By Karen Costello, MSS, LSW, OSW-C
AOSW Advocacy Director and Patient Navigation SIG Co-Lead
Social workers serve a unique role on the cancer care team. We are knowledgeable about cancer and the psychosocial effects of disease, treatment, and survivorship. We are also educated in theories that provide us with evidence-based frameworks for context and intervention. We develop specific skills over time to properly assess the clinical picture in a way that provides a perspective that only we can offer.
Our patients and caregivers rely on our skills to help them navigate a cancer diagnosis, including their treatment plan and systems that provide their care. Our organizations, agencies, and teams rely on us to bring clinical navigation expertise with us each day to the work and those we serve.
It is important for us to identify navigation as a core aspect of the psychosocial care we provide patients and caregivers in oncology. Aligning the standards of practice for oncology social workers and navigators is a helpful way to understand the interrelated nature of social work and navigation. The purpose of this article is to orient oncology social workers to two important papers so that they can serve as professional development resources.
The AOSW Standards of Practice outlines expectations and the commitment oncology social workers collectively demonstrate in their work with patients, families, and caregivers. This is the heart of our work as social workers. In addition, we consistently act in service to our employer institutions and agencies – we are often the primary psychosocial experts on the team and carry the knowledge about our patients’ ability to cope with cancer by providing resources and support to improve access and outcomes.
The AOSW Standards of Practice also focuses on communities. We interface with the cancer landscape as we conduct research in our field as well as promote programs and services in the communities in which our patients and caregivers live. We strive to make these community services more accessible for everyone.
We also have a commitment to our profession. One aspect is to ensure that students receive proper training and mentoring. We participate in professional associations like AOSW and we strive to keep current in the knowledge base of our field as well as serve as expert presenters to drive the learning for the generations of social workers coming up through the ranks.
The Professional Oncology Navigation Taskforce (PONT) released its own standards of practice, which are a set of guidelines to promote high-quality patient navigation. These standards were published in 2022 as a response to the Cancer Moonshot/Biden Cancer Initiative that focused on the need for navigation in cancer care. This formative paper provides definitions for the types of navigators, including social workers, as well as scope of practice standards by each type of navigator. With these standards, navigators know that the needs of patients and caregivers are met in a way that is appropriate while they work at the top of their clinical scope of practice. The standards highlight the guidelines in areas such as psychosocial assessment and the provision of evidence-based care, which are hallmarks of social work practice. They also highlight leadership and evaluation and quality improvement areas that might be learning areas for some social workers. In these standards, social workers can demonstrate mastery of skills as well as professional development (Franklin, E., Burke, S., Dean, M., Johnston, D., Nevidjon, B., Sims, LB 2022).
The navigation standards are also important as they provide professional momentum, which led to establishing billing codes and reimbursement for navigation services in cancer care. I’ve shared resources below for learning more about funding models for navigation sustainability.
For both oncology social work and navigation, the scope and standards align the professions around themes of service, knowledge, education and competence, social justice, and health equity. Importantly, social workers possess the education, skills, and expertise to provide navigation services in cancer care and this alignment will promote sustainability in our profession which ultimately means we can serve more patients and caregivers. Both standards of practice serve to solidify our professional presence in the oncology workforce and demonstrate the scope and depth of our work.
Resources
References
Association of Oncology Social Work. Scope and Standards of Practice. https://aosw.org/resources/scope-and-standards-of-practice/.
The Professional Oncology Navigation Task Force. Oncology Navigation Standards of Professional Practice. https://jons-online.com/issues/2022/march-2022-vol-13-no-3/4399-oncology-navigation-standards-of-professional-practice.
