**6. Conclusions**

This article has explored students (undergraduate and postgraduate) perceptions of professionalism in social work. As undergraduate students engaged in formal learning to become social work practitioners, they are closely monitored and observed throughout placement to ensure they meet the standards required. The NQSW example in this paper highlights that once qualified, practitioners often engage in social work practice 'unobserved', so whether practitioners are 'getting it right' or displaying poor professional practice, this is occurring without independent observation to corroborate. There is a balance to be achieved as Hordern [64] (p. 6) suggests "expertise is also seen as the capacity to exercise judgement with a degree of autonomy".

The role of the social worker in the age of the fourth industrial revolution has changed. We no longer work in silos. We are required to demonstrate professional meta competencies and work across and between trans-disciplinary teams within the health professions, the private sector and alongside 'nonprofessional' colleagues. Baretti [65] (p. 280) comments that 'being proud to be a social worker expresses something not only about organisational affiliation, but also motivation and the desire to do a decent job'.

In this study, there was remarkable similarity between the two groups of respondents considering that one group of respondents were nine weeks into their professional learning and the other group had extensive social work practice backgrounds. Reflecting on the original research questions on how respondents perceive the profession and in relation to those aspects of professions they deemed important, appearance and demeanor were scored just as highly as highly complex aspects such as accountability and professional ethics. Their responses in relation to perceptions of helping professions

had a strong emphasis on professionalism and bureaucracy. The challenge within this is how do we 'row back' from how embedded the institutional logics of managemen<sup>t</sup> and the markets are within professionalism? The demands of social work education within Higher Education is to review, revise and improve the quality to impact on the professional expertise of graduates. Furthermore, that these graduates will remain in the profession long enough to have a positive impact with the individuals and families with whom they work. This raises the question how much occupational control do social work educators have in (re)shaping the curriculum and trying to retain the core values of social work against this backdrop? Ball [20] (p. 1056) posits that 'our professional identity is rooted in our own principles and we must push back against the bureaucracy to hold onto the power to define ourselves, 'who we are and who we might become'.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to thank Stephen Clarke for his technical expertise.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
