The complexities in social work practice

Abstract

An understanding of the social work profession starts with an intense appreciation of the person that the social worker serves, the context where this is done and the processes involved in offering services, as well as who is employed to do these services (Sheafor & Horejsi, 2008). Complexity lies at the heart of social work practice since social workers, wherever they work, deal with complex life situations in their practice. As Payne (2008) observed, if situations were not difficult in various ways or complex in their ramifications, people would often manage them without calling on help from a social worker. Khoo et al. (2020) and Gümüscü et al. (2020) have explored the complexity concept in social work, and how it can be exemplified in child welfare services as we do with other welfare services. Payne’s (2008) suggestion to deal with such complexities is to identify where these complexities lie and use theory to work on solutions that can solve such complexities, which is this issue’s contribution.