Social work and spirituality: A field study on social worker

The aim of this study is to discover and define the personal and professional perspectives of social workers regarding spirituality and spiritual issues by identifying the relation between spirituality and social work. Moreover, social workers' approach to spirituality in practice, their methods and techniques related to spirituality, their feelings and opinions regarding the involvement of spirituality in the process, and their opinions about social work education programmes in terms of spirituality are studied. The study is based on "sequential explanatory design" which is one of the mixed method designs. General screening model, one of the screening models, is used in the quantitative part of the study while holistic single case design, a case study design, is used in the qualitative part. In the first phase, the quantitative survey was shared online in the mail groups of the Turkish Association of Social Workers and Turkish Union Association of Social Work Profession as well as in the social media groups actively participated by social workers. The survey was conducted with 218 social workers in this scope. In the second phase, interviews were held using semi-structured interview forms with 18 social workers that were selected through maximum variation sampling among the individuals involved in the initial quantitative sampling. In the third phase, the findings obtained were analysed collectively. As a result of this study, it has been identified that social workers are not fully equipped regarding spirituality and social work practice, and their knowledge on spirituality is quite limited; however, they are interested in spirituality and they are willing to know more about this subject. It has been understood that social workers define their opinions about spirituality-sensitive social work mostly through the ethics and principles of social work, and the majority believes that spirituality concept should be involved in the practices of social work.