices by caregivers and teachers continued over time (Fiorio, 2011). Only recently are the accounts of the victims and survivors of abuse at the hands of adults responsible for their welfare being acknowledged and addressed. The social work profession has been complicit in this problematic history regarding the welfare of Native American children and families. Throughout the mid to late 1900s Native children removed from their families due to allegations of abuse and neglect were generally placed in non-Native foster homes, thus continuing the practices of separation from cultural and community connection. The widespread nature of child removal practices affecting Native American families and communities provided the impetus for passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 to protect the well-being of Indian children, the integrity of Native American families, and the sovereignty of tribes (George, 1997). However, we still have an over-representation of American Indian children in foster care and child care institutions, a situation which demands careful scrutiny of the values, beliefs, and assumptions that inform and constrain social work practice. It is essential, then, that today's social worker develop a critical understanding of the histories behind contemporary practices: For this discussion, we turn now to the process of social work education.

Social work education—an overview

In the early 1900s, the New York School of Philanthropy and the University of Chicago began to educate and train students with an emphasis on "practicalities rather than academic theories" (Dubois & Krogsrud Miley, 2005, p. 47). In 1907, the University of Montana's Department of History and Economics offered a course entitled Economics IX, Sociology-Applied, described as "the application of sociology principles to the study of contemporary organizations, industrial and social; ties of social betterment; public and private philanthropy; methods of social endeavor" (Clark, 2003). In 1918, the first course in child welfare was offered at The University of Montana campus. The introduction of the course parallels growing national attention to children as a distinct social group in need of proper socialization and protection from exploitation. The well-being of children was no longer a private concern but a public issue, and public institutions, such as the U.S. Children's Bureau, were calling for trained child welfare professionals to take up the cause.

In 1933, Harold Tascher was hired at the University of Montana to teach courses in social welfare and expand course options by offering classes in public and child welfare, social case work, and family problems (Clark, 2003). Tascher's arrival during the middle years of the Depression marks a shift in public thinking about the nature of poverty and social welfare. With massive unemployment and hard times affecting a large swath of the country, ideas about poverty as a personal "failing" gave way to consideration of broader economic and political forces shaping people's lives and opened the door for concerted action by the state to meet basic human needs. Social workers played key roles in the Depression-era policies and programs of the Roosevelt administration, which culminated in the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 (Day, 2003)

The post -World War II years saw the growth of human service bureaucracies, attention to theories and practices of family and group work, and growing interest in "macro" issues of social planning and community organization. The social work profession came to identify itself in terms of three key aspects of practice—casework, group work, and community organization—and academic curricula reflected and informed this trend. By the 1970s, social work practice was being conceptualized as a problem-solving process that could be applied on multiple levels, from the individual to the group, organization, and community. Drawing insights from systems theories and ecological models in the natural and social sciences, social work theoretically embraced a generalist systems approach to understanding the interplay of persons and the larger environment and developing interventions that responded to the mismatch. In practice, however, there remained a distinction between those doing "clinical," "person changing" work and those working at the "macro" level of community and policy change (Finn & Jacobson, 2008).

The 1970s marked the institutionalization of the professional social work program and curriculum at UM. Social work became a free-standing department within the College of Arts and Sciences and, in 1974, the social work program was accredited by the Council of Social Work Education (Clark, 2003). The curriculum of the 1970s was pragmatic in nature, training students to approach their work with individuals, families, groups, and communities as a multi-phase process, moving from assessment to planning, intervention, and evaluation. It was described as "results oriented" and designed to teach students basic social work skills, so graduates could combine interviewing, assessment, and case management skills with a knowledge of human behavior and of the systems and structures that affect individuals and families. In 1973, the "Montana Competency Scales" were developed and used to measure students' knowledge and skills in specific content areas. UM became recognized as a national leader in competency-based social work education, holding a national symposium in 1977 and publishing the widely used book The Pursuit of Competence in Social Work (Clark, Arkava, & Associates, 1979).

The social work curriculum also originated in a strong emphasis on students acquiring a liberal arts education and furthering their knowledge in disciplines that broadened and deepened their understanding of the structures and systems that affected the human condition. For example, courses in Native American, African American, and women and gender studies augmented social work course content by advancing students' understanding of how oppressive social forces and practices marginalized diverse groups and jeopardized their economic and social opportunities. The courses also enhanced awareness of the ways in which oppressed groups have engaged in struggles for human rights and social justice, demonstrating possibilities for individual and cultural resilience and critical action. Courses in biology have improved students' knowledge about how major organ systems impact human health, emotion, and behavior and psychology courses have reinforced students' knowledge of human development, cognition, memory, and learning. The anthropology and sociology disciplines have augmented the curriculum by providing students with a greater understanding of how gender, racial, and cultural differences and their interplay shape social experience and impact individual, family, and organizational change efforts. Political science and history courses have enhanced the knowledge of state and federal social policy, forms and strategies of political influence and action, and ways in which old ideas and beliefs can be reproduced and embedded in new theories and practices. Finally, the philosophy department has guided the formation and recent transformation of a course on social work ethics. In sum, the liberal arts foundation has enriched students' awareness of how social systems and structures shape human relations and their ability to effectively engage in efforts to enhance services and opportunities for underserved people.

The UM Master of Social Work (MSW) program, launched in 2002, builds on this liberal arts foundation and takes an integrated approach to education that challenges the artificial division of the profession into clinical practice and community change work. Students are introduced to a new framework for thinking and practice that integrates questions of meaning, power, history, context, and possibility into all facets of their social work (Finn & Jacobson, 2008). The "Just Practice" framework, developed at The University of Montana, has since been incorporated into the curricula of numerous social work programs around the country. The framework provides students with a foundation for critical thinking as they engage in the study of specific practice theories and intervention strategies, develop skills in research and policy analysis, and carry out evaluations of policies, programs, and practices. The two-year, 60 semester-credit MSW program incorporates a range of contemporary theories of human behavior and social systems, theories of practice, and theories of change. It prepares students with capacities and tools for rigorous examination of theory, the research that informs it, and the models of practice it generates. The program is intensely practice-focused as well, requiring students to develop and demonstrate knowledge and skills with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities in classroom settings, individual professional portfolios, and supervised professional practice (900 hours over two years). The hands-on, teaching-learning process recognizes the iterative, recursive nature of learning and practice and encourages students to move back and forth between action and critical reflection, while continually revisiting and rethinking questions of theory, ethics, policy, and related skills of practice.

The MSW program provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to:

1. implement empirically sound, culturally appropriate models of practice;
2. critically reflect on their practice and learn from mistakes;
3. consider how social history, identity, and experience shape understandings of problems and solutions;
4. teach and learn within organizational settings;
5. build effective teams and collaborative working relationships that incorporate differing perspectives;
6. create space and opportunity for divergent views to be heard;
7. encourage participatory strategies for understanding problems, generating ideas, and envisioning possibilities for action;
8. recognize and tap into human strengths and capacities for change;
9. evaluate both the process and outcomes of practice; and
10. continually question the "certainties" that guide professional action. (Sakamoto & Pitner, 2005; Saleebey, 2006)

Students are prepared to integrate skills of clinical practice and community building, appreciate the complex contexts in which they practice, and effectively navigate arenas of public policy making as well as those of social service delivery. As the opening discussion suggests, today's Montana social worker needs sophisticated knowledge and skills to be effective in dynamic environments where economies are in flux, communication technologies are transforming social relationships, businesses readily relocate around the globe, and workers find themselves in precarious circuits of migration. Social workers in Montana must also understand that in spite of the state's high rankings in suicide, low wages, drug use, and poverty, its citizens are ardently resilient and highly adaptable and that by centering on clients' strengths rather than pathologies, positive change is more likely (Saleebey, 2006). Knowing the challenges that Montana's citizens have confronted and weathered in the past is critical to building successful alliances for action and change. The ability to navigate this complexity and address personal struggles as they are shaped by and within it is critical, not only for social workers in Montana and the Rocky Mountain West, but for the profession as a whole.

Finally, it is important to recognize that social work is a value-based profession; reflection on personal and professional values and their roles in shaping ethical decisions and professional action is a key part of the educational process. The National Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics highlights six core values that underlie and inform professional thought and action: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence (NASW Code of Ethics, 1999, preamble, p. 1). Adherence to the profession's core values counters ideologically driven practice and the compelling power of professional "certainty." It calls instead for professional humility, a willingness to listen to and learn from the experiences of those affected by adverse conditions, a commitment to rigorous inquiry and critical curiosity, and a dedication to service at the individual, community, or policy level that contributes to the strength of human capacities and relationships. Ongoing reflection on one's practice and competence in light of these values becomes part of one's professional responsibilities.

Tensions and challenges

Putting values into practice, social workers engage in activities that buoy the emotionally harmed, feed the hungry, support the poor, and house the homeless. Moreover, the Code of Ethics encourages social workers to participate in "social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully" (NASW Code of Ethics, 1999, 6.04a, p. 27) and work to "expand choice and opportunity for all people, with special regard for vulnerable, disadvantaged, oppressed, and exploited people and groups" (NASW Code of Ethics, 1999, 6.04b, p. 27). Finally, the code suggests that social workers "act to prevent and eliminate domination of, exploitation of, and discrimination against any person, group, or class on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical disability" (NASW Code of Ethics, 1999, 6.04d, p.27).

Equalizing the playing field for "all people," especially those who have been disadvantaged and oppressed, has a tendency to strike a nerve with critics and provides fodder for the profession's politicized potential; the profession has served as an ideological lightning rod as critics have railed against its clearly articulated value-based approach. Oppressed people have been treated poorly because they have been marked as "different" by virtue of presumed physical, social, or behavioral characteristics that other individuals or groups dislike. Efforts to disrupt or prevent oppressive societal practices and to help those experiencing oppression cope with the emotional repercussions of such treatment can incite opposition and resistance. In 2007, the polarizing potential of the profession gained notoriety following the publication of a study by the National Association of Scholars (NAS). NAS describes itself as "an independent membership association of academics working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America's colleges and universities" (NAS, "Who We Are," para. 1). The group involved itself with social work education upon hearing accusations from students at Missouri State University, Rhode Island College, and the University of Illinois that professors were dismissive of their more politically conservative and evangelical beliefs, and instead, encouraged them to adopt more liberal positions on issues that typically confront social work clients (e.g., homelessness, mental illness). NAS's study was initiated to "determine whether or not they (social work education programs) conformed to the academic ideals of open inquiry, partisan disengagement and intellectual pluralism" ("NAS Study declares", para. 3, Sept. 11, 2007). The study involved the analysis of "(1) the accreditation standards to which they conformed, (2) the professional standards they expected of their students, (3) the way they defined themselves and their programmatic objectives in their mission statements, and (4) how their course listings described course content." (NAS, "The scandal," 2007, pp. 4-5). To establish whether or not social work programs met the stated academic standards, NAS reviewed the web pages of 10 accredited social work programs at public universities and examined mission statements and supporting documents (e.g., student handbooks) (NAS, "The scandal," 2007).

Following NAS's analysis of the mission statements and related web-based documents, the group concluded that the programs "are replete with...ideologically fraught statements ranging from an avowal of commitments to the 'empowerment of oppressed people' to an emphasis on understanding 'the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination..." ("NAS Study declares," para 4, September 11, 2007) and that the profession "has supplanted open minded inquiry with left-wing, morally relativist, and occasionally paranoid dogma" ("NAS Study declares," 2007, para 7).

NAS's findings became nationally relevant when Washington Post columnist George Will (2007) published an article titled "Code of Coercion." Will used the study's findings to support his thesis that social work education was "indoctrinating students" into liberalism since, in part, the mission statements, student manuals, and course descriptions included such words as "diversity, inclusion, classism, ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, white privilege, ableism, contextualizes subjects, cultural imperialism, social identities, positionalities, biopsychosocial, and just share of our society's resources" (Code of Coercion, para. 6, October 14, 2007).

An inquiry into the claim that specific statements by social work educators in their representational and pedagogical discourse suggests a compromise of intellectual freedom and/or open inquiry would be an analytical project far beyond the scope of this article—an interpretive task of great complexity. Worth observing in response, however, is the rich knowledge base in the social and natural sciences that has informed a critical understanding of the human condition and the consequences of discrimination, oppression, and domination (Dominelli, 2002; Gill, 1998) that has directly informed the models for practice and the "lexicon" of principles in social work education. Racism, ageism, and sexism, for example, are deeply-rooted societal practices that have devalued the status and opportunities of specific people and groups for centuries—and specifically, the term "biopsychosocial" refers to discipline-specific areas of study that inform a comprehensive assessment of a client seeking services (Hutchinson, 2008). "Bio" here simply indicates how a person's physical health and specific cognitive processes impact emotional stability and contribute to an identified problem. "Psycho" incorporates the client's psychological make-up and includes such contributors as cognition, emotion, learning, memory, personality, and developmental abilities. Finally, "social" consists of the outside or environmental forces that often influence the individual's current situation (e.g., family relationships, socio-economic status). The term has no political home, no liberal or conservative agenda, and merely seeks to identify areas of inquiry that comprise a comprehensive assessment. A social worker would be practicing unethically and incompetently if a bio-psycho-social evaluation were not conducted. It is through a comprehensive assessment that one comes to understand the nexus of personal struggles and social issues in concrete and specific ways. Attention to the role of social forces in shaping individual experience does not preclude attention to individual will, actions, and responsibilities. Rather it moves us beyond the binary thinking of either personal or social responsibility, challenges the characterization of those affected by adverse circumstances as passive victims, and opens possibilities for treatment and action in which those suffering from personal and social struggles can take an active part in the process of change (Saleebey, 2006).

The principles and values articulated in the discourse of social work education are commensurate with the NASW Code of Ethics—a document that coincides with international standards for humanitarian behavior and basic human rights. For example, the Code closely parallels the value stance articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. (United Nations, preamble)

Further, the practice of social work reflects a commitment to realizing the promise of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While the commitment to human rights is implicit in the NASW Code of Ethics, it is explicitly stated in the International Federation of Social Work's statement of ethical principles. Ethical practice calls social workers to take a stand to protect the dignity, worth, and rights of all people as we engage in practices of healing, support, and advocacy (Ife, 2001; Witkin, 1998). The Code of Ethics is evolving with a critical consciousness of the profession's own implications in practices that were ideologically driven and harmful to vulnerable people. Competent, ethical practice calls for a critical historical consciousness and ongoing critical reflection on our "certainties" so that we are not swept away in fleeting trends but grounded with the healthy skepticism of the serious researcher even as we bring basic human compassion to bear in the art and heart of our practice (Sarri & Finn, 1992).

The profession's value-based practice perspective and corresponding ethical guidelines will continue to pose challenges for educators who must ensure that their students adhere to standards of conduct that guide professional activities. Since we live in a highly polarized society that is often consumed in proving one's personal and political values as correct, social work educators must transcend the fray and carefully monitor how personal and political values might color their capacity to uphold the profession's practice perspectives. Likewise, social work educators have a responsibility to make discussion of values a talkable rather than taboo subject in the learning experience so that students further their understanding of their own value-based stances and their appreciation of value differences. Social work educators must also ensure that the ethical standard requiring professionals to "demonstrate respect for difference"(6.04c, p. 27) is fully met and, in spite and because of differing values, that the programs and services provided to clients are based on relevant theories, sound empirical evidence, and well-crafted research.

To be effective practitioners today, social workers must understand how biological, political, economic, and global forces impact human welfare and emotional health. Social work is a discipline that recognizes how personal choices and social forces can either promote or inhibit individual well-being, social relationships, and the integrity of families and communities. While the profession will continue to face critics, it is well-suited to address the complex and multifaceted problems that individuals and communities confront.

Notes

1. The Study, widely known as the "Meriam Report" examined government administration of Indian affairs and social conditions broadly, including conditions in boarding schools.[Back]

References

[The Montana Professor 22.1, Fall 2011 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]