PROFESSIONALS

AND
PRACTITIONERS
IN SOCIAL WORK
 PROFESSIONALS
A person who engages in a specific
professional activity or a member of
a profession are both considered
professionals. The term also refers
to the standards for education and
training that give professionals the
precise knowledge and abilities
required to carry out their
particular roles within that
profession.

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC.

- Social work as a profession focuses
on the individual’s social functioning.
According to Mendoza (1999)
social functioning is an effect of an
individual’s performance in
his/her multiple roles in the society.
 A social worker is a practitioner who, according to
accepted standards of training and social work professional
experiences, has the skill to achieve the objectives as defined
and set by the social work profession through the use of
fundamental casework, group work, and community
organization techniques, according to De Guzman
(1992), who cited the Social Work Law (Republic Act 4373).
 A social worker is knowledgeable in the social work approaches
intended to help people, groups, and communities satisfy their
needs and find solutions to their issues adjusting to shifting
societal norms. After earning their Bachelor of Social Work in
Social Work degree, social work graduates must pass the annual
licensure examination administered by the Professional
Regulation Commission (PRC),

 As listed in the table below, social brokers, mediators, advocates,

enablers, and counselors/therapists:​
 Roles Description
Resource broker This role is about the direct provision of material
aid and other resources that
will be helpful in reducing situational deficiencies.
These resources are
mobilized and created or directly provided to the
client being assisted.

Social broker This role involves a process of negotiating the

“service jungle” for clients. The
social walker links the client to the needed
services and ensures quick delivery of these
services. This can also be associated with
“networking” which establishes and maintains
relationship with other community entities to
gain
support and additional resources.
 This role includes acting as an intermediary or conciliator
between persons or in groups and the social worker engages
her/his efforts to resolve disputes between the client and other
Mediator parties. The worker facilitates in meeting halfway or finding a
common ground to make all possibilities to resolve such
dispute.

Advocate This role involves taking a partisan interest in the client and
her/his cause and aims to influence another party in the
interest of the client through arguing, negotiating, and
manipulating the environment on behalf of the client.

Enabler This role is about activities that the social worker engages in
order to help the clients cope with the current situation and
eventually find the strengths and resources within themselves
to solve problems they encountered. This also involves the
workers task of performing a supportive and empowering .
 function to facilitate the clients accomplishment
of a particular goal or task.

Counselor/Therapist This role intends to restore, maintain, or enhance

the client’s capacity to adapt
to her/his current reality. Such goal may be
achieved through provision of necessary services
on an individual or group basis to provide
emotional support to facilitate adjustment. This
can be done through purposive listening,
reassurance, teaching, guidance, logical
discussions, among others.
  Further, there are also roles performed by social workers
beyond direct practice that do not entail face-to-face
interaction and helping relationship with clients. These are:

1. Mobilizer of community elite

- In order to inform and interpret the many programs

and services, as well as the requirements and issues that
the clients are facing, to specified or identified parts of the
community, this involves the worker in a variety of tasks
involvement in various activities.
2. Documents/social critique

– This involves the worker documenting the need for sufficient

policies and programs based on her/his knowledge and actual
experiences about the inadequacies in the existing policies and
programs including what needs to be done and what needs to be
enhanced, in the light of professional values and goals.

3. Policy/program change advocate

– This involves the worker in efforts to change policies and

programs on behalf of a particular segment of the population
based on professional values and entails the worker to take
a stand on important issues, argue and defend his/her proposals
On certain social welfare policies and programs affecting a client
population.
 THE
FUNCTIONS
OF
SOCIAL WORK
1. Rehabilitative Function

– refers to restorative, curative and remedial

actions. Social workers are responsible for
assisting individuals and groups to determine
and settle or reduce the problem that
cameout of the imbalance between the
individuals and the environment. This function
attempts to put back the person to a balanced
state of social functioning.
2. Preventive Function

– detects impending imbalance between

the individuals or groups
with the environment. This function
encompasses early detection, control and
eradication of situations which may have
a damaging effect on the social
functioning.
3. Developmental Function

– ascertains and strengthens the full potential in

individuals, groups and communities. This
function seeks to help the individual make full
use of her/his potentials and capacities and to
enhance the effectiveness of available social or
community resources.

 Mendoza (2002) elucidates that these three

functions of social work are interrelated
regardless of the setting.
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
 Elrick (2014) pointed out that social work has social
work specialties namely : child, family and
school social worker; community social worker;
hospice and palliative care social worker; medical
health social worker; mental health and substance
abuse social worker; military and veteran social
worker and psychiatric social worker.

 Descriptions of the social work specialties includes the

following:
SPECIFIC WORK AREA
AREA

Deals with all sorts of situations such

Child, Family and as helping a child who has experienced
School Social trauma or abuse – counseling students
Worker at school who are experiencing grief
over the death of a friend; or helping
parents find the right resources for
their child who is suffering from a
severe mental illness.
 Helps plan, coordinate and organize efforts
related to infrastructure, volunteering and
fundraising within specific communities.
Community Social Works with community-based nonprofit
Worker organizations to help heal neighborhoods
in the wake of tragedies and natural disaster.

Hospice and Palliative Hospice and palliative care social workers

Care Social Worker often help or care for someone who is
seriously or terminally ill. They help provide
from pain; improve quality of life; assist
with difficult decision-making; help family
and friends of an ill individual; and in some
cases, assist with trauma, grief and loss.
 Assists individuals who struggle with
addiction, substance abuse or mental
Medical and Health health problems. This type of social worker
Social Worker provides short- and long-term solutions for
victims and their families.

Helps both the soldiers and their families with

Military and post-traumatic stress, role adjustments, the
Veterans implications and stressors of returning home
Social Work
and any substance abuse that may occur as a
result of combat.
 Provides therapy and assess the
psychiatric health of their
Psychiatric Social
patients. They work with the
Worker
individual’s family to understand
legal procedures, long-term care
options, and make referrals or
provide resources.
Career Opportunities of
Social Workers
Moreover, to further broaden your understanding on the functions of the
social workers, Mendoza (2002) identified the specific areas of work
that they perform in each field.
These are presented in the table below:
Specific Work Areas Area
Is concerned with the well-
being of children and youth
through the provision of
Child Welfare programs and services for
their physical, social,
psychological spiritual and
cultural development. This is
considered as one of
the popular area in social
work practice.
 IS A LEGAL PROCESS WHEREBY A
CHILD WHO IS DEPRIVED OF A
BIRTH FAMILY IS
PROVIDED WITH SUBSTITUTE
NEW TIES AND PERMANENT
PARENTAL CARE E.G.
ADOPTION RELATIVE ADOPTION,
DOMESTIC/LOCAL ADOPTION
AND INTER-COUNTRY

ADOPTION .
 A process undertaken to
provide substitute parental
care through the
Legal Guardianship appointment of a legal
guardian for the
child, including the child’s
property, until she/he
reaches the age of majority.
 A substitute temporary parental care provided to a
child by a licensed foster family under the
supervision of a social worker. The aim of this
arrangement is to reunify the child for adoption or
prepare them for independent living in case they
are no longer qualified for alternative placement.
Foster Care
Provides temporary 24-hour residential group
Residential Care care to children whose needs
cannot, at the same time, be adequately met by
their biological parents
and other alternative family care
arrangements.
Family Welfare Is concerned with the improvement and
strengthening of the family in
meeting its own needs. Family welfare services
refer to a program or
composite of interventions, activities, or measures
focused on the
prevention or resolution of problems of role
functioning, and relationships
that threaten the stability of the family as a social
unit.

Health Is concerned with continuously defining and

solving problems aimed at facilitating and
strengthening social relationships and mutual
adjustments
between individuals and their environment.
 The administration of penalty in such a way that the
offender is
Corrections corrected, that is, her/his present behavior is kept within
acceptable limits.

A process of treatment , prescribed by the court for

persons convicted of
offenses against the law, during which the individual on
Probation probation lives in
the community and regulates her/his own life under
conditions imposed by
the court (or other constituted authority) and is subjected
to the
supervision of a probation officer.
 In the release of a prisoner under supervision
before the expiration of her/his sentence.
Parole

School social work exists primarily to provide a

helping service to those students whose problems in
Schools school stem from social and emotional causes which
interfere with their adjustments and potential
academic achievement.
Special Groups

Are persons, who, as a result of periodic or

continuous use of drugs (usually in the form of
sedatives, stimulants, and hallucinogens) have
Drug developed a physical and/or psychological need
Dependents for/dependence on these drugs to the extent
that their denial produces adverse effects on
themselves.
 Include women who are victims of
gender-based violence (such as
domestic violence/wife-beating,
marital rape, incest, rape and sexual
harassment), prostituted women,
victims of armed conflicts and
militarization, and solo parents.
Programs in this field are focused on
protection, prevention, treatment and
Social Disadvantaged Women rehabilitation.

Are patients released from

Patients of Psychiatric psychiatric institutions like the
Institutions National Center
for Mental health who may need
assistance in their post-
institutionalization adjustment in
the community.
 Referred to as people between sixty
and above. Social services include
assistance in relation to economic
dependency, health and medical
Older Persons problems, social problems such as
family and community relationships,
personal care etc.

Are those suffering from restrictions

of different disabilities as a result of
a mental and physical or sensory
Persons with Disability impairment, to perform an activity
in the manner or within the range
considered normal for a human
being.
 Encompasses a variety of
programs and services which
Community have for their main goal the well-
Welfare being of entire communities.
 These communications are affected to a
certain degree because of the prejudice
and discriminations they are subjected
to. Other problems they face include
poverty, health and disease, lack of
Cultural education, vulnerability to natural
disasters, human rights violations such
Communities as being victims of forced evacuation or
relocation due to militarization, lack of
access to basic social services,
deculturalization and psychological
traumas.
 Social welfare services in the field
of industry are generally concerned
in efforts to establish or improve
Industry and Labor social security, health and general
welfare of employees and their
families.

Education Can be considered a field of social

And work practice since its involves
Training the transfer of social work
knowledge and skills.
 The international professional practice
International Social and the capacity for international.

Action by the social work profession and

its members. International action
has four dimensions : internationally
related domestic practice and advocacy,
Work professional exchange , international
practice and international policy
development and advocacy
(Healy, 2001, as cited in Cox & Pawar,
2006, p. 19).
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
OF SOCIAL WORKERS

 With the complexities of the global and local social

situations, it is inevitable that social dysfunctions
will continue to evolve and deepen social complications.
The situation demands more social workers who will
accompany individuals, groups and communities in
providing care and cure.
 The following are some possible career paths for
social workers: social work in health care, social
work in education, occupational social work,
clinical social work (such as medical and
psychiatric social work), forensic social work,
adoption social work, management and supervision
in various social welfare organizations, social policy
and planning, charity social work, and social work
education.
"It is not your job to save everyone. Some people
are not even ready to be helped. Focus on being of
service to those who are, and be wise and humble
enough to know when the best service you can offer
is to guide them toward help in another direction".
— Anna Taylor,

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!