Humanities and Social Sciences

Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences

SOCIAL
WORK
I. Introduction
II. Body
A. Knowledge
1. THE DISCIPILINE 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

3. THE CLIENTELE AND AUDIENCES IN SOCIAL

WORK
3.1 Characteristics and needs of various types of
clientele and audiences
3.1.1 Individuals
3.1.2 Groups and Organization
3.1.3 Communities

4. THE SETTINGS, PROCESSES, METHODS, AND

TOOLS IN SOCIAL WORK
4.1 Settings
 4.1.1 Government
4.1.2 Private Sector
4.1.3 Civil Society
4.1.4 School
4.1.5 Community

5. THE SOCIAL WORK SERVICES, PROCESSES,

AND METHODS
5.1 Conducting needs assessment for Individuals,
Groups, Organizations and Communities
5.2 Monitoring and Evaluating Social Work
Effectivity
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 enhance their well-being and quality of life. Social workers operate within
legal frameworks for 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 care , 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.

1.3 Goals and Scope of Social Work

These are the goals and scope of social works as highlighted by DuBois and
Miley (2008). Social work— Empower people individually and collectively in order to
utilize their own problem solving and coping capabilities more effectively. Social work—
Support a proactive position with regard to social and economic policy development to
prevent problems for individuals and society form occurring. Social work— Uphold the
integrity of the profession in all aspects of social work practice. Social work— Establish
linkages between people and societal resources to further social functioning and enhance
quality of life. Social work— Develop cooperative networks within the institutional
resources system. Social work— Facilitate the responsiveness of the institutional
resource systems to meet health and human service needs. Social work— Promotes
social justice and equality of all people with the regard to full participation in society.
Social work— Contribute to the development of knowledge for social work profession
through research and evaluation. Social work— Encourage exchange of information in
those institutional systems in which both problems and resources opportunities are
produced. Social work— Enhance communication through an appreciation of diversity
and through ethnically sensitive, non-sexist social work practice. Social work— Employ
educational strategies for the prevention and resolution of problems. And lastly, Social
work— 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? 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. 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. And 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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 instruct 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 professional mandates or what is
asked for the social worker to do in order for the social worker to help 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.

3. THE CLIENTELE AND AUDIENCES IN SOCIAL WORK

3.1 Characteristic of Clientele and Audience of Social Work
The type of health information that is most appropriate and ‘impactful’ will be
influenced by the characteristics of your target audience, including their gender, ethnicity,
culture, age, disability, sexuality, lifestyle, communication needs, location, health
literacy, socio-economic status, beliefs, preferences, health condition, and coping
strategies. You will need to consider the characteristics of your audience, such as
disability, language spoken and health literacy, and the impact of this on how it is most
effective to communicate with them. Knowing audience members’ attitudes about a topic
will help a speaker determine the best way to reach their goals. Imagine that a presenter is
trying to convince the community to build a park. A speaker would probably be inclined
to spend the majority of the speech giving reasons why a park would benefit the
community. Try to do some research to find out what the audience already knows about
the topic. Giving a brief review of important terms and concepts is almost always
appropriate, and can sometimes be done by acknowledging the heterogeneous audience
and the importance of ‘putting everyone on the same page.’ For example, even if the
audience members were familiar with basic genetics, a brief review of key term and
concepts at the beginning of a speech refreshes memories without being patronizing. You
need to have a lot more understanding about their social problems, be good and patient to
have a good communication with them.

3.3 The individual as Client of Social Work

It must have on the transactional relationships between people and their social
environments. They must learn also social work practice methods to restore, maintain and
promote social functioning as it relates to individuals, families, and small groups.
Integrates on multiculturalism, diversity, and social justice issues. You will examine
social work values and ethics as well as issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, socio-economic status, age, religion, and ability as these relate to social work
practice. You will learn how to perform various social work roles (i.e. counselor/clinical
social worker, group facilitator, mediator, and advocate), recognizing that these roles
must adhere to social work values and ethics. You will learn the importance of
developing relationships with clients, colleagues, supervisors, other professionals, and
other constituencies. You will learn how to apply skills such as active listening, empathic
responding, contracting, and critical and creative thinking in practice.

3.4 The group and organization as Client of Social Work

Social workers work with a variety of groups in all settings in which social
work is practiced. It is means that inside of a group of people it needs of commonly
identity or similarity with each other. It’s like a small group that working with service,
like group of organization or place of employment, or pupils and student in school setup.
Social work applies social sciences, such as sociology, psychology, political science,
public health, community development, law, and economics, to engage with client
systems, conduct assessments, and develop interventions to solve social and personal
problems; and create social change. Social work practice is often divided into micro-
work, which involves working with individuals or small groups; and macro-work, which
involves working communities, and within social policy, to create change on a larger
scale.
3.5 The community as Client of Social Work
Working with the community requires the generalist practitioner to be able to
assess community functioning and design specific intervention techniques. Community
organization has been recognized for many years as one of the main methods of social
work. Community have the largest share because everyone, what i mean is, individual
and families is essensially members of the community. A community can be powerless
sector so that means the social work service can free from control or power of another
and empowerment. A group of individuals or families that share certain values, services,
institutions, interests, or geographical proximity. A functional special unit that meets
people’s sustenance needs, helps form collective identities, and patterned social
interaction. Social work may focus on community transformation to cause environmental
change to make it possible and to achieve social well-being or social justice.

4. THE SETTINGS, PROCESSES, METHODS, AND TOOLS IN SOCIAL WORK

4.1 Government setting

In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of
legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government setting by which organizational
policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. Each government
has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy.
Typically the philosophy chosen is some balance .between the principle of individual
freedom and the idea. While all types of organizations have governance, the word
government is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent
national governments on Earth, as well as subsidiary organizations. Historically prevalent
forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy,
theocracy and tyranny. The main aspect of any philosophy of government is how political
power is obtained, with the two main forms being electoral contest and hereditary
succession.

4.2 Private Sector Setting

Part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by
private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not
controlled by the State. the private sector is wider, and places fewer constraints on firms.
In countries with more government authority, such as China, the public sector makes up
most of the economy.

4.3 Civil Society Setting

The term Civil Society is used to collectively refer to the voluntary
organizations corporate bodies, socially active groups, and firms working in each society.
Civil Society works for discharging several economic, social, cultural, moral and other
responsibilities which fall in the domain of private activities. It, however, serves the
public purpose of securing general welfare and development. Civil Society even opposes
the wrong politics, decisions and projects of the government. In doing so the civil society
depends upon constitutional, peaceful and legal method of action. In other words, Civil
Society refers to the effective presence of autonomous groups and associations, business
groups, interest groups, trade unions, voluntary social service organizations and clubs, in
fact, all non-governmental organizations, clubs and groups working for securing their
interests by their own efforts.

4.4 School Setting

School social workers play a critical role in schools and educational settings.
Social workers working within school systems provide services to students to enhance
their emotional well-being and improve their academic performance. School social
workers are usually employed by the school district or an agency that is contracted with
the school district to provide services. School social workers are often called on to help
students, families, and teachers address problems such as truancy, social withdrawal,
overaggressive behaviors, rebelliousness, and the effects of special physical, emotional,
or economic problems. School social workers often also address issues such as substance
abuse and sexuality issues in the higher grade levels. School social workers have a wide
range of job functions. Their title is typically “school social worker.” Qualifications for
this position are often decided by the school district or employing agency and
requirements can range from a bachelors degree to a clinical license from the state in
which they practice. However, like many social workers, the caseloads of school social
workers are often high. School social workers can be assigned to more than one school,
requiring time to travel between locations. Often the school social worker performs in
isolation and may not have access to consistent supervision. There also may be limited
resources to support service delivery such as a lack of confidential and private space,
supplies, and training.

4.5 Community Setting

Our community have all feature appropriate furniture and, in some cases, have
restricted space, ensuring that you are used to working in varied and realistic home and
environments. A home or a community organization located in the neighborhood in
which a participant in the program under this section. A community is a familiar thread
used to bring people together to advocate and support each other in the fight to overcome
those threats. As human beings, we need a sense of belonging, and that sense of
belonging is what connects us to the many relationships we develop. Communities are
also rich in resources, that is where their collective aspect comes into play. We are all
members of many communities family, work, neighborhood, etc. We constantly move in
and out of them, depending on the situation. Community setting consist of micro-practice
and macro-practice when we say micro - practice it means the most common kind of
social work, and is how most people imagine social workers providing services. In micro
social work, the social worker engages with individuals or families to solve problems.
The practice of macro social work is the effort to help clients by intervening in large
systems. Examples include lobbying to change a health care law, organizing a state-wide
activist group or advocating for large-scale social policy change.

5. THE SOCIAL WORK SERVICES, PROCESSES, AND METHODS

5.1 Conducting Needs Assessment for Individuals, Groups, Organizations and
Communities
Careful planning is important to social work. Community needs assessment to
identifies the strength and resources available in the community to meet the needs of the
children and families. It provides a framework for developing and identifying services
and solutions that support and nurture children and families. Without it, social workers
might be mistaken on their services that they'll give to the people. Before they give their
services, they plan it first through surveys, interviews, community meetings and these
informations are their basis to make datas. On those datas ,it will shown what are the
problems of the community And this datas/infos will help them on what services they'll
make for individuals. When there is poor people, the socialist work focuses on how
they'll help them. Social work help them by training them on onhand and basic works to
make their own business.

5.2 Monitoring and Evaluating School Work Effectivity

After they planned and give the services, they also need to know if the services
are effective to people. It serves to answers question such as "Are activities going
according to plan?" and "Is the work of the project progressing as intended?". Evaluating
tends to focus on tracking progress at the higher level objectives of the logical framework
which are outcomes and impact. It answers the question "Was the project successful at
achieving it's intended outcomes?” Example of this is the training project for the poor
people who can start a new business. If the data showing a poor attendance, social work
will think solutions towards better efficiency and effectiveness.

COMPREHENSION
Social work respects the personal autonomy of clients, supports solidarity-
based relationships in families, groups or communities, and attempts to uphold social
justice in society. Social workers need to adopt special professional attitudes: sensibility
for the vulnerabilities of clients, care and attentiveness for their resources and strengths,
assistance instead of paternalistic care and advocacy in decision making for clients' well-
being when clients are not able to decide for themselves. Therefore, the more social work
that we have, the better the society will be. It is because this social work advocates good
society. We can connect this principle to the area of sociology. Sociology and social work
are two related fields which both deal with the relationships of human beings to their
social environments. However, the two career paths involve very different work
environments, practices and educations. The study of society implies to the study of
human beings, their interrelationship, and the relationship with the immediate social
environment. Thus, it can be seen that sociology deals with human organizations, their
structure, their relationship, and gaps underlying the psychosocial needs, social
interactions that are important for maintaining a decent standard of living in the society.
Social work derives ample of knowledge from sociology because the psychosocial
problems of individuals, groups or communities cannot be diagnosed and solved without
having the knowledge about their social environment. Thus, the contribution of sociology
in the development of social work theories cannot be denied.
APPLICATION
One of our groupmate encountered this kind of experience on where social
workers distributes free vitamins to the residence in their Barangay (Lingap Barangay).
Those vitamins are essential for the babies. Everytime the social workers gave it, some
kids are begging them to have some. But sadly, those kids are just playing with the
vitamins even though the social workers are telling them not to play with it. Because of
that, the social workers felt inconvenience while doing their work. Relating to the
principle, just like what the social workers did (which is distributing free vitamins) we
can say that social work is really a service that can give every individual a benefit or help
and it leads to a better society. Yes, they are still kids but this kind of experience can
apply to everyone that we should respect those social workers because they are not just
doing their work for themselves but it is for the whole community, the society rather.

ANALYSIS
PROBLEM 1: Lack of funds
SOLUTION: Give enough funds to the social work/social workers in order to have
better service to the people.

PROBLEM 2: Not giving value to the service of social workers

SOLUTION: Learn to appreciate the service that is given to you.

RESULT: Better service and improvement in the field of social work and also the
society.

SYNTHESIS
We agree on having Social Work because it advocates social change and
improvement of the society. It helps individuals fit better into their environment and
change the environment so that it works better for them. The action taken is to appreciate
the services that social workers are giving. Yes, it is their job to do so but being a social
worker is challenging and their deeds are nothing if we don’t know how to give value to
their services that’s why we should appreciate them and if we want social change, we
must cooperate too not only the social workers but also us because our society will not
work if don’t cooperate. Appreciation and cooperation is one of the key to have a better
society.

CONCLUSION
We therefore conclude that Social Work is a positive impact to the society. A
genuine and sincere work plays an important role not only in our society but also in
oneself.