The authors of this article offered training aimed at strengthening the ethical agency of 15 social workers of three Dutch welfare organisations. At the same time, we conducted research into the ethical impact of the training, making use of an adaptation of the Most Significant Change approach (MSC). The participants wrote stories about the most significant change they experienced as a result of the training which we subsequently discussed with care recipients, care providers, and operational care managers. The MSC-stories revealed that the training was significant for the participants, especially to (re)connect with themselves, and with others, as well as to slow down and engage in collective ethics work. At the same time, the learning processes and the learning outcomes diverged, due to individual differences in professional motivation and working conditions. Most MSC-stories show that the training was significant because it helped the social workers to deal ethically with a specific working condition that they experienced somehow as problematic, mostly because it was at odds with their professional motivation. The stakeholders preferred MSC-stories that focus on the impact on professionals as employees, on their relation with service users or on the actual delivered care.
