WEEK 1

SECOND QUARTER

TOPICS:
1. THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL WORK
1.1 Social Work
1.1.1. Definitions
1.1.2. Goals
1.1.3. Scope
1.1.4. Core Values
1.1.5. Principles
2. THE PROFESSIONALS AND PRACTITIONERS IN SOCIAL WORK
2.1 Roles, functions, and competencies of social workers
2.2 Areas of specialization in which social workers work
2.3 Career opportunities of social workers.
2.4 Rights, Responsibilities, Accountabilities, and Code of Ethics

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this module, you are able:

1. identify the goals and scope of social work;

2. demonstrate comprehension of the principles of social work ;
3. discuss the core values of social work;
4. show an understanding of the roles and functions of social workers;
5. identify specific work areas in which social workers work;
6. identify career opportunities for social workers;
7. value rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities;
8. distinguish between ethical and unethical behaviors among practitioners.

PRE TEST:
Directions: In a separate sheet of paper, draw your concept about SOCIAL WORK. Then, explain your
concept in not less than 50 words.

STUDY TIME!

Social Work

Have you ever volunteered in community programs? Programs that can give services to the
people within the society such as; Lingap Barangay, Medical missions, Job Fairs and etc. And have you
ever seen or know someone who do works for the society? Those deeds falls into the category of
Applied Social Sciences; the Social Work. These questions was raised to deepen our knowledge this
topic; How does social work defined by different institutions and practitioners in the global setting?
Whether social work is for everyone or special population? And lastly, how does social work helps our
society?

1. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SOCIAL WORK

The Discipline of Social Work is closely associated with government welfare and social
programs aimed at achieving social justice, fairness, and attainment of social equilibrium “The social
work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationship and the empowerment
and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilizing theories of human behavior and social systems,
social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human
rights and social justice are fundamental to social work.” (International Federation of Social Worker
2013) Social workers aim to protect vulnerable people from abuse, neglect, or self-harm and to help
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enhance their well-being and quality of life. Social workers operate within legal frameworks for
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protecting and supporting vulnerable people. Local authorities or National Health Services (NHS) are
social workers practicing in statutory context. Social workers work closely with other professionals,
often known as inter-professional working. Social work has evolved from a domestic common sense to
professional service. A wide variety of people in the community participates in providing social care.
This includes personal car , supporting individuals with daily living and to engage with their
communities and have more interaction with others. There’s no requirement are professional license
needed to do social care. To move from social care to social work profession practice, it needed to
undergo training to join the social work profession.

1.1 Definition of Social Work

“The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and
the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being.” As defined by The policy, Ethics and
Human Rights Committee of the British Association of Social Workers (2012). It utilizes theories of
human behavior and social systems. Principle of human rights and social justice are fundament to social
work. It is concerned with individual and personal problems but also with broader social issues such as
poverty, unemployment and domestic violence. According to Dubois & Miley (2008), it is understood
here that social work is a profession that fulfills the social welfare mandate to promote well-being and
quality of life.

1.2 Context and Basic Concepts of Social Work

The aim of social work is to help individuals fit better into their environment and change the
environment so that it works better for them. Segal, Cerdes, and Steiner (2005) locate the history of
social work in the history of social welfare in America in order to support this context and basic concept
of Social Work. They connect it to the history of Charity Organization Societies founded in 1877 that
aims to discover the causes of poverty among individuals, eliminate the causes and eliminate poverty
from society. Poverty was then seen as a character defect of an individual. The next movement that
emerged was called Settlement Movement began in 1887. This movement operated on the assumption
that an individual’s well being was directly related to his/her surroundings therefore, to help a person
involved changing the environment wherein that person lives. These includes advocating for better
neighborhood services, public health programs and employment conditions. These two (2) movements
plays role in solving poverty of individuals by helping them fit better into their environment and
changing that environment and this serves as today’s basic concept of Social Work. The context of
social work is a place that requires professionals to direct their service on the needs and empowerment
of people who experiences some forms of vulnerability, oppression and living in poverty

1.3 Goals and Scope of Social Work

These are the goals and scope of social works as highlighted by DuBois and Miley (2008).

1. Empower people individually and collectively in order to utilize their own problem solving and
coping capabilities more effectively.
2. Support a proactive position with regard to social and economic policy development to prevent
problems for individuals and society form occurring.
3. Uphold the integrity of the profession in all aspects of social work practice.
4. Establish linkages between people and societal resources to further social functioning and enhance
quality of life.
5. Develop cooperative networks within the institutional resources system.
6. Facilitate the responsiveness of the institutional resource systems to meet health and human service
needs.
7. Promotes social justice and equality of all people with the regard to full participation in society.
8. Contribute to the development of knowledge for social work profession through research and
evaluation.
9. Encourage exchange of information in those institutional systems in which both problems and
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resources opportunities are produced.

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10. Enhance communication through an appreciation of diversity and through ethnically sensitive, non-
sexist social work practice.
11. Employ educational strategies for the prevention and resolution of problems.
12. Embrace a world view of human issues and solutions to problems.
These goals and scopes are noble and broad. It is to help an individual be included in society and
to transform the very society that creates structure that makes individual to participate in the enjoyment
of social services and resources of the community.

1.4 Principles of Social Work

The social work profession is guided by a distinct set of abstract values and a Code of Ethics.
These values are transformed into accepted practice principles for the purpose of informing our
intervention with clients.

What are the principles of social work?

1. Acceptance is a fundamental social work principle that implies a sincere understanding of clients. To
affirm a client's individuality is to recognize and appreciate the unique qualities of that client. It means
to "begin where the client is." Clients expect personalized understanding and undivided attention from
professionals. Clients need to have opportunities to express their feelings freely to the social worker. As
social workers, we must go beyond "just the facts" to uncover the underlying feelings.

2. Confidentiality or the right to privacy implies that clients must give expressed consent before
information such as their identity, the content of discussions held with them, one's professional opinion
about them, or their record is disclosed. Social workers are implored to assure that everyone has the
necessary resources, services, and opportunities; to pay attention to expanding choices, and
opportunities for the oppressed and disadvantages; and to advocate for policy and legislative changes
that improve social conditions and promote social justice.

3. Self-determination is based on the recognition of the right and need of clients to freedom in making
their own choices and decisions. Social workers have a responsibility to create a working relationship in
which choice can be exercised.

1.5 Core values of social work

Social work is rooted on a set of core values embraced by social workers throughout the
profession’s history. The constellation of these values sets the foundation of social work’s unique
purpose and perspective.

1. Service to others is one of the main values in social work, from which all of the other values stem.
Social workers acknowledge that serving others is more important than self-interest and put the needs of
their clients ahead of their own.

2. Social justice is another key value of social work. Many social workers decide to enter the profession
because they recognize the need to help underprivileged, vulnerable populations, such as the homeless,
those struggling with substance abuse issues or victims of domestic violence. As a social worker, you
understand the inherent value of every human life, regardless of background or beliefs. You respect the
differences between your personal beliefs and those of your clients, taking into account ethnic and
cultural diversity.

3. Integrity means acting honesty, responsibly and ethically at all times. You are trustworthy and you
don't betray client confidentiality, unless you're required to do so in certain circumstances by law, such
as in cases of suicidality.

4. The value of competence means that you practice in your area of expertise and you don't
misrepresent your skills or experience to get ahead.
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2. THE PROFESSIONALS AND PRACTITIONERS IN SOCIAL WORK

2.1 Defining Roles, Functions and competencies of Social Work

Being a social worker is often a challenging, yet rewarding career. Social workers are
responsible for helping individuals, families, and groups of people to cope with problems they’re facing
to improve their patients’ lives. One aspect of this is teaching skills and developing mechanisms for
patients to rely on to better their lives and experiences. We must not put our own problems in our work,
it may affects our work so we should separate our own problems in term of works. And sometimes we
need to put ourselves in their situations so we can understand what they feel.

2.2 Areas of specializations of Social work

Within the field of social work, there are many different specializations and industries that
professionals can pursue and focus on. While these different fields all require practitioners to show the
cornerstones of social work: empathy, flexibility, and persistence, and respect for different
circumstances; there are some skill sets and knowledge that social workers will need to utilize in order
to become the as effective at their jobs as possible. Social workers can be required to aid with issues
directly caused by trauma, disability, poor family circumstances, abuse, mental and emotional problems,
addiction, and acute, chronic, or terminal illnesses. Some social workers prefer to focus their skills on
one area of expertise by going into specific fields. As we think of it, Social work also does specialization
so it prior individual who profession this. It instructs here that we need to master things about social
work.

Why should we need to specialize social work? Of course for us to do our jobs correctly
specially social work, because social works do not aiming for a job to have wage but also save lives.
And these 5 major specialization of Social work really helps to accomplish things that we should. For
example in mental health field, In this case we really need to specialize this primarily because now a
days many of us are suffering from depression, what if we don't specialized about this? That would be
more trouble. Specialization does not only help us to gain knowledge but also to save different
community problems.

8.3 Career Opportunities of Social Work

There are so many potential career paths in social work that it can be challenging to answer
the question: what does a social worker do? Many social workers provide clinical and case management
services directly to individuals, couples, families, and groups. Social workers serve clients dealing with
a range of challenges including poverty, physical and mental health issues, addiction, and family
problems. They may provide clinical services, such as therapy or counseling, and connect people to
resources in the community to help them overcome challenges. Most social workers believe that
everyone is impacted by their environment. This person-in-environment perspective informs many areas
of social work, some social workers do not work directly with individual clients. Instead, they work in
community organizations, government, and advocacy groups to alleviate poverty and social injustice on
a big-picture level and these social work careers include legislative advocacy, policy analysis, and
community organizing to break down barriers and drive reform. Many social workers’ careers include
both individual client-centered work and big picture work, whether professionals choose a career as a
school social worker, child social worker, medical social worker, or another social work path, their work
will likely involve individual services for people in need of support along with program development
and advocacy to improve the institutions, systems, and policies impacting their client population.

8.4 Rights, Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Social Work

Being a social worker is often a challenging, yet rewarding career. It is not only about the fact
that social work is always concerned with the clients and service oriented but it’s also about the social
work’s rights, responsibilities and accountabilities like any other professions. It is the right to achieve
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professional mandates or what is asked for the social worker to do in order for the social worker to help
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the clients, general public and the society and live by its value. A social worker must respect the clients.
Social work responsibilities involves those situations that concern of its basic functions, professional
standards, roles, and adherence to the local and international code of ethics. Lastly it is accountable to
the clients, general public and the society. A social worker must not only entertain but also
accommodate them by interviewing them and processing other necessary documents that the clients,
general public, and the society submitted to the social workers. And then social workers will finally
assure the positive results in the said transactions.

8.5 Code of Ethics of Social Work

The National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics is a set of values, principles and
standards for social workers to adhere to and reference in order to guide decision making and conduct,
because ethical decision making arises frequently in social work, there are not always easy answers. Any
given situation can have nuances and idiosyncrasies that bring a social worker from black and white to
the grayest of areas. Ideally, a social worker can apply this set of ethics to a situation in order to make an
informed and appropriate decision or judgment, if the primary goal of a social worker is to help people
improve the quality of their lives and meet their basic human needs, then a social worker’s essential task
is personal, social, political, economic and more. Social workers are advocates for social justice and
change, working on behalf of their clients to improve the environmental forces that create, contribute to
and address quality of life and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) defines the mission
of the Code of Ethics as being rooted in a set of core values. The core values are: service, social
justice dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and
competence. The NASW uses the core values to build a balance that responds to and aims to improve
on the complexity of the human experience. The code is divided into different sections that outline the
specific responsibilities of a social worker and this includes social workers’ ethical responsibilities: to
clients, to colleagues, in practice settings, as professionals, to the social work profession and to the
broader society. It’s important for social workers to have the Code of Ethics because the nature of social
work can be very personal and directly plants social workers into the lives of their clients and at the
heart of social work is the idea of responsibility, social workers help their clients to take responsibility
for their own lives and respond to or get out of bad situations. Though the NASW’s Code of Ethics
doesn’t guarantee ethical behavior from social workers, it does provide a set of guidelines and language
that other social workers, employers, organizations and agencies can use in order to judge a social
worker’s behavior or response to a situation. In this way, the Code of Ethics can be used in a peer-
review process. The Code of Ethics is used by social workers as a landmark and touchstone of ethical
practice. Social workers’ commitment to the code ideally results in upholding it and performing their
duties according to the core values. Most of the standards explained by the NASW are enforceable
guidelines for professional conduct. However, some are aspirational and can be interpreted in different
ways based on any number of influences. It’s important to have guidelines spelled out and agreed upon
by the social work profession so that every individual social worker can behave and react accordingly.

POST ASSESSMENT:

Directions: In a separate sheet of paper, answer the following:

1. Discuss the core values of Social Work (20 points)

2. Choose at least 3 goals of Social Work and explain each of them. (30 points)
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