Social Work's Role

Abstract The roles of a social worker are many and although it may be seen to most as a simple profession, it is of great value. A social worker has to broaden his or her horizon to see things in a new perspective. One must be able to understand, empower and help individuals, families or groups to overcome some of lives most difficult obstacles. As a social worker you are supposed to be able to appreciate the perspectives of all parties involved.

Social work professions need to understand the importance of how individuals interact both with other people and their environment, to have an understanding how individuals are affected by these interactions (Rogers, p. 2). According to Rogers (2016), “Social workers are knowledgeable about human behavior across the life course; the range of social systems in which people live; and the ways social systems promote or deter people in maintaining or achieving health and well-being. Social workers apply theories and knowledge from the liberal arts to understand biological, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual development (p. 2). Their work with clients begins with assessments to evaluations of intervention and is based in and supports of the core value system of the profession.

According to the National Association of Social Work, “The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. A historic and defining feature of social work is the profession’s focus on individual well-being in a social context and the well-being of society. Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.”

Social work is a professional and academic discipline that works to improve the quality of life and enhance the wellbeing of individuals, families, couples, groups, and communities. Heather Holland is a Social Worker at Uniontown Hospital who has over 12 years’ experience in the field. She explains that a typical day on the job is far from easy. “Days in this career are crazy, busy, and mostly, undetermined” Holland explains of her days on the job. Social work is a very important job. Social workers work with clients who are vulnerable and in need of serious help. It is so extremely important that social workers are properly trained and are always giving their best in their work because client’s lives often depend on it. Social workers are

My understanding of the social work profession is that it is a helping profession. To me social workers help others in a variety of situations. Social workers help find and connect people with resources for food, rent, insurance, medical care. Social workers also do work fighting for social justice on the Micro, Mezzo and Macro aspect, working for individuals and family to making laws to help underserved populations. Social workers also provide education to clients for lots of reasons. Some social workers became licensed and help people with counseling that may be needed for things such as PTSD or anxiety.

Social workers are responsible for human physical and emotional well-being. In order to help people, social workers have to make their decisions based on strong moral and ethical values. As claims DuBois B. (2009) “Social Work is a values - based profession. Values reflect preferences and inform choices” ( p.105).

Social workers are unique in the way that they look at many different aspects of a problem, from the individual to the societal, from the psychological to the political. Social work is about serving clients include providing counseling, therapy and education, as well as connecting clients to appropriate public or private resources. It attracts people who are interested in creating positive change in the lives of individuals, families and communities.

In this paper, I will be discussing of an organization that caters social services and contributes to the social work field. In addition, I will go in details where the organization is financed from and what is the mission of the organization. Moreover, I will discuss of the structure that the organizations conduct to accomplished their missions and explain the organization 's different services provided under their organizations umbrella. Furthermore, I will discuss of the organization accountability to their services, overall impact, and the power in organization. Lastly, I will explanatory the workers role in the organizations and discuss of my overall experience referring to my future social work profession.

Social work may not be the most respected profession but it’s a recognizable one. Social workers help people or groups identify their problems, determine their skills and capacities, what they are doing well, and how that was accomplished, and then analyze ways that those strengths might be applied to the identified problems. Social workers are helping professionals.

The role of the social worker is not to change people, treat people, or help people cope, but to nourish, encourage, assist, and unleash the strengths within people. They

A social worker has a very important job. Social workers help children and families in need of food, homes, and health care. They help children have a brighter future. There are many different types of social work. There are mental health, child and family, elementary, and high school social workers.

“The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well being and help meet the basic human needs of all people with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty.” (1)

#1 A: Social work can be defined as a broad profession, with the sole purpose of improving the lives and relieving the hardships of the members of a population. Social work addresses many problems for the well being of society, including: health care, criminal justice and domestic violence, economic and public policies, child and family welfare, as well as homelessness. Social workers are trained professionals with the education and tools necessary to address problems from several different perspectives, with the intention of helping the masses and not just individuals. Social workers have the ability to inform people in need of resources available to help them achieve a wide variety of goals, whether personal social mobility, or financial independence.

Social workers promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients. “Clients” is used inclusively to refer to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Social workers are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These activities may be in the form of direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and application, education, research and evaluation. Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs. They also seek to promote the

Law has come to play a very important part in social work practice. It can be said that the understanding of law underpins and provides duties and power, whilst understanding the statutory legal requirements is essential for effective, fair, anti-discriminatory practice (Brammer 2007). Due to the shear amount of laws and legislation that have been passed or updated over the last decade, the role of the social worker, metaphorically speaking could be said to have become somewhat of a chameleon, forever adapting to their legal environment, whilst trying hard to remain true to the traditional values of the role of a social worker. It is this conflict between law and social work values that will be analyzed in this paper. From looking at the values that underpin the modern day social worker and then looking at some of the main legislation relating to adult services such as the Mental Health Act 2007, the Community Care Act 1996, Mental Capacity Act 2005 the relationship between these Acts’ and how they sit with social work values will then be discussed.