Social work is a resistance movement.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot to say that out loud. We got caught in a tide of professionalism and performative neutrality. We traded our activist roots for PowerPoint slides on ‘risk management’. We let the word radical slip out the side door and replaced it with other terms like ‘evidence-based’, ‘inclusive’, and ‘progressive’, because it made the sector less twitchy.
But here's the thing. Social work is explicitly value-based. That makes it radical in its very bones.
Unlike many professions, our work is not defined solely by technical expertise or knowledge. It is defined by three core, unwavering values. Social justice, respect for persons, and professional integrity. These are not lofty ideals, but calls to action.
Social Justice
This goes beyond vague equity policies or inclusive branding. Social justice means getting into the trenches and pulling at the roots of oppression. It’s about identifying what a person needs, why they need it, and who benefits from them not having it. When a social worker challenges a policy that denies someone access to housing because they’re ‘non-compliant’, that’s social justice in motion. It’s enacted when we resist the push to pathologise trauma responses instead of resourcing safe environments. Social justice tells us that neutrality is complicity and that we do not stand at the sidelines. We push.
Respect for Persons
Not just respect for ‘clients’ or ‘service users’ or ‘consumers’, but respect for Persons. Full humans. With histories, wisdom, and ways of knowing that often don’t fit inside bureaucratic tick-boxes. Respect that means refusing to treat people as passive recipients of care and instead assuming agency, even when the system has spent decades denying it. It means really listening when someone who is paying you tells you that your ‘intervention’ feels like surveillance. It means asking how we can support, not deciding what support looks like in advance. It means that dignity is non-negotiable.
Professional Integrity
I used to think that this value was mostly about ‘performing as a professional’, through actions like ensuring our training is up to date, our case notes are accurate and our privacy policies transparent. It is. But it goes much deeper than that. It’s about knowing the points of difference between our profession and the other professions. It’s the bit that holds us upright when the system wants us to fold. It means not going along with unethical practices because ‘it’s how we’ve always done it’. It means speaking up when budget cuts are disguised as efficiency and it means protecting the client’s best interest even when the referral pathway says otherwise. It means holding ourselves to account when we get it wrong. And we do get it wrong. Because social work is not immune to harm.
Let’s say that out loud.
We have been part of the problem. Social work has long carried a legacy of collusion with oppressive systems, including the ongoing marginalisation and criminalisation of Indigenous Australians. The history of child protection is soaked in this. The tension between care and control continues to haunt our practice.
But here’s what makes this profession different. We name it. We name the harm, hold space for truth-telling and engage in repair. We keep pushing to make sure we do not become instruments of control dressed in therapeutic language.
The AASW Code of Ethics (2020) says, ‘Social workers operate at the interface between people and their social, cultural and physical environments. In all contexts, social workers maintain a dual focus on assisting human functioning and identifying the systemic issues that create inequity and injustice.’
Read that again.
It doesn't say ‘identify what’s wrong with a person and fix it’. It doesn’t say ‘maintain objectivity and don’t rock the boat’.
It says identify the systemic issues that create inequity and injustice.
That is a radical job description.
It’s nothing new. In the 70s and early 80s, social work saw the emergence of what was explicitly called radical social work. These were social workers who didn’t just work in systems, they agitated inside them. They aligned themselves with liberation struggles, demanded anti-capitalist analyses, and saw welfare not as a safety net, but as a site of political struggle. They ran street clinics, organised tenants' rights campaigns, refused to separate practice from politics. Many of them are still out there fighting the fight today, involved with people’s inquiries into free speech on our university campuses, creating group programs that offer safe and brave spaces for Queer young people, and collaborating underground with each other to prioritise client’s needs over bureaucratic rules that act as barricades against care.
While the term ‘radical’ has mostly been buried in dusty archives, the spirit remains.
We’ve just renamed it to make it sound a little less idealistic, a little more palatable. We call it ‘progressive’ and ‘innovative’ and maybe this is good strategy so that we aren’t dismissed by gatekeepers and can up our chances of getting a seat at the tables of power. But these terms are scrubbed clean of the fire that burns behind the sentiment, so at least amongst us and with our clients, let’s be clear. Social work’s role in pushing back against all forms of violence, bureaucratic indifference, and the marketisation of care is not progressive. It is radical.
We see it clearly in systems like the NDIS.
This enormous, tangled, beautiful, infuriating system was designed to increase choice and control. But much of that choice now depends on how well a ‘participant’ can navigate a convoluted maze of forms, language games, and gatekeepers with too much power and not enough understanding.
NDIS decision-makers, many of whom wield their authority like minor gods, often deny supports without explanation, citing ‘insufficient evidence’ or just flat our saying ‘no’ to very reasonable requests. They are no doubt under pressure themselves to cut budgets and ensure ‘compliance’. The austerity comes from the top. But that doesn't make it less devastating for the disabled people it was supposed to centre.
Social workers in this space are caught between impossible demands. Comply with the system or serve the person. Our code of ethics makes it clear that we must resist. Strategically, ethically, for the benefit of those we support.
My PhD research explored covert activism amongst social workers. I heard story after story of social workers bending rules, writing reports with double meanings, shifting language to get plans approved, coaching clients on how to frame their needs for maximum eligibility. Not because we’re dishonest. Because we’re committed. Because integrity sometimes looks like disobedience when the rules are unjust.
This is resistance and it’s radical. This is social work.
What now?
If you're a person who needs support that doesn't treat you as a problem to be managed, but a person to be respected, find a social worker. Ask them what values guide their practice. See if they light up when you talk about justice and see if they push back when systems fail you. These are the ones walking the talk.
If you're a social worker, this is your invitation to stop apologising for being political. You were always meant to be political.
Your code of ethics demands it. Those you support deserve it. Your profession needs it.
Let’s be unapologetically radical in our demand for a world that centres care over compliance, dignity over deficit, and justice over convenience.
Social work is not a neutral profession. It is at its beating heart a resistance movement. In this moment of climate collapse, creeping fascism, and commodified care, we need resistance more than ever.
Let’s take our place in the movement demanding justice for the marginalised, the dispossessed, the colonised. Let’s name the line, push back against it, and alongside the many others fighting for change, force a crack in it.
Because when we do, we remind the world that people are not systems to be managed. They are stories, struggles, and strengths to be honoured.
And that, more than anything, is social work.
