ABSTRACT
Social work is a distinctive profession because of the emphasis it has placed on values. Values represent the profound aspirations of professional commitment, ‘held aloft as the ultimate and, perhaps, never wholly attainable ends of policy and practice’ (Clark 2000). While values can be thought of as attributes of persons, professions and organisations they are less fixed than we might presume. As Clark puts it they are ‘the ongoing accomplishments of knowledgeable and reflective human intelligences immersed in a social world’ (ibid: 360).
