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Social Work vocabulary · Records and Case Notes

Record keeping

Meaning in social work, with examples

nounCore term

In social work, record keeping means: The practice of creating, organising, storing and updating accurate records about the people you work with and the actions you take.

In Turkish: kayıt tutma, kayıt düzeni

How it is used

Treated as a professional duty, not just admin: poor record keeping is a common finding in case reviews and complaints. Agencies have record keeping standards covering timescales, language, storage and how long records are kept.

Example sentences

  1. Good record keeping protects both the client and the worker.

  2. The audit found gaps in record keeping, especially after home visits.

Common collocations

  • good record keeping
  • record keeping standards
  • poor record keeping
  • record keeping policy
  • case notesWritten records of contacts, conversations, observations and actions in a case, made by the worker as the work happens.
  • case fileThe complete record held about a person or family, including referrals, assessments, plans, case notes, letters and reports.
  • data protectionThe laws and practices that control how personal information is collected, stored, used, shared and deleted.
  • chronologyA list of the significant events in a person's or family's life and in the case, in date order, used to spot patterns over time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Records and Case Notes

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