The Levels Of Social Work

The “Grand Challenges for Social Work” are important because they promote: the well-being of people and families, a strong social fabric, and a just society that fights exclusion and marginalization, creating a sense of belonging, promoting trust, and offers pathways for social and economic progress (“American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare”, 2017). The 12 Grand Challenges help continue the transformation of society through social work. As a social worker, you are put able to make changes in the lives of those who need help, and the presented issue needs help. As stated in the Preamble of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, “The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being

History serves to educate us about our past and guide the future. As social workers it is important to understand the history of our profession in order to appreciate how the current practices came into being and in turn how our history affects our current practice. To adequately serve the various populations, we must understand the historical oppression and discrimination they faced so we can provide culturally competent service delivery. This essay will compare and contrast the origins of micro and macro social work practice and how they are reflected in modern practice.

Social workers’ commitment to social justice means they want everyone to have a fair and equal opportunity to an assessment. In line with fairness, social workers should tell carers about their right to refuse an assessment as their permission, and not the person receiving care, is needed before the carer’s assessment can commence. In addition, social workers, bound by legislation regarding confidentiality and information sharing, must reserve the carer’s right to privacy whilst uphold their right to a fair hearing. This is achieved by only disclosing carer’s personal details to 3rd parties with consent, unless a safeguarding concern arises.

Social Work is a career defined as “work carried out by trained personal with the aim of alleviating the conditions of those in need of help or welfare”. Social work varies in several fields, social workers work as part of multi-disciplinary teams with child welfare organizations, adoption and foster care agencies, hospitals, schools, prisons, mental health institutions, and more. Social work may leave the impression that it’s an easy field because it is assumed that all social workers do is serve others and manage paperwork but that is only a small chunk of the job. Social workers must deal with the ethical and emotional aspect of helping others. As a social worker, it is critical to comply with the National Association of Social Workers

In sociology, a few theories provide broad perspectives that help to explain many different aspects of social life. These theories are so prominent that many consider them paradigms. Paradigms are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them. Three of these paradigms have come to dominate sociological thinking because they provide useful explanations: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.

One of the most useful models for social workers to implement is the generalist model. Since the goal of social work is to work with individuals and assist them in solving their problems, the generalist model seeks to create three levels of practice to better aide the individuals in direct practice service (Farley, Smith, & Boyle, 2011). These three levels are the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. The micro level refers to the systems that directly impact a single individual, whereas the mezzo level refers to the small groups (such as marriages and families) that impact the individual. Furthermore, the macro level refers to the large systems, such as cultures and large organizations, which can influence the person. With the establishment of the generalist model, the social worker can better aide the client and work directly with him to help him solve any problems or concerns he may have, and this model has become the most common operational model in social work, though it does have both advantages and disadvantages.

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 have many different practices and approaches to draw on for work with individuals, families, communities and society as a whole. These approaches and techniques can be varied depending on the distinctive

It is likely that some professional practitioners will focus their attention primarily in one area than the other, however all social worker experience situations in which macro-level interventions are usually the right action to respond to certain need or problem. Perhaps, macro practice can be define as professional guided interventions which is designed to bring about change in organization, community and or policy areas. Macro practice is meant to prepare social worker for full time agency administration, program planning, community organizing, or policy analysis position. In the event of taking full time macro roles, the worker will need a more advanced skill than what was stated above. It is imperative that all student of social work will be confronted with different roles after graduation, they will still be involved in macro activities, some students are currently working as a social worker with whom work directly with clients and some are coordinators, planners, managers, administrators, organizers and policy analyst in various capacities. This brought about differences between students expectations of social service work practice and the actual experiences ones they are working in the field. As an

Resulting in "systems," "transactional," "person-in-situation," "empowerment," and other practice theories emphasize the relationship between social conditions and the quality of life for individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. The history of the profession suggests that social workers direct social work to individual growth, causing social change, which has proposed a more ethical option than practicing nonpolitical social work. (1998, p.512-526)

Social workers create change across various levels and approaches. The levels include micro, working with individual issues; mezzo, working with families, groups, organizations, etc.; and macro, intervening and advocating with communities or government. Many Social Workers will interact at all three levels in their careers. This essay, however, will focus on the importance of macro social work. Social Workers that work at the macro level are involved in a variety of tasks and organizations that perhaps would not typically be recognized as "social work" that involves working with individuals and families.

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is a national association of educational programs and individuals that confirms and improves the quality of social work education to become a professional job. CSWE puts in a countless amount of effort to strive for this mission by setting up a bachelor's and master’s degree programs in social work. On the other hand, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with approximately 132,000 members. To be more specific, NASW has a determination to intensify the maturity and developmental process of its members. The main goal is to retain professional standards and to create fair social policies. NASW progresses

Firstly, Macro perspectives focus on the large scale aspects of society such as social stability and social change whereas Micro perspectives focus on the small scale level interaction between individuals such as a conversation. Micro perspectives talk about the day-to-day processes between individuals which human beings require. Human beings need people around them who they can relate to or form relationships and bond with which is a normal function of being a human, that is, to interact with others. On the other hand, Macro perspective deals with maintaining social order or structure among people. In addition, it focuses more on public concerns more than just the concerns of individuals. For instance, macro perspectives deals with issues of the world or society such as war, poverty, third world nations whereas micro perspectives analyses issues pertaining to the individuals such as the role of women, the nature of the family and factors or issues that cause people to migrate. It also, deals with the norms and values of a society which are symbols that shape individual in a society and their behaviours rather than people shaping the

Improving the lives of individuals is the objective of the social work profession. There is six values within National Association of Social work Code of Ethics (NASW): Service, Social Justice, Dignity, and Self-worth of the person, Importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. These values are for social workers and their work with the client(s). Regardless of one’s race, religious belief, sex or sexual orientation each value benefits all individuals. Social workers should always practice professional values. Clients suffer from when the social worker does not uphold values. Code of Ethics is established for all social workers to obey and follow them. In this this paper, I will discuss the how “Importance of Human Relationship” will be the easiest to uphold and how “Social Justice” will challenge me as a social worker working with future clients, community and organizations.

On the first page of Keith-Lucas’s, So You Want to be a Social Worker he makes note of how Christianity and social work share a lot of the same values, because of this the practice of social work can be viewed as a form of ministry. For example, most social workers, no matter their religion believe that all people have worth, and see a great importance in the showing of understanding and kindness towards them. Through my studies in APS 101, at Redeemer University College, I have learned that social work was brought up by the Church; I never knew of this relationship. This new knowledge makes me eager to learn more about the field, and the ways in which I can use it to serve not only my neighbors, but God himself, through its missionary characteristics.