Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Humanities and Social Sciences Disciplines and Ideas in The Applied Social Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences Disciplines and Ideas in The Applied Social Sciences
SOCIAL WORK
Submitted by:
11- HumSS B
I. Introduction
II. Body
A. Knowledge
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
5.1 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 inhuman 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.
1.2 Context and Basic Concepts of Social Work
The aim of social work is to help individuals fit better into their environment and change the
environment so that it works better for them. Segal, Cerdes, and Steiner (2005) locate the
history of social work in the history of social welfare in America in order to support this context
and basic concept of Social Work. They connect it to the history of Charity Organization
Societies founded in 1877 that aims to discover the causes of poverty among individuals
eliminate the causes and eliminate poverty from society. Poverty was then seen as a character
defect of an individual. The next movement that emerged was called Settlement Movement
began in 1887. This movement operated on the assumption that an individual’s well-being was
directly related to his/her surroundings therefore, to help a person involved changing the
environment wherein that person lives. These includes advocating for better neighborhood
services, public health programs and employment conditions. These two (2) movements plays
role in solving poverty of individuals by helping them fit better into their environment and
changing that environment and this serves as today’s basic concept of Social Work. The context
of social work is a place that requires professionals to direct their service on the needs and
empowerment of people who experiences some forms of vulnerability, oppression and living in
poverty.
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
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 group mate 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. Every time 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.