Making Professional Identity: Narrative Work and Fateful Moments

This chapter explores the development of professional identity through reflective accounts written by a cohort of social work students at the end of their graduate programme. It focuses on the emerging professional identity of qualifying social workers. The context for the study is a module entitled Making Professional Identity, which is taught over the second year of a Master's programme in Social Work. The central theme of the module is the development of the professional self with the opportunities to explore issues that include power, authority, accountability and professional boundaries. The chapter also explores the narrative identity work undertaken by student social workers, addressed through three themes that emerged from the data, namely early identity work, fateful moments and relationships with power and authority. Particularly in a children and families' context, there was identity work done about crossing the intimate threshold of family life and engaging families in discussion about the well-being of children.