Lilly Angela, Rakow Tim, Manthorpe Jill, Gardner Benjamin
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, United KingdomDepartment of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2025 Jun 20;20(6):e0325432. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0325432. eCollection 2025.
Registered social workers in English Local Authorities are required to have an expertise in the complex decision-making needed to promote well-being when an adult's own judgement about their well-being and wishes about how to promote it might, in the circumstances, put their well-being at risk. Such circumstances are complex partly because core professional values - promoting autonomy and protecting from harm - can come into conflict. Given the consequential nature of social workers' decisions, it is essential to be able to evaluate the quality of social workers' decision-making. In this paper, we set out the systematic development, in collaboration with expert social workers, of a bespoke methodology to measure decision-making quality and investigate underpinning cognitive processes. Central to our methodology was social workers' consideration of key legal principles. First, we reviewed the research literature to identify existing measurement schemes aspects of which might be suitable for incorporating into our methodology. No existing measurement schemes were found, but we identified a factorial survey vignette-based scheme which seemed promising as the basis for our own methodology. Second, by reviewing statute and case law, we identified 40 key legal principles which social workers should consider in their decision-making. Next, based on these principles, we developed four hypothetical case vignettes to activate decision-making. Finally, we developed four scoring templates, one for each vignette, setting out exemplar judgements and decisions against which practitioners' judgements and decisions could be compared and scored. Our new methodology provides a means of assessing the quality of social workers' decision-making and, as prior- and post-intervention quality can be measured, has the potential to generate evidence of the impact of policy and practice interventions on decision-making.
在英国地方当局工作的注册社会工作者，当成年人对自身福祉的判断以及关于如何增进福祉的愿望在某些情况下可能会使其福祉面临风险时，他们需要具备在促进福祉所需的复杂决策方面的专业知识。这种情况之所以复杂，部分原因在于核心专业价值观——促进自主性和防止伤害——可能会产生冲突。鉴于社会工作者决策的重要性，能够评估社会工作者决策的质量至关重要。在本文中，我们阐述了与专家社会工作者合作系统开发的一种定制方法，用于衡量决策质量并研究其潜在的认知过程。我们方法的核心是社会工作者对关键法律原则的考量。首先，我们查阅了研究文献，以确定现有测量方案中可能适合纳入我们方法的方面。未发现现有的测量方案，但我们确定了一种基于因子调查 vignette 的方案，它似乎有望成为我们自己方法的基础。其次，通过查阅成文法和判例法，我们确定了社会工作者在决策时应考虑的 40 条关键法律原则。接下来，基于这些原则，我们开发了四个假设案例 vignette 以激发决策。最后，我们为每个 vignette 开发了一个评分模板，列出了示例判断和决策，据此可以对从业者的判断和决策进行比较和评分。我们的新方法提供了一种评估社会工作者决策质量的手段，并且由于可以测量干预前后的质量，有可能生成政策和实践干预对决策影响的证据。
