- Social work is a profession for those with a strong desire to help improve people's lives.
- Social workers assist people by helping them cope with and solve issues in their everyday lives, such as family and personal problems and dealing with relationships.
- Some social workers help clients who face a disability, life-threatening disease, social problem, such as inadequate housing, unemployment, or substance abuse.
- Social workers also assist families that have serious domestic conflicts, sometimes involving child or spousal abuse.
- Additionally, they may conduct research, advocate for improved services, or become involved in planning or policy development.
- Many social workers specialize in serving a particular population or working in a specific setting.
- In all settings, these workers may also be called licensed clinical social workers, if they hold the appropriate State mandated license.
- Child, family, and school social workers provide social services and assistance to improve the social and psychological functioning of children and their families.
- Workers in this field assess their client’s needs and offer assistance to improve their situation. This often includes coordinating available services to assist a child or family. They may assist single parents in finding day care, arrange adoptions, or help find foster homes for neglected, abandoned, or abused children. These workers may specialize in working with a particular problem, population or setting, such as child protective services, adoption, homelessness, domestic violence, or foster care.
- In schools, social workers often serve as the link between students' families and the school, working with parents, guardians, teachers, and other school officials to ensure that students reach their academic and personal potential.
- They also assist students in dealing with stress or emotional problems. Many school social workers work directly with children with disabilities and their families.
- In addition, they address problems such as misbehavior, truancy, teenage pregnancy, and drug and alcohol problems and advise teachers on how to cope with difficult students.
- School social workers may teach workshops to entire classes on topics like conflict resolution.
- Child, family, and school social workers may be known as child welfare social workers, family services social workers, or child protective services social workers. These workers often work for individual and family services agencies, schools, or State or local governments.
- Medical and public health social workers provide psychosocial support to individuals, families, or vulnerable populations so they can cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, or AIDS.
- They also advise family caregivers, counsel patients, and help plan for patients' needs after discharge from hospitals. They may arrange for at-home services, such as meals-on-wheels or home care. Some work on interdisciplinary teams that evaluate certain kinds of patients, such as geriatric or organ transplant patients.
- Some specialize in services for senior citizens and their families. These social workers may run support groups for the adult children of aging parents. Also, they may assess, coordinate, and monitor services such as housing, transportation, and long-term care. These workers may be known as gerontological social workers.
- Medical and public health social workers may work for hospitals, nursing and personal care facilities, individual and family services agencies, or local governments.
- Mental health and substance abuse social workers assess and treat individuals with mental illness or substance abuse problems.
- Such services include individual and group therapy, outreach, crisis intervention, social rehabilitation, and teaching skills needed for everyday living.
- They also may help plan for supportive services to ease clients' return to the community when leaving in-patient facilities.
- They may provide services to assist family members of those who suffer from addiction or other mental health issues. T
- hese workers may work in outpatient facilities, where clients come in for treatment and then leave, or in inpatient programs, where patients reside at the facility.
- Some mental health and substance social workers may work in employee-assistance programs.
- In this setting, they may help people cope with job-related pressures or with personal problems that affect the quality of their work.
- Other social workers work in private practice, where they are employed directly by the client. T
- hese social workers may be known as clinical social workers, occupational social workers, or substance abuse social workers.)
- Other types of social workers include social work administrators, researchers, planners and policymakers, who develop and implement programs to address issues such as child abuse, homelessness, substance abuse, poverty, and violence.
- These workers research and analyze policies, programs, and regulations.
- They identify social problems and suggest legislative and other solutions.
- They may help raise funds or write grants to support these programs.
- The growing elderly population and the aging baby boom generation will create greater demand for health and social services, resulting in rapid job growth among gerontological social workers.
- Demand for child and family social workers should continue, as these workers are needed to investigate child abuse cases, place children in foster care and with adoptive families.
- However, growth for these workers may be hampered by the budget constraints of state and local governments, who are amongst the largest employers of these workers.
- Furthermore, demand for school social workers will continue and lead to more jobs as efforts are expanded to respond to rising student enrolments, as well as the continued emphasis on integrating children with disabilities into the general school population.
- Opportunities for social workers in private practice will expand, as they are preferred over more costly psychologists.
- Medical and public health social workers will be needed to assist in finding the best care and assistance for the aging, as well as to support their families.
- Employment opportunities for social workers with backgrounds in gerontology should be excellent, particularly in the growing numbers of assisted-living and senior-living communities.
- The expanding senior population also will spur demand for social workers in nursing homes, long-term care facilities, home care agencies, and hospices.
Through direct counselling or referral to other services, social workers help people solve a range of personal problems. Workers in occupations with similar duties include Clergy; Counsellors; Health educators; Probation Officers and correctional treatment specialists; Psychologists; Social and human service assistants
- Bachelor’s degree in social work (BSW)
- BA Psychology
- BA sociology
This career information is drawn from data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.