辅导 SCWK90055 The Legal and Ethical Contexts of Practice Assignment 2

SCWK90055 The Legal and Ethical Contexts of Practice

Assignment 2- The Legal Context of Social Work Practice

(1,500 words- 30% of overall mark for the subject)

Essay topic: Identify an area of practice in which you are interested and in which social workers operate within a significant legal context. (For example: child protection, mental health, disability, elder abuse, refugees and asylum seekers, criminal justice system, family violence). Your paper should examine the legal context of practice in your chosen area, including relevant legislation, and how the legal context shapes and influences social work practice.

Your essay needs to demonstrate:

●     Knowledge of the specific legal context and legislation relevant to the area of social work practice.

●     Identification of key drivers of change in the relevant legal context/legislation and likely future reforms.

●    Capacity to identify and understand the impact of the legal context/legislation on the    area of social work practice (ie. The impact on social workers and the people they work with).

When choosing your area of practice and the legal context, this must relate to the current legal context including current legislation in operation, although in the section of your paper referring to change and law reform. you may of course refer to previous legislation.

General

●    All assignments should be submitted electronically through CANVAS by 11.59 pm on the due date. If you have problems uploading the assignment please let the subject coordinator and/or your tutor know as well as emailing them your assignment (by the due time). Please ensure you keep a record of submission.

●    The number of words for this assignment is 1,500 words. While there is a 10% leeway assignments substantially over the required word count may be penalised (eg. assignments with over 1650 words may be penalised). The word count includes all quotes and in text citations and references to literature and legislation (but excludes the bibliography/reference list at the end of your paper).

Choosing an area of practice

This assignment requires you to choose an area of social work practice that operates within a significant legal context. This is likely to be social work practice in areas such as child and family welfare, mental health, disability, elder abuse, family violence, asylum seekers and refugees or the criminal justice area. However, there are other areas of social work practice   that would be suitable for the assignment- please discuss with your tutor to make sure it is a suitable area for the assignment.

You can choose to focus on a broad area of practice (eg. mental health) or, given the word  limits, it is recommended that you choose a more specific area (eg. CTOs within the mental health system). The main issue to consider in choosing how you will focus your assignment  is that there is some connection to social work practice (ie. Social workers need to work within the legal context of the area you are examining and/or typical clients/service users of social workers/human services are impacted by the legal context).

Basic structure for the assignment

●    Introduction- in which you should clearly indicate the practice area you will be examining and any particular focus you will be making within that area.

●    The main areas you should aim to cover in the body of the paper include (in no particular order):

o Key principles, elements & content of the legislation in the area you are

examining (note: you do not need to reproduce large slabs of the legislation although small quotes if they demonstrate a point are permissible- ie. You should be summarising and demonstrating your knowledge and understanding of the legislation/area of law you are examining- not just what is contained in an Act.)

o An analysis of current issues concerning the legislation/area of law. eg. Are there calls for reforms of the law? In what areas? Who is calling for the changes? What are the broader community views?

o An analysis of the impact of the legislation/ area of law on social work practice and/or users of social work/ human services. (This will usually be a separate section but may be incorporated throughout your paper).

●    Conclusion.

Note: You do not need to limit your paper to the above areas and may include other content. The number of words you write for each section will depend on the legislation or area of law you are examining.

An example – If my assignment is focussing on the area of guardianship the areas I might focus on in my assignment include:

●    The key principles and mechanisms in the Guardianship and Administration Act 2019 as well as connections to other relevant legislation eg. Power of Attorney Act.

●    What reforms led to the current legislation (eg. CRPD required much greater focus on supported decision making) and what calls are there for future reform)

●    What this means for social workers working in areas where Guardianship is important and/or their clients/consumers.

Critical Reflection

Your paper should demonstrate critical reflection on the issues surrounding the legislation and/or broader legal context of the area you have examined, and not be just a description of the legislation or area of law.

References

Your assignment should include references to the legislation you are examining and to other relevant readings, resources, materials. The number of references you need to include will depend very much on what particular area and aspect of the law/ legislation you are examining so we are not prescribing a certain number of references. However, as this assignment is asking you to look in some detail at a particular piece of legislation or area of  law it is likely that you will need to include considerably more than one or two references if you are to dowell in the assignment! Given the word count for the paper, in relation to legislation please don’t directly quote large sections of legislation- rather refer to the relevant section and summarise in your own words (unless of course there is a particularly relevant section to quote directly).

You should reference using the APA style. If you are unsure there is a guide to referencing styles you can access through the library website. When referring to specific sections of legislation it is permissible to refer to the Act and the particular section in the text of your assignment (eg. Section 10 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) refers to…..). With references to legislation please note whether it is Commonwealth legislation or name the state (eg. (Vic) after a reference to Victorian legislation).

Marking criteria

The assignment is worth 30 marks and 30% or your final mark for Legal and Ethical Contexts of Practice- see further information in the rubric on CANVAS.  The criteria on which the assignments will be graded are: