2.Survey Overview
Introduction
The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) are seeking the views of people with lived experience about the regulation of social workers. As part of our advocacy to advance social work registration, we would like to communicate the information you provide from this survey to decision makers such as government and Ministers. We believe that your views on social work registration are very important as you may have direct experience with social workers.
Existing Social Work Regulation Arrangements
Currently, social work is a self-regulated profession. This means that the AASW sets the standards for professional practice and ethical conduct of social workers in Australia, including social work education. However, the AASW is a voluntary, membership-based body with no legal powers to regulate social workers. A large part of the social work workforce in Australia are not members of the AASW. There is no regulation in place that prevents an unqualified person from setting up practice and referring to themselves as a social worker. This is out of step with other comparable countries around the world, such as the UK, Canada and NZ, who have various forms of social work registration.
As social work is not a registered health profession, the public cannot take complaints about social worker misconduct to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
Advocacy for National Registration
The AASW is pursuing registration through the already well-established National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS).
NRAS is administered by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). If successful, all social workers would be required to meet minimum standards to be registered to practice. This would align the social work profession with other AHPRA-regulated health professions such as psychologists and occupational therapists.
NRAS is primarily about providing protection for clients and greater certainty for employers in facilitating workforce mobility and high-quality service provision. A statutory model of regulation will provide a legally enforceable set of probity, qualification and practice standards for entry into the social work profession and maintenance of continuing professional development as a requirement for maintaining registration and accreditation.
Statutory registration and accreditation also provide a registration board with powers to investigate complaints and apply legally enforceable penalties for practitioners who breach competency and ethical standards, including removal from the register of practitioners. This makes it less likely that a person engaging in incompetent or unethical practice will move to another position without detection.
This survey will take approximately 3 minutes to complete.
Please complete the survey by 9am Tuesday 11th March.
We are not collecting any personal information about you in this survey. All data provided through this survey will be managed in accordance with the Australian Association of Social Worker Privacy Policy: POL 1005 7 March 2022.
If you have any further questions about this, please contact the AASW Social Policy and Advocacy team on (03) 9320 1000, or email socialpolicy@aasw.asn.au
Thank you for your time.
The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) are seeking the views of people with lived experience about the regulation of social workers. As part of our advocacy to advance social work registration, we would like to communicate the information you provide from this survey to decision makers such as government and Ministers. We believe that your views on social work registration are very important as you may have direct experience with social workers.
Existing Social Work Regulation Arrangements
Currently, social work is a self-regulated profession. This means that the AASW sets the standards for professional practice and ethical conduct of social workers in Australia, including social work education. However, the AASW is a voluntary, membership-based body with no legal powers to regulate social workers. A large part of the social work workforce in Australia are not members of the AASW. There is no regulation in place that prevents an unqualified person from setting up practice and referring to themselves as a social worker. This is out of step with other comparable countries around the world, such as the UK, Canada and NZ, who have various forms of social work registration.
As social work is not a registered health profession, the public cannot take complaints about social worker misconduct to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
Advocacy for National Registration
The AASW is pursuing registration through the already well-established National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS).
NRAS is administered by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). If successful, all social workers would be required to meet minimum standards to be registered to practice. This would align the social work profession with other AHPRA-regulated health professions such as psychologists and occupational therapists.
NRAS is primarily about providing protection for clients and greater certainty for employers in facilitating workforce mobility and high-quality service provision. A statutory model of regulation will provide a legally enforceable set of probity, qualification and practice standards for entry into the social work profession and maintenance of continuing professional development as a requirement for maintaining registration and accreditation.
Statutory registration and accreditation also provide a registration board with powers to investigate complaints and apply legally enforceable penalties for practitioners who breach competency and ethical standards, including removal from the register of practitioners. This makes it less likely that a person engaging in incompetent or unethical practice will move to another position without detection.
This survey will take approximately 3 minutes to complete.
Please complete the survey by 9am Tuesday 11th March.
We are not collecting any personal information about you in this survey. All data provided through this survey will be managed in accordance with the Australian Association of Social Worker Privacy Policy: POL 1005 7 March 2022.
If you have any further questions about this, please contact the AASW Social Policy and Advocacy team on (03) 9320 1000, or email socialpolicy@aasw.asn.au
Thank you for your time.