Professional Social Work as a Career in Social Care in England by: Bernard Moss
Thursday, May 25th, 2006The most popular and perhaps most easily understood description of a social worker’s role is one that focuses on individual people who are vulnerable and in need. Social Workers spend time listening, perhaps councelling, always trying to understand what makes people tick. Then they explore ways to help people make changes in their lives to tackle their problems more effectively. To help someone in this sense involves taking a therapeutic approach.
Others describe the role of a social worker differently, however. They will say that social workers can best help people if they make them aware of a range of resources and information that can help people improve their lifestyle. If someone can be helped to claim all the benefits to which they are entitled, and to make use of a wider range of community resources, that will be significant improvement for them.
Still others argue that the sort of society we live in is fundamentally unjust and unfair and discriminates against people, particularly minority groups. Social workers therefore, must be aware of these issues and be willing to ‘challenge system’ and encourage people to take positive action to change society. Until society becomes more ‘user friendly’ for disabled people, for example and recognizes thier rightful and equal place in the community, the system will be ’stacked against them’ and no amount of sympathetic social work listening and councelling will change that.
There are some of the debates you will enter into if you wish to become a social worker. You will need to be intellectually, emotionally and physically robust to deal with the pressures of being ‘at the sharp end’ of all the demands made on you. These demands seem endless as social workers deal with people right accross the spectrum of society, as the following list demonstrates:
- adoption and fostering work;
- child protection;
- working with ‘looked after’ children and young people;
- people in hospital;
- people with mental health problems;
- homeless people;
- drug and alcohol misusers
- people with learning disabilities;
- physically disabled people;
- hospice work;
- people in trouble with the law
- people with senile dementia;
- families in difficulty.
Much of what a social worker has to do can be summed up in the word "assessment". People’s needs have to be assessed together with risks they may pose to others or themselves. People’s strengths and capacities need to be assessed. All these has to be done sensitively and in a way that respects people’s choices and cultural backgrounds. You will find that social workers no longer talk about thier ‘clients’ - today they refer to people as ’service users’. There is much more emphasis on consumer choice and citizen’s rights, and social workers must respect these values. At the same time, however, resources are very limited, and social workers often have to make difficult decisions about what services can be afforded.
