Social work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and well being of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, crisis intervention, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or perceived social injustices and violations of their civil liberties and human rights. Research is often focused on areas such as human development, social policy, public administration, psychotherapy, counseling, program evaluation, and international and community development. Social workers are organized into local, national, continental and international professional bodies. Social work, an interdisciplinary field, includes theories from economics, education, sociology, law, medicine, philosophy, politics, anthropology, and psychology.
1: History of social work
The concept of charity goes back to ancient times, and the practice of providing for the poor has roots in many major ancient civilizations and world religions.[citation needed]
Social work has its roots in the social and economic upheaval wrought by the Industrial Revolution, in particular the struggle of society to deal with poverty and its resultant problems. Because dealing with poverty was the main focus of early social work, it is intricately linked with the idea of charity work[citation needed], but it must now be understood in much broader terms. For instance, it is not uncommon for modern social workers to find themselves dealing with the consequences arising from many other "social problems" such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination based on age or on physical or mental ability.[citation needed] Modern social workers can be found helping to deal with the consequences of these and many other social maladies in all areas of the human services professions and in many other fields besides. Whereas social casework started on a more scientific footing aimed at controlling and reforming individuals (at one stage supporting the notion that poverty was a disease), other models of social work arising out of the Settlement House movement and activists such as Jane Addams, have always emphasized activism and community level solutions. Currently social work is known for its critical and holistic approach to understanding and intervening in social problems. This has led, for example, to the recognizing of poverty as having a social and economic basis rooted in social policy choices rather than as a moral defect. This also points to another historical development in the evolution of social work: once a profession engaged more in social control, it has become one more directed at social and personal empowerment. That is not to say that modern social workers do not engage in social control (consider, for example, child protection workers), and many, if not most, social workers would likely agree that this is an ongoing tension and debate in the profession. For example, see the debate between the structural social work and humanistic social work.[1]
Contemporary professional development
Social Work education begins in a systematized manner in higher educational institutes (universities, colleges, etc.), but it is also an ongoing process that occurs though research and in the workplace. The International Federation of Social Workers states, of social work today, that
"social work bases its methodology on a systematic body of evidence-based knowledge derived from research and practice evaluation, including local and indigenous knowledge specific to its context. It recognizes the complexity of interactions between human beings and their environment, and the capacity of people both to be affected by and to alter the multiple influences upon them including bio-psycho-social factors. The social work profession draws on theories of human development, social theory and social systems to analyse complex situations and to facilitate individual, organizational, social and cultural changes. Qualifications
Qualifications for professional social work
The education of social workers begins with a Bachelor's degree (BA, BSc, BSSW, BSW, etc.) Some countries offer Postgraduate degrees in Social Work, like master's (such as MSW, MSS, MA, MSc, MRes, MPhil etc.) More and more graduates of social work continue to post-doctoral studies. Some argue that social work education is a lifelong process. In the United States, social work undergraduate and master's programs are accredited by the Council on Social Work Education . A CSWE-accredited degree is required for one to become a state-licensed social worker (see http://www.aswb.org). A number of countries and jurisdictions requires registration or licensure of people working as social workers, and there are mandated qualifications.[3] In other places, a professional association sets academic requirements for admission to membership. The success of these professional bodies' efforts is demonstrated in that these same requirements are recognized by employers as necessary for employment.[4]
Professional associations[edit source | editbeta]
Social workers have a number of professional associations, which provide ethical guidance and other forms of support for their members and for social work in general. These associations can be international, continental or semi-continental, national, and regional. The main international associations are the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). The largest professional social work association in the United States is the National Association of Social Workers. There also exist organizations that represent clinical social workers such as The American Association of Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, AAPCSW is a national organization representing social workers who practice psychoanalytic social work and psychonaalysis. There are also a number of states with Clinical Social Work Societies which represent all social workers who conduct psychotherapy from a variety of theoretical frameworks with families, groups and individuals. Trade unions representing social workers[edit source | editbeta]
In the United Kingdom, just over 50% of social workers are employed by local authorities[citation needed], and many of these are represented by UNISON, the public sector employee union. Smaller numbers are members of Unite the union and the GMB (trade union). The British Union of Social Work Employees (BUSWE) has been a section of the Community (trade union) since 2008. In 2011, the British Association of Social Workers launched a trade union arm for the second time (it first tried this in 1976) called the Social Workers' Union, but this body is not recognised by the TUC or by any employers. Role of the professional[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Role of the professional social worker
The main tasks of professional social workers can include a number of services such as case management (linking service users with agencies and programs that will meet their psychosocial needs - mainly common in US and UK), counseling and psychotherapy, human services management, social welfare policy analysis, policy and practice development, community organizing, international, social and community development, advocacy, teaching (in schools of social work), and social and political research.
