Social Work Matters: Californians’ Perceptions of Social Welfare Tyler M. Argüello, Arturo Baiocchi, and Jennifer Price Wolf This article reports on findings from a representative survey of Californians (N = 946) and their perception of social work and its professionals. Analysis of the survey data indicates that the public holds a generally positive view of social work and its “helping” nature, although social work is considered one of the least prestigious professions. Respondents pri- marily associated social work with child protection and behavioral health roles, and less often with tasks such as community organizing, promoting social justice, and crafting social policy. Implications are considered for renegotiating the identity of social work and fore- grounding social justice. KEY WORDS: identity; perceptions; population; social work T he questions of what social work is, who social workers are, and who they serve continue to arise within the profession and in the broader public sphere. These questions are not new. In fact, since near its inception, social work has contended with claims that it lacks the necessary well-defined skill set and jurisdictional boundaries to make it a “real ” profession (see Flexner, 1915). Another enduring set of concerns suggests that social work has an image problem, with social work being viewed by some as too narrow (that is, focused primarily on child protection) and by others as too broad and vague to convey its speci fic functions (com- pare Condie, Hanson, Lang, Moss, & Kane, 1978; Dennison, Poole, & Qaqish, 2007; Meyerson, 1959; Specht, 1972). Given this sort of brand recognition, there are substantive reasons for assessing how the broader public understands, or misunderstands, social work- ers and their functions. First, it is unclear how those outside the profession actually perceive the value and contributions of the field. Impressions that social workers are undervalued and underappreciated in society are common within the field (Dennison et al., 2007; Etzioni, 1969; Greenwood, 1957; Kadushin, 1958; Specht & Courtney, 1994; Zugazaga, Surette, Mendez, & Otto, 2006), but there is little empirical data on how community stakeholders and policymakers currently view the effectiveness of social work practice, or, more fun- damentally, understand what social workers actu- ally do. Whereas a few studies have explored these issues in the realm of public opinion (Condie et al., 1978; Dennison et al., 2007; Kadushin, 1958; Meyerson, 1959), most of these studies date back several decades or were based on nonrepresentative samples of students, specific consumer groups, or communities with little social diversity; one notable exception is a survey study reported by LeCroy and Stinson (2004). Second, public perceptions of social workers likely shape and influence the market for social workers. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor indicate that social work is one of the fastest growing fields in the United States, with predictions that the number of social work positions will increase 12 percent by 2024 (NASW, 2017). According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, social workers represent the largest group of mental health providers in the United States, with public hospitals, like the U.S. Department of Veterans Af- fairs, being some of the largest employers of MSWs (as cited in NASW, 2017). In California specifically, it is estimated that the demand for licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs) will substantially increase by 2028, whereas the net supply of practitioners may decrease during this time; current utilization patterns plus unmet needs suggest that there will be 28 percent fewer LCSWs to meet overall demand for services (Coffman, Bates, Geyn, & Spetz, 2018). Growing demand for social workers hints that perceptions of social work may be more positive than is assumed; however, population-based research examining this issue could further illuminate whether favorable doi: 10.1093/sw/swy032 © 2018 National Association of Social Workers 305 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sw/article-abstract/63/4/305/5074548 by guest on 23 September 2018