Social Work Law

Law is heavily imbedded in social work practice. Social workers work within the framework of the law in three major capacities. Firstly; as regulators, secondly; as advocates or agents for legal rights, and thirdly; by developing and commenting on social policy. Social workers are intrinsically linked with the law, by working with people for whom the law is designed to protect. Social workers work in different fields of social work practice, both directly and indirectly. In all fields of practice they will be exposed to law in some capacity. As such, a good practical knowledge of law is essential in performing the role of social worker. This essay defines the role of a social worker in regards to meeting their clients’ legal needs.
There is a growing trend towards providing more education and awareness of law in social work practice and education, particularly after some serious failures of applying the law in social work. These high-profile failures raised public questions over the proficiency of practitioners in applying instruments of law to protect their clients. (Braye et al., 2011; Braye & Preston-Shoot, 2006). In many of these cases it was seen that the practitioner was remiss in applying their legal mandate. Braye et al. (2011) commented that the stakes are high in applying law in social work practice and bad decision-making processes can have devastating results. Therefore, due diligence is critical when learning and applying law as a social
The principle essentially ensures accountability by the decision maker to provide evidence for the decision made, as well as a right by the person affected by the decision to be heard. The principle of procedural fairness provides a good framework for decision-making in general, and is therefore the cornerstone of the AASW Code of Ethics (2010) ethical practice and decision-making guidelines. As Swain (2013, p.85) states, “much of social work practice involves the exercise of explicit or implicit power, and much of its decision-making is discretionary”. With discretionary decision-making, there has to be a provision for accountability. Procedural fairness relies on several criteria which can be summarized as thus: a decision has to be legislatively and professionally justifiable; the decision maker has to provide the other party the right to heard; the decision needs to be made without bias; the decision needs to be made based on relevant evidence; and finally, the decision maker has to provide the other party justifiable reasoning for the decision (Swain,