Lesson 10 in DIASS

TODAY’S LESSON

Lesson 10: Social Work Services, Processes and Methods

This lesson deals with identifying the services, processes and methods of Social Work

At the end of this lesson students will be able to:

1. Identify other areas of service and practice in social work

2. Illustrate the different processes and methods involved in undertaking social work
3. Explain the history of professionalization of social work practice in the Philippines
4. Show an understanding of the social work stereotypes

PRE ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY : Reflect upon:

1. Why is helping even just one person in a society beneficial for the common good?
2. How do you understand the following terms? How do you think can you help solve these
problems?
a. Racism b. Ethnocentrism c. Sexism D. Ageism

DISCUSSION

What is Social Work?

* It is an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion
and empowerment and liberation of people.

*It engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhances wellbeing

TYPES OF SOCIAL WORK

1. Child, Family and School Social Workers help children, families and the elderly work
toward resolving their problems. They help place children in foster care and assist
parents looking to adopt.

2. Medical and Public Health Social Workers help the seriously ill and those with chronic
health problems to find adequate care, access public resources like Medicare and
Medicaid, and find services like nutrition classes and nursing care

. 3. Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers help people with a wide variety
of mental health and substance abuse problems. Therapy is one common way for social
workers to help clients address those problems.

4. Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers help people with a wide variety
of mental health and substance abuse problems. Therapy is one common way for social
workers to help clients address those problems.

5. Administration and Management Social work administrators are proactive leaders in

public and private agencies that provide services to clients. Many elements of this area
of social work practice are common to administration in other organizations

6. Developmental Disabilities Social workers also help parents of children with

developmental disabilities understand their legal rights. They help parents learn to be
advocates and find special services that enable their children to be as independent as
possible.

7. Justice and Corrections Social workers who work in justice and corrections can be
found in courts, rape crisis centres, police departments, and correctional facilities.

8. Politics There is a natural progression in the careers of many social workers from
activism to leadership. Increasingly social workers are holding elective offices from
school boards to city and county governments, from state legislatures all the way to the
U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Social workers also play leadership
roles in local, state and federal agencies.

Core Values of Social Work •

Service - Addressing social ills and helping others is a primary goal of all social workers.
Service is the value from which all other social work values stem.

Social Justice - Social workers advocate on behalf of the oppressed, the voiceless, and
others who are unable to advocate for themselves. They often focus on issues such as
poverty, homelessness, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of injustice.

Dignity and Worth of the Person- Every person is different, with different cultural and
social values. Social workers are mindful of those differences, treating each person with
dignity and respect and promoting their clients’ capacity and opportunity to address their
own needs and improve their personal situations.

Importance of Human Relationships - Social workers recognize that facilitating human

relationships can be a useful vehicle for creating change, and they excel at engaging
potential partners who can create, maintain, and enhance the wellbeing of families,
neighbourhoods, and whole communities.
Integrity - In order to facilitate these relationships and improve others’ lives, social
workers must exhibit trustworthiness at all times.

Competence - Professional social workers often hold undergraduate or Master’s degree

in Social Work, but a fair amount of their knowledge comes from gaining on-the-job
experience.

Understanding the Role of a Social Worker

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.

SOCIAL WORK PROCESSES

The social work process comprises a sequence of actions or tasks that draw on all of
the components of practice discussed so far.

It follows a clear linear route and is more often a fluid, circular cycle whereby workers
move from assessment through to implementation and evaluation and back to
assessment again. Despite this fluidity, some parts of the process, such as assessment,
have clearly defined procedures guided by local or national policy. Some tasks may be
fairly short and discrete, but many are longer term and more complex, such as
assessments. You will also find that tasks often overlap and are revisited over a period
of involvement with a service user.

The Social Work Process

1. Assessment- The evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone

or something. It is widely agreed to be of great importance, but that is where agreement
ends and contestation over what it is begins.

2. Deciding on Outcomes- In designing your learning event, think carefully about the
purpose and expectations, and how these fit the needs of learners and relates to their
individual roles and objectives, and those of the groups and organizations they may be
a part of. It is a good idea to define the intended ‘learning outcomes’ clearly in advance,
and with others.

3. Planning- Planning is the process of thinking about the activities required to achieve a
desired goal. It is the first and foremost activity to achieve desired results. It involves the
creation and maintenance of a plan, such as psychological aspects that require
conceptual skills.

4. Intervention- A situation in which someone becomes involved in a particular issue,

problem and etc. in order to influence what happens.

5. Evaluation- The process of judging something's quality, importance or value, or a

report that includes the information. It involves collecting and analyzing information
about a program's activities, characteristics, and outcomes. The process of judging
something's quality, importance or value, or a report that includes the information. It
involves collecting and analyzing information about a program's activities,
characteristics, and outcomes. Practitioners need to be aware (and inform service
users) of why they are engaged in particular tasks and to be able to justify their methods
of working. Interventions should be meaningful and fit within an overall plan or strategy.
Awareness of the different stages of the social work process can assist social workers
to prepare for, carry out and evaluate their interventions in order to both be accountable
for, and reflect upon, their actions.

SOCIAL WORK METHOD

What do you think METHOD means? -

A procedure to accomplish something A particular way of doing something Way,

technique, or process

2 Methods in Social Work

PRIMARY METHOD and SECONDARY METHOD

PRIMARY METHODS

1. SOCIAL CASE WORK- is the method of employed by social workers to help

individuals find solutions to the problems of social adjustment that are difficult to
navigate.
 - MARY ELLEN RICHMOND is the founding mother of social case work “
Social case work consist of process which develop personality through
adjustments consciously effected, individual by individual, between man and
their social environment”

5 components of Social Work → Person → Problem → Place → Process

2. SOCIAL GROUP WORK - It is a method of social work that helps a person to

enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences and to
cope more effectively with their personal, group or community problems

3. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION- Viewed from a humanitarian approach is meant

to solve the problems of the community is as old as society itself. But viewed as one of
the methods of social work profession it is of very recent origin.

- According to Murray G. Ross, Community Organization is a process by which

community identifies its needs and objectives, orders or ranks these needs or objective.
Community Organization covers a series of activities at the community level aimed at
bringing about desired improvement in the social well being of individuals groups, and
neighborhood

SECONDARY METHODS

4. SOCIAL ACTION- Social Action has been used to signify a wide range of primarily
voluntary initiative to bring out change in the social system, processes and even
structure. Social Workers more often than not have divergent opinion about the scope
and relevance of social action

5. SOCIAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION- This is a process by which we apply

professional competence to achieve certain goals.
- It is also called a process of transforming social policy into social action.
- It involves the administration of government and Non government agencies
- Herleigh Tracker (1971) interprets social welfare administration as a “process
of working with people in ways that release and relate their energes so that
they use available resources to accomplish the purpose of providing needed
commonly services and programmes”

6. SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH- It is the application of research methods to the

production of knowledge that social workers need to solve problems they confront in the
practice of Social Work. In short, it helps Social Workers to find ways and mean of
enhancing social functioning at the individual, group, and social levels.