Abstract:
At the heart of the move to social work registration in Aotearoa New Zealand has been the quest to bring social work practice into the professional gaze; to define a level of qualifica- tion for social work practice, register practitioners, align membership within a peer review framework, and have a system of accountability whereby complaints can be investigated and measures taken to protect standards for social work practice. This framework creating the Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) (2006) (with ANZASW as a major stakeholder), means New Zealand has resolved a process to sanction the credentials and qualities social work practice should maintain in our context. By having this prerogative created in legis- lation social work is gaining a place in the professional domain akin to other occupational groups; taking its opportunity to engage in what Freidson (2001) calls the ‘professionalising project’ of occupations. This paper takes two facets of the many intellectual and practical factors (ie, the use of theory, competency and technique, the commitment to ethical care, a concern for social justice) that make up the domain of social work It asks how they in particular may be in- fluenced by the advent of registration in the local scene. Practitioner scholarship and civic literacy have been coined in this instance to capture two elements that could be added to the list as features of social work’s concern. This paper will offer definitional discussion on the nature and salience of these components to the social work domain and then debate the wider issues.