ethics

Documentation in social work practice is something that cannot be avoided by professionals in our field. While laborious to maintain, well-kept documentation can protect workers from liabilities in the event of malpractice suits.

 

Aside from the purpose of protecting workers from civil liabilities, it is also important to understand how clear documentation of our work can also serve as a means to improve the standards of clinical services that are rendered toward our clients. For instance, clear and timely documentation of the treatment interventions that has been provided to our clients can better inform the assessment of workers who may have to take over the particular care of a client after his current worker leaves his current position. While, description of daily behavioural observations or critical incidents of our clients allows other workers to have a more balanced view of how the functioning of our clients came to be.

 

Therefore, it is important to recognise that while one purpose of well-kept documentation lays in its purpose to safeguard the worker against legal liabilities, the practice of documentation can also be meaningful to practitioners as it can serve as a means of ensuring that clinical services and standards to our clients are not comprised when their workers leave the organization.