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LESSON 11

Goals and Scope of Social Work


Social Work is a helping profession. Some individuals have personal or
family problems. Sometimes they cannot solve these by themselves. So
they need outside help. Such help comes from trained people. The
individual seeking help is known as a client and the trained person helping him is known
as a social worker
DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
Morales and Sheafor (1983) identified four areas of consideration:
1. In each helping situation, the social worker is concerned with enabling or facilitating
change. Interventions to improve the quality of life may appropriately occur as
part of the social work practice.
2. The social worker is in the business of helping people or social institutions, such
as family, change to enhance social functioning. It is not to focus on the whole
person but on social relationships.
3. Applying the social systems theory, social work can be viewed as a profession that
helps people interact more effectively with their social environment. The
focus is placed on the “interface or the meeting place or the transaction of person
and the environment” (William Gordon, as cited by Morales and Sheafor, 1983).
4. In helping to achieve their goals of improved social functioning, the social
worker must have handles in fortifying and securing the necessary resources to
attain the goals of the clients.
GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK
The main goal of social work is to improve a society’s overall well-being, especially for
the most vulnerable populations.
Morales and Sheafor (1983) specified three (3) distinguishing goals of social work
namely:
caring, curing, and changing. These goals are outlined and described below:
1. The Goal on Caring
Caring refers to the heart of social work and it focuses on the well-being or
the welfare and comfort of the individual and community.
2. The Goal on Curing
Curing refers to the aspect of treating people with problems in social
functioning
3. The Goal on Changing
Changing refers to the active participation of the social workers in social
reforms.

SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK


The concern of social work is to help people who are in need so that they develop the
capacity to deal with their problems by themselves. It is both science and an art. Social
work is science in the sense that the knowledge taken from different disciplines form the
body of knowledge for a social worker and she/he uses this theoretical base for helping
people i.e., for practice. What theory postulates has to be put into practice. The required
capacity to do it is known as skill. Hence, professional social work with selected
knowledge and the set of social work values, has to be transformed into a professional
service
.
According to Morales and Sheafor (1983) Fields included in Social Work

1. Social Work as Primary Discipline


a. Adoption and services to unmarried parents
- Difficult decision to keep the baby or place it for adoption
- Applies both individual and group counseling to assist women in making
decisions
b. Foster Care
- Removing children from homes and placing them to foster homes temporarily
- Works with the parents, child and court to administer court decisions to
remove a child due to detrimental situations
c. Residential Care
- Group care home or a residential treatment center
- These are for children exhibiting anti-social behaviors that require intensive
treatment
d. Support in own home
- Support services to keep children in their own homes
- Counseling, family consultations, clients with appropriate institutions such as
day care centers and home maker services.
e. Protective Services
- Protecting the child from abuse, maltreatment, exploitation by parents
- Seeks to protect the child without infringing the rights of parents
Family Services
- Family counseling involves family case work, family group work and family
therapy
- Family life education strengthens family relationships through educational
activities to prevent family breakdown
- Family planning involves planning the number, spacing and timing of child
births to fit with their needs
- Make decisions about the patterns of reproduction towards enhancing quality
of life
g. Income maintenance
- Public assistance, financial aid to the poor.
- It includes cash grants, food stamps, general assistance such as hospital and
medical care, and supplemental security income.
- Social Insurance, social provisions that funded by employers and employees
through contributions to a specific program.
- Other forms, cash in kind benefits, emergency support funds, and other
resources that can be used by the poor for food and shelter

2. Social Work as an Equal Partner


a. Support for people in their own homes program
- Helping older people remain in their homes and linking them with community
programs such as health care, meals and home care services.
b. Support for people in the long term care facilities
- Refers to nursing homes or other group living facilities
c. Community Services
- Community Organization activities, gathering and analysis of data, matching
delivery of services to the population distribution, securing funds,
coordination with existing agencies and educating the general public about
the services
- Community planning, involvement of social workers with the physical,
economic and health planners in the long-range planning of communities

3. Social Work as a Secondary Discipline


a. Correctional Facilities, provide counseling and link them to the outside world,
provide support upon release
b. Industry, support to both managers and employees. Serves as basis for
employment
c. Medical and Health care, attend to the social and psychological factors
contributing to the medical condition of the patients.
d. Schools, facilitate the provision of direct educational and social services and
provide direct social case work and group work to selected students
- Act as pupil advocate focusing on the urgent needs of the selected students
- Consult with school administrators’ major problems toward a planned service
approach
- Consult with teachers about techniques for creating a free and motivating
climate for children by interpreting social and cultural influences
- Use of peers to help a troubled child
e.
- Organize parent and community groups to channel concerns
- Develop and maintain liaison between the school and social work
- Provide leadership in coordination of student services in guidance, clinic staff,
psychologists and attendants.

Vocabulary:
• Empathy the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and
vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of
either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience
fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner
• A principle is a general belief that you have about the way you should behave,
which influences your behavior

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