DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

Senior High School

UNIT 3

Lesson 1: The Discipline of Social Work

DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK

In the Philippines, Mendoza (2002) defined social work as a profession which is concerned
about the person’s adjustment to her or his environment.

GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK

The principal mission of social work profession is to develop human beings and assist other
institutions in attaining the basic human needs of the people and in empowering the lost, the
least, and the last. Catalyzing the mission of the social work profession are the goals of social
work. Morales and Sheafor (1983) specified three (3) distinguishing goals of social work namely:
caring, curing, and changing. These goals are outlined and described below:
1. The Goal on Caring
Caring refers to the heart of social work and it focuses on the well-being or the welfare and
comfort of the individual and community. The goal on caring involves the enhancement of the
quality of life in prisons, the upgrading and humanizing services in nursing homes and juvenile
facilities, and the constant advancement of care given to populations in need.
2. The Goal on Curing
Curing refers to the aspect of treating people with problems in social functioning. This
covers a range of aiding techniques for individuals, families, and groups. Techniques are
composed of: (a) popular counseling approaches comprising of transactional analysis, family
therapy, behavior modification, reality therapy, and gestalt therapy; and (b) unpopular
approaches such as Rolfing therapy, psychomotor therapy, and psychodrama.
3. The Goal on Changing
Changing refers to the active participation of the social workers in social reforms. This goal
comes from a perspective that there is a persistence of poverty, environmental destruction, and
social disintegration. It recognizes that the political, economic, and social structures add in the
worsening of social conditions. Social reforms are necessary to improve the social services and
the quality of life of those in need. This is one of the most significant goals because it
contributes in the struggle to pursue a lasting social change.

SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK

The scope of social work may be determined and mapped through its purposes and roles.
Morales and Sheafor (1983) identified and described the fields included in the area of social
work, which are as follows:

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DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Senior High School

1. Social Work as a Primary Discipline

In terms of child welfare, social work offers adoption and services to unmarried parents,
foster care, residential care, support in own home, and protective services.
a. The adoption and services to unmarried parents is about facilitating the difficult
decision of unmarried parents whether to keep the baby or place the child for adoption.
In this process, social workers apply both individual and group counseling to assist
women in their sensitive decision making process.
b. The foster care is about removing the children from their homes and placing them
temporarily in a foster care. The process includes working with the parents, the child,
and the courts to acquire a decision to remove the child from her/his own home due to
detrimental situations and bringing her/him to a foster home placement. It involves
counseling with the child and parents.
c. The residential care is a group care home or residential treatment center for a child.
These centers are for children exhibiting anti-social behaviors or behaviors that require
intensive treatment. Social workers are involved in sustaining a helpful connection
between the child and the family and in preparing plans for the return of the child to
his/her home.
d. The support in own home involves providing support services in order to keep children
in their own homes. Support services may be in the form of counseling, family
consultations, and connecting clients with appropriate institutions such as day care
centers and home maker services.
e. The protective services are about protecting the child from abuse, maltreatment, and
exploitation by one or both parents. The social worker seeks to protect the child without
infringing on the rights of parents.

In terms of family services, social work offers family counseling, family life education, and
family planning.
a. Family counseling is about employing the three approaches to this type of counseling,
which comprise of family case work, which involves helping individual members of the
family modify their behavior to make them more effective contributors in the family;
family group work, which is about the process by which the family examines its
relationships and resolves their problem with the help of the social worker; and lastly,
family therapy, which focuses on transforming the structure of the family to make it more
supportive to its members.
b. Family life education is an intervention to strengthen the family through educational
activities that seek to prevent family breakdown.
c. Family planning refers to assisting the families plan the number, spacing, and timing of
the births of children to fit with their needs.

In terms of income maintenance, social work offers public assistance, social insurances, and
other income maintenance programs.

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DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Senior High School

a. Public assistance refers to the provision of financial aid to the poor. Services include
cash grants, food stamps, general assistance such as hospital and medical care, and
supplemental security income.
b. Social insurances are social provisions that are funded by employers and employees
through contributions to a specific program.
c. The other income maintenance programs include cash in kind benefits, emergency
support funds, and other resources which can be used by the poor for food and shelter.

2. Social Work as an Equal Partner

In terms of aging, social work offers support for people in their own homes and support for
people in long-term facilities.
a. The support for people in their own homes program consists of helping older people
remain in their own homes by linking them with community programs that bring health
care, meals, and home care services into their home.
b. The support for people in long-term care facilities program refers to nursing homes
or other group living facilities.

In terms of community services, social work offers community organization, community

planning, and community development.
a. Community organization activities involve the gathering of data related to delivery of
services, matching that information with data of population distribution, securing funds to
maintain and enhance the quality of services, coordinating the efforts to existing
agencies, and educating the general public about these services.
b. Community planning refers to involvement of social workers with the physical,
economic, and health planners in the long-range planning of communities.
c. Community development is about the participation of social workers in providing aid to
the people in the communities as the aim to enhance their conditions.

In terms of youth and group services, social work offers recreational and educational facilities
such as YMCA and scouting and settlement houses.

3. Social Work as a Secondary Discipline

Social workers are also present in the correctional facilities. They provide counseling and
serve as link to the outside world, comprising of the family, potential employers, and the
community service network that will provide support upon release.
In terms of Industry, social workers act as a support to both the managers and the
employees of the companies.
In terms of medical and health care, social workers attend to the social and psychological
factors that are contributing to the medical condition of the patients.
In terms of schools, Lela Costin (as cited by Morales and Sheafor 1983) has identified seven
(7) primary tasks of social workers in schools:

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DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Senior High School

a. Facilitate the provision of direct educational and social services and provide direct social
case work and group work services to selected students;
b. Act as a pupil advocate, focusing on urgent needs of the selected group of students;
c. Consult with school administrators major problems toward which a planned service
approach will be aimed;
d. Consult with teachers about techniques for creating a climate in which children are freed
and motivated to learn by interpreting social and cultural influences in the lives of
students;
e. Organize parent and community groups to channel concerns about students and the
school to improve school and community relations;
f. Develop and maintain liaison between the school and critical fields of social work such
as child welfare, corrections, mental health, and legal services for the poor;
g. Provide leadership in the coordination of interdisciplinary skills among student services
personnel such as guidance counselors, clinic staff, psychologists, and attendant
officers.

CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK

Core values, as a vital organizational component, play a significant role in the organization.
They serve as guiding principles that shape the behavior and action of its members in
interacting with their clients and other people. Social work has its own core values. Mendoza
(2002) cited that the Council on Social Work Education identified and described six (6) values
that are shared by the social work profession. These values are outlined below:
1. Right to self-fulfillment – Each person has the right to self-fulfillment which is derived
from his/her inherent capacity and thrust toward the goal.
2. Responsibility to common good – Each person has the responsibility as a member of
the society to seek ways of fulfillment that contribute to common good
3. Responsibility of the society – The society has the responsibility to facilitate self-
fulfillment of the individual and the right to enrichment through the contribution of its
individual members.
4. Right to satisfy basic needs – Each person requires for the harmonious development
of his powers socially provided and socially safeguarded opportunities for satisfying
his/her basic needs in the physical, psychological, economic, cultural, aesthetic, and
spiritual realms.
5. Social organizations required to facilitate individual’s effort to self-realization –
The notion that individual and society are interdependent provides a perspective that the
society has the responsibility to provide appropriate social resources, it is the right of the
individual to promote change in social resources that do not serve his/her need-meeting
efforts.
6. Self-realization and contribution to society – To permit both self-realization and
contribution to society by the individual, social organization must make available socially-
provided devices for need-satisfaction as wide in range, variety, and quality as the
general welfare allows.

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DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Senior High School

These values comprise a minimum commitment from the social worker and the following
concepts are implied in these values:
1. Concept of human potentials and capacities – this is premised on the belief that a
person is inherently endowed with potentials and capacities.
2. Concept of social responsibility – this is based on the notion that an individual has the
obligation to contribute to the common good and society.
3. Concept of equal opportunities – this is premised on the ideal of social justice, two
elements of which are fairness and equality.
4. Concept of social provision – this is based on the premise that there will always be
everywhere with unmet needs or problems which are beyond their own capacity to solve.

According to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the mission of the social
work profession originated in a set of core values that include:
1. Service
2. Social justice
3. Dignity and worth of the person
4. Importance of human relationships
5. Integrity
6. Competence

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK

Social work is based on respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people and it is
cultivated by altruistic and democratic principles. Friedlander (1958) and Biestek (1957) as cited
by Mendoza (2002) indicated seven principles adhered by social workers including the
following:
1. Acceptance – This involves respecting the clients as they are under any circumstances
and understand the meaning and causes of the client's behavior. This also means
recognizing the individual or people's strengths and potentials, weaknesses, and
limitations.
2. Client’s participation in problem-solving – A client is made to understand that he/she
is expected to participate in the entire process. This begins in gathering information then
in defining the nature of the problem. The client also participates in planning ways in
resolving such problem, identify resources to solve this, and eventually act on this
through the help of different available resources.
3. Self-determination – the idea behind this principle is that clients who are in need have
the right to determine their needs and how they should be met.
4. Individualization – This involves recognizing and understanding the client's own unique
characteristics and using different principles and methods for each client. This means
that no two clients are exactly alike and social work interventions differ for each client
considering their unique qualities and situations.

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DISCIPLINES and IDEAS in the APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Senior High School

5. Confidentiality – This means that the client should be accorded with appropriate
protection, within the limits of the law, from any harm that might result from the
information he/she divulges to the worker. The client should be assured that what he/she
tells will be kept in confidence. Moreover, confidentiality entails privacy. For instance, a
social worker finds an available vacant room to keep conversations from being heard by
others.
6. Worker self-awareness – This means that the social worker is conscious about his/her
role in making use of his/her professional relationship with the client in a way that will
enhance the client’s development rather than his/her own. The social worker consciously
examines his feelings, judgments, biases, and responses whether these are
professionally motivated.
7. Client-worker relationship – The purpose of client-worker relationship is to help the
client in some area of his/her social functioning in which, at the present, he/she is
experiencing some difficulty, and where the worker is in the position to offer help.

REFERENCE

1. Dela Cruz, A., Fernandez, C., Melegrito, M., & Valdez V. (2016). Disciplines and
Ideas in the Social Sciences: The Padayon Series. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing
House, Inc.

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