In my Practising Social Work book I  talk about the importance  of 'setting out our stall'. By this I mean that we are likely to have difficulties over role definition if we do not make it clear to the people we are working with (clients and other professionals) what we can and cannot do, what we should and should not do. Unfortunately there is a tendency for many people to assume that the social worker is responsible for anything that does not fit neatly into the duties of other professionals. Clearly such an assumption simply sets us upto fail as we could not realistically succeed with such a broad and nebulous set of duties. Consequently we need to be clear about what our role is in each case (as defined within the parameters of law, policy  and professional values) and communicate this to those concerned - rather than allowing a situation to develop that is characterised by vagueness and a lack of focus.

Reference

Thompson, N. (2009) Practising Social Work: Meeting the Professional Challenge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. http://astore.amazon.co.uk/neilthomp-21/