Introduction: promoting and maintaining a reflective professional staff in a hospital-based social work department

Promoting and sustaining a staff of reflective social work practitioners requires a supportive departmental structure and culture. Providing such support is a particular yet necessary challenge to social work administrators in the current health care environment. This article discusses an array of administrative strategies employed in one hospital social work department to promote reflective social work practice. More specifically, it describes the role of practice-based research in enhancing worker reflectiveness.