What Does It Mean To Be Essential?

by Darla Spence Coffey, PhD, MSW

     Happy Social Work Month 2021!                               

     I’ve been thinking a lot about the question: What does it mean to be “essential”? 

     Although “essential” is both a noun and an adjective, it is more common to use the term as an adjective. As an adjective, we are describing social work as critical and vital. These are powerful – and fitting – descriptors. But when we use “essential” as a noun, we are not just describing something. We are defining it. We shift the meaning of the phrase “social workers are essential” when we declare that it is a necessity, a requirement, to include social work when working with individuals, families, communities, and organizations. As a noun, it becomes unthinkable to plan or provide services, develop policy, or conduct research without a strong social work presence and orientation to the work. We need to embrace this as the definition of social work – and not just a descriptor.

     However, to do that, we need to also make sure that we are “essentially” social work – acting from our essence. What is the essence of social work, and how do we manifest that in our work? What makes us different from other healthcare providers, behavioral health workers, substance abuse counselors, researchers, program administrators, or members of Congress? Individuals who perform these roles who were not educated as social workers are often motivated by the same things that brought us to the social work profession – a desire to serve, to do good, to correct injustices, and to create equity. However, social work education explicitly integrates the “what we do” with “how we do it.” We move our values for justice and equity to the very center of our work.

• It is central to social work that we connect case to cause (and vice versa).
• It is central to social work that we not only facilitate healing for individuals and families, but that we create policies and opportunities so that healing is a real option for all. 
• It is central to social work that, while we bring value to the program and systems we work in, we also ask hard questions of those systems in order to advance fairness and equity.
• It is central to social work to be guided by a commitment to justice and equity (as opposed to this being an afterthought or an “add on”).

     Social workers are essential. Every program, sector, system, and policy-making body needs social workers. And the social workers in those spaces need to stay true to the essence of the profession. This is how we can change the world.

Darla Spence Coffey, PhD, MSW, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). CSWE is the national association of schools and programs of social work, representing nearly 900 accredited undergraduate and graduate programs. CSWE’s Commission on Accreditation is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education in this country. Through its many initiatives, activities, and centers, CSWE supports quality social work education and provides opportunities for leadership and professional development, so that social workers play a central role in achieving the profession’s goals of social and economic justice.