Quality of care: expanding the social work dialogue

For social work practitioners to engage fully in efforts designed to improve the quality of social services, they need to understand what is meant by quality of care, grapple with its complexity, and know how to identify and leverage the key factors most likely to influence it. This article introduces a conceptual model that articulates numerous influences on the quality of social services. It details the macrosystem, consumer, advocacy, organizational, and practitioner influences on technically proficient and sensitively delivered social services that affect consumer outcomes in desired ways. The model can be used to assess targets for quality improvement intervention in social services practice settings.