THE DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL WORK

 SOCIAL WORK
 DEFINITIONS
 GOALS
 SCOPE
 CORE VALUES
 PRINCIPLES
 DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
• The contentions on the definition of social work were abridged
by Anne Minahan in an introduction to “An Issue of Social
Work,” which is presented below:
“Over the years there has been a growing belief that social work
purpose should focus on the interaction of person and the
environment . However, there have been sharp differences of
opinion on the emphasis to be given to the person, the emphasis
to be given to the environment , and how interventions should be
directed toward the interactions between them. Further, social
workers have different opinions on several issues connected to
social work’s purpose and objectives, including issues relating to
residual or institutional approaches to practice – whether social
work is for everyone or only for special populations; the
appropriateness of social workers’ serving as agents of social
control; the nature of relationship of social workers to their
employing organization; and the knowledge and skill required for
generalist and specialist practice.”
 DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
• In defining 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 thee 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 the person and the
environment.
4. In helping people 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
 DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
• The National association of Social Workers (NASW) in the US
defined social work as the professional activity of helping
individuals, groups or communities enhance or restore their
capacity for social functioning and creating societal conditions
favorable to the goal.
• United Nations of Economic, Social and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) considers social work as a field within
human services of the government. It considers social work as an
important service to the society focusing n individuals and families
in need of help.
• The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) defines
social work as a practice-based and academic discipline that
promotes change and social development. Accordingly the
principles of justice, human rights, collective responsibility, and
respect for diversities are vital in the discipline and in the field of
work. It also underscored that social work attends to the manifold
and multifaceted connections and interrelations between people
and environment.
 DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
• Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)
adheres to the definition of IFSW and recognizes that social
work is a practical profession designed at helping people
address their problems and matching them with the
resources they need to lead healthy and productive lives.
• International Association of Social Workers (IASSW)
and IFSW agreed on adopting an international definition of
social work, which indicates as below:
“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 fundamentals to social work.
 DEFINITION OF SOCIAL WORK
• According to Morales and Sheafor (1983), there are
three significant characteristics in the practice of
social work, namely: (a) fundamental goals of the
practice activity, (b) settings where the practice
occurs, and (c) the use of a generalist or specialist
approach by social worker.
• Barker (1999) describes social work as an “applied
science’ of helping people achieve an effective level
of psychosocial functioning and effecting societal
changes to enhance the well-being of all people.
• In the Philippines, Mendoza (2002) defined social
work as a profession which is concerned about the
person’s adjustment to his/her environment and she
referred this as person’s “social functioning.”
 GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK
• The principal mission of social work profession is to
develop human beings and assists other institutions in
attaining the basic human needs of the people and in
empowering the lost, the least, and the last.
• Catalyzing the mission of social work profession are the
goals of social work namely: caring, curing and
changing.
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.
 The goal on caring involves the enhancement of the quality
of life in prisons, the upgrading and humanizing services in
nursing homes and juvenile facilities, and the constant
advancement of care given to populations in need.
 GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK
1. The Goal on Caring
 The need for the caring function increases and it is realized
that in the field of social work the curative function is
inadequate in our goal to improve the situation of people in
need.
2. The Goal on Curing
 Curing refers to the aspect of treating people with problems
in social functioning.
 This covers a range of aiding techniques for individuals,
families, and groups.
 Techniques composed of:
(a) popular counseling approaches comprising of transactional
analysis, family therapy, behavior modification, reality therapy,
and gestalt therapy; and
(b) unpopular approaches such as Rolfing therapy,
psychomotor therapy, and psychodrama.
 GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK
2. The Goal on Curing
• The techniques are the individual-focused approaches
which may not automatically provide an effective method
of helping clients towards social functioning.
• It is necessary to facilitate the participation of the clients
in the helping process and create an appropriate
environment for them.
3. The Goal on Changing
• Changing refers to the active participation of the social
workers in social reforms.
• This goals comes from a perspective that there is a
persistence of poverty, environmental destruction, and
social disintegration.
• It recognizes that the political, economic, and social
structures add in the worsening of social conditions.
 GOALS OF SOCIAL WORK
3. The Goal on Changing
• This reality puts the poor and the needy in a more
challenging situation which consequently becomes a
critical concern of social institutions and the social
work profession.
• It is therefore vital for the social workers to be aware
and be actively vigilant in identifying structures that
exacerbate the situation and deepen social
destruction.
• Social reforms are necessary to improve the social
services and the quality of life of those in need.
• This is one of the significant goals because it
contributes in the struggle to pursue a lasting social
change.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK
• The scope of social work includes child
development, medical social work, clinical
social work, administrative and management,
social work, international social work, social
work in acute psychiatric hospital, and social
work as community organizer.
• Morales and Sheafor (1983) identified and
described the fields included in the area of
social work, which are as follows:
1. Social Work as a Primary Discipline
2. Social Work as an Equal Partner
3. Social Work as Secondary Discipline
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
• In terms of child welfare, social works offer adoption and
services t unmarried parents, foster care, residential care
support in own home, and protective services.
a. The adoption and services to unmarried parents is
about facilitating the difficult decision of unmarried parents
whether to keep the baby or place the child for adoption. In
this process, social workers apply both individual and group
counseling to assist women in their sensitive decision making
process.
b. The foster care is about removing the children from their
homes and placing them temporarily in a foster care. The
process includes working with parents, the child and the
courts to acquire a decision to remove a child from his/her
own home due to detrimental situations and bringing her/him
to a foster home placement. It also involves counseling with
the child and parents.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
c. The residential care is a group care home or a
residential treatment center for a child. These centers
are for children exhibiting anti-social behaviors or
behaviors that require intensive treatment. Social
workers are involved in sustaining a helpful connection
between the child and the family and in preparing
plans for the return of the child to his/her home.
d. The support in own home involves providing
support services in order to keep children in their own
homes. Support services may be in the form of
counseling, family consultations, and connecting clients
with appropriate institutions such as day care centers
and home maker services.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
e. The protective services are about protecting
the child from child abuse, maltreatment, and
exploitation by one or both parents. The social
worker seeks to protect child without infringing
on the rights of the parents. Upon receipt of
referral, there is an assessment on the situation
of the child: Is the child in danger? Do the parents
have the capacity to resolve the problem? What
are the risks involve? The process may involve
individual or family counseling, provision of
support services, and education.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
• In terms of family services, social work offers
family counseling, family life education, and family
planning,
a. Family counseling is about employing the three
approaches which comprise of family case work,
which involves helping individual members of the
family modify their behavior to make them more
effective contributors in the family; family group
work, which is about the process by which the family
examines its relationships and resolves their problem
with the help of the social worker; and lastly, family
therapy, which focuses on transforming the structure
of the family to make it more supportive to its
members
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
b. Family life education is an intervention to
strengthen the family through educational
activities that seek to prevent family breakdown.
Its goal is to understand and anticipate the
normal patterns and stresses of the family and
community living toward improvement of
interpersonal relationships and prevention or
reduction of situational crises.
c. Family planning refers to assisting the
families plan the number, spacing and timing of
the births of children to fit with their needs. The
social workers help the family to make decisions
about their pattern of reproduction toward
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as a Primary Discipline
• In terms of income maintenance, social work offers public
assistance, social insurances, and other income
maintenance programs.
a. Public assistance refers to the provision of financial aid
to the poor. Social workers support the development of
adequate income maintenance programs and efforts to
provide needed services. Services include cash grants,
general assistance such as hospital and medical care, and
supplemental security income.
b. Social insurances are social provisions that re funded by
employers and employees through contributions to a
specific program.
c. The other income maintenance programs include cash
in kind benefits, emergency support funds, and other
resources which can be used by the poor for food and
shelter.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as an Equal Partner
• In terms of aging, social works offers support
for people in their own homes and support for
people in long-term care facilities.
a. The support for people in their own
homes programs consists of helping older
people remain in their own homes by linking
them with community programs that bring
health care, meals, and home care services
in to their home.
b. The support for people in long-term
care facilities program refers to nursing
homes or other group living facilities.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as an Equal Partner
• In terms of community services, social work offers
community organization, community planning, and
community development
a. Community organization activities involve the gathering
and analysis of data of population distribution, securing
funds, matching that information with data of population
distribution, securing funds to maintain and enhance the
quality of services, coordinating the efforts to existing
agencies, and educating the general public about these
services.
b. Community planning refers to the involvement of social
workers with the physical, economic, and health lanners in
the long-range planning of communities.
c. Community development is about the participation of
social workers in providing aid to the people in the
communities as the aim to enhance their conditions.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social Work as an Equal Partner
• In terms of youth and group services, social work
offers recreational and educational facilities such as
YMCA and scouting and settlement houses. Other
activities such as crafts, sports, camping, friendship
groups, drama, music, informal counseling, and other
groups of participation are also provided for.
• In terms of mental health and retardation, social
work refers to (a) initially, the institutionalizing of the
victims through individual treatment hospitals; (b)
due to the influence of the family and community in
the improvement of the patient, the movement to
deinstitutionalize by bringing them to foster homes
and residential care came into fruition.
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social work as Secondary Discipline
• Social workers are also present in the
correctional facilities. They provide
counseling and serve as link to the outside
world, comprising of the family, potential
employers, and the community service network
that will provide support upon release.
• In terms of industry , social workers act as a
support to both the managers and the
employees of the companies. They make
themselves available to the employees with
social problems for individual, family, and group
counseling. They also provide information to
the managers as basis for management
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social work as Secondary Discipline
• In terms of medical and healthcare, social workers
attend to the social and psychological factors that are
contributing to the medical conditions of the patients.
They also link patients with community resources,
provide necessary counseling, and link with self-help
groups.
• In terms of schools, Lela Costin has identified seven
(7) primary tasks of social workers in schools:
a. Facilitate the supervision of direct educational and
social services and provide direct social case work or
group work services to selected students;
b. Acts as a pupil advocate, focusing on urgent need of
the selected group of students;
c. Consult with school administrators major problems
 SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK:
Social work as Secondary Discipline
d. Consult with teachers about techniques for creating a
climate in which children are freed and motivated to
learn by interpreting social and cultural influences in the
lives of students, facilitating use of peers to help
troubled child or assisting in managing relationships in
the classroom;
e. Organize parent and community groups to channel
concerns about students and the school to improve
school and community relations;
f. Develop and maintain liaison between the school and
critical fields of social work such as child welfare,
corrections, 0mental health, and legal services for the
poor;
g. Provide leadership in the coordination of
 CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
• Core values, as a vital organizational component, play
a significant role in the organization.
• They serve as guiding principles that shape the
behavior and action of its members in interacting with
their clients and other people.
• Social work has its own core values – values that are
instilled among the social workers.
• Mendoza (2002) cited that the Council on Social Work
Education identified and described six (6) values that
are shared by the social work profession. These are:
1. Right to self-fulfillment – each person has the
right to sef-fulfillment which is derived from his/her
inherent capacity and thrust toward the goal;
 CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
2. Responsibility to common good – each
person has the responsibility as a member of the
society to seek ways of fulfillment that contribute
to common good;
3. Responsibility of the society – the society
has the responsibility to facilitate self-fulfillment of
the individual and the right to enrichment through
the contribution of its individual members.
4. Right to satisfy basic needs – each person
requires for the harmonious development of his
powers socially provided and socially safeguarded
opportunities for satisfying his/her basic needs inn
the physical, psychological, economic, cultural,
 CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
5. Social organizations required to facilitate
individual’s effort at self-realization – the
notion that individual and society are
interdependent provides a perspective that the
society has the responsibility to provide
appropriate social resources. It is the right
Of the individual to promote change in social
resources that do not serve his/her need-meeting
efforts.
6. self-realization and contribution to society
– to permit both self –realization and contribution
to society by the individual, social organization
must make available socially-provided devices for
 CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
• These values, according to the Curriculum Study
sponsored by the Council on Social Work Education as
cited by Mendoza (2002) comprise a minimum
commitment from the social worker and the following
concepts are implied in these values:
1. Concept of human potentials and capacities –
this is premised on the belief that a person is
inherently endowed with potentials and capacities.
2. Concept of social responsibility – an individual
has the obligation to contribute to common good and
society.
3. Concept of equal opportunities – this is premised
n the ideal of social justice, two elements of which
are fairness and equality.
 CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK
• The National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
stated that the mission of the social work profession is
rooted in a set of core values .
• These include: service, social justice, dignity and
worth of the person, importance of human
relationships, integrity, and competence. These core
values are reflected in the IFSW Code of Ethic’s
Preamble:
“Social work originates from humanitarian deals and
democratic philosophy and has a universal application to
meet human needs arising from personal-societal interactions
and to develop human potential. Professional social workers
are dedicated to service for the welfare and self-realization of
human beings; to the development of resources to meet
individual, group, national, international needs and
 PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK
• Social work is based on respect for the inherent
worth and dignity of all people and it is cultivated
by altruistic and democratic principles.
• Friedlander (1958) and Biestek (1957) indicate
seven (7) principles adhered by social workers
including the following:
1. Acceptance – this involves respecting the
clients as they are under any circumstances and
understands the meaning and causes of the client’s
behavior. The social worker manifests warmth,
interest, and concern about the client and her/his
situation. This also means recognizing the
individual or people’s strengths and potentials,
 PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK
2. Client’s participation in problem-solving – a client
is made to understand the he/she is expected to
participate in the entire process. This begins in the
gathering of information then in defining the nature of the
problem. The client also participates in planning ways in
resolving such problem, identify resources to solve this,
and eventually act on this through the help of different
available resources.
3. Self-determination – the idea behind this principle is
that the clients (individual, groups, or communities) who
are in need have the right to determine their needs and
how they should be met.
4. Individualization – this involves recognizing and
understanding the client’s own unique characteristics and
using different principles and methods for each client. This
 PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK
5. Confidentiality – this means that the client
should be accorded with appropriate protection,
within the limits of law, from any harm that might
result from the information s/he divulges to the
worker. The client should ne assured that what s/he
tells will be kept in confidence. Moreover,
confidentiality entails privacy. For instance, a social
worker finds an available vacant room to keep
conversations from being heard by others.
6. Worker self-awareness – this means that he
social worker is conscious about his/her role in
making use of his/her professional relationship with
the client in a way that will enhance the client’s
development rather than his/her own. The social
 PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK
7. Client-worker relationship – the purpose of client-
worker relationship is to help the client in some area of
his/her social functioning in which, at the present, s/he
is experiencing some difficulty, and where the worker is
in the position to offer help.
 PROFESSIONALS AND
PRACTITIONERS IN SOCIAL WORK
 Roles, functions, and competencies of
social workers
 Areas of specialization in which social
workers work
 Career opportunities of social workers
 Rights, responsibilities,
accountabilities, and Code of Ethics
 PROFESSIONALS AND PRACTITIONERS IN
SOCIAL WORK
• Social work as a profession focuses on the individual’s
social functioning.
• According to Mendoza (1999), social functioning is an
effect of an individual’s performance in his/her
multiple roles in society.
• A social dysfunction occurs when there is a mismatch
between the requisites of the role and the individual’s
ability to function and if the environment fails to
provide the necessary resources for the performance.
• It is in this situation where the role of social work
becomes relevant.
• Social work aims to enhance the individual’s social
functioning which I carried out by assisting in the
individual’s relationship with his/her environment, with
 PROFESSIONALS AND PRACTITIONERS IN
SOCIAL WORK
• De Guzman (1992) cited from the Social Work Law
(Republic Act 4373) said that the social worker is a
practitioner who by accepted standards of training and
social work professional experiences, possesses the skill
to achieve the objectives as defined and set by the
social work profession through the use of basic methods
of casework, group work, and community organization
• A social worker knows the techniques of social work
which are designed to enable individuals, groups, and
communities to meet their needs and solve their
problems of adjustment to changing patterns of society.
• To be able to practice, the social work graduate (after
finishing the Bachelor of Science in Social Work degree)
must pass the licensure examination annually given by
the Professional Regulation Commission(PRC), the
ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND COMPETENCIES OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
• Social work is an active profession with a wide array of
responsibilities in the areas of caring, curing, and
changing.
• Mendoza (2002) termed the roles of social workers as
interventive roles which refer to the combination of
tasks that are expected to be performed by the social
worker to accomplish the goals agreed upon with the
client.
• The interventive roles include resource broker,
social broker, mediator, advocate, enabler, and
counselor/therapist which are described below.
 RESOURCE BROKER – is about the direct provision of
material aid and other resources that will be helpful in
reducing situational deficiencies. These resources are
ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND COMPETENCIES OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
 SOCIAL BROKER – involves a process of negotiating
the “service jungle” for clients. The social worker links
the client to the needed services and ensures quickly
delivery of these services. This can also be associated
with “networking” which establishes and maintains
relationship with other community entities to gain
support and additional resources.
 MEDIATOR – includes acting as an intermediary or
conciliator between persons or in groups and the
social worker engages his/her efforts to resolve
disputes between the client and other parties. The
worker facilitates in meeting the halfway r finding the
common ground to make all possibilities to resolve
such dispute.
 ADVOCATE – involves taking a partisan interest in the
ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND COMPETENCIES OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
 ENABLER – is about activities that the social worker
engages in order to help the clients cope with the
current situation and eventually finds strengths ad
resources within themselves to solve problems they
encountered. This also involves the worker’s task of
performing a supportive and empowering function to
facilitate the clients’ accomplishment of a particular
goal or task.
 COUNSELOR/THERAPIST – this role intends to
restore, maintain, or enhance the client’s capacity to
adapt to his/her current reality. Such goal may be
achieved through provision of necessary services on
an individual or group basis to provide emotional
support to facilitate adjustment. This can be done
through purposive listening, reassurance, teaching,
ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND COMPETENCIES OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
• Further, there are also performed by social workers
beyond direct practice that do not entail face-to-face
interaction and helping relationship with clients. These
are:
1. MOBILIZER OF COMMUNITY ELITE - this involves
the worker in various activities with the goal of
informing and interpreting to certain or identified
sectors of the community, the different programs
and services including the needs and problems that
the clients are facing to gain their support,
commitment, and involvement in different
endeavors.
The “elite” is composed of individuals or groups who
are in a position to provide, in one way or another, the
resources needed by the worker in his/her work with
ROLES, FUNCTIONS, AND COMPETENCIES OF
SOCIAL WORKERS
• Further, there are also performed by social workers
beyond direct practice that do not entail face-to-face
interaction and helping relationship with clients. These
are:
2. DOCUMENTER/SOCIAL CRITIQUE – this involves the
worker documenting the need for sufficient policies and
programs based on his/her knowledge and actual
experiences about inadequacies in the existing policies
and programs including what needs to be done and what
needs to be enhanced, in the light of professional values
and goals.
3. POLICY/PROGRAM CHANGE ADVOCATE - this
involves the worker in efforts to change policies and
programs on behalf of a particular segment of the
population based on professional values and entails the
 THE FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL WORK
1. REHABILITATIVE FUNCTION – refers to restorative,
curative and remedial actions. Social workers are
responsible for assisting individuals and groups to
determine and settle or reduce the problem that came
out of the imbalance between the individuals and the
environment, this functions attempts to put back the
person to a balanced state of social functioning.
2. PREVENTIVE FUNCTION - detects impending
imbalance between the individuals or groups with the
environment. This function encompasses early
detection, control and eradication of situations which
may have a damaging effect on the social functioning.
3. DEVELOPMENTAL FUNCTION – ascertains and
strengthens the full potentials in individuals, groups,
and communities. This function seeks to help the
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
1. CHILD, FAMILY A ND SCHOOL SOCIAL WORKER –
deals with all sorts of situations such as helping a child
who has experienced trauma or abused; counseling
students at school whoa re experiencing grief over the
death of a friend; or helping parents find the right
resources for their child who is suffering from a severe
mental illness.
2. COMMUNITY SOCIAL WORKER – helps plan,
coordinate, and organize efforts related to
infrastructure, volunteering, and fundraising within
specific communities. Works with community-based
non-profit organizations to help heal neighborhoods in
the wake of tragedies and natural disasters.
3. HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE SOCIAL WORKER –
often help or care for someone who is seriously or
terminally ill. They help provide relief from pain;
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
4. MEDICAL AND HEALTH SOCIAL WORKER – works in
hospital settings and helps navigate the emotional, financial, and
physical struggles that a serious medical condition can cause an
individual or family. By connecting patients to resources and
helping them make important medical decisions, this type of
social worker proves invaluable on the medical scene.
5. MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE SOCIAL
WORKER – assists individuals who struggle with addiction,
substance abuse, or mental health problems. This type of social
worker provides short- and long- term solutions for victims and
their families.
6. MILITARY AND VETERANS SOCIAL WORK – help both the
soldiers and their families with post-traumatic stress, role
adjustments, the implications and stressors of returning home,
and any substance abuse that may occur as a result of combat.
7. PSYCHIATRIC SOCIAL WORKER – provides therapy and
assess the psychiatric health of their patients. They work with
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
• Specific areas of work that social workers perform in each
field:
1. CHILD WELFARE – is concerned with the well-being of the
children and youth through the provision of programs and
services for their physical, social, psychological, spiritual,
and cultural development. This is considered as one of the
popular area in social work practice.
 Adoption – is a legal process whereby a child who is deprived
of a birth family is provided with substitute new ties and
permanent parental care e.g. relative adoption, domestic/local
adoption and inter-country adoption.
 Legal guardianship – a process undertaken to provide
substitute parental care through the appointment of a legal
guardian for the child, including the child’s property, until
he/she reaches the age of majority.
 Foster care – a substitute temporary parental care provided
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
 Residential care – provides temporary 24-hour
residential group care to children whose needs cannot, at
the same time, be adequately met by their biological
parents and other alternative family care arrangements.
2. FAMILY WELFARE – is concerned with the improvement
and strengthening of the family in meeting its own needs.
Family welfare services refer to a program or composite of
interventions, activities, or measures focused on the
prevention or resolution of problems of role functioning, and
relationships that threaten the stability of the family as a
social unit.
3. HEALTH – is concerned with continuously defining and
solving problems aimed at facilitating and strengthening
social relationships and mutual adjustments between
individuals and their environment. However, it is focused on
the interplay of the economic, social, and psychological
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
4. CORRECTIONS – is the administration of penalty in such
a way that the offender I corrected, that is, his/her present
behavior is kept within acceptable limits at the same time
his general life adjustment is modified.
 Probation – a process of treatment, prescribed by the
court for person convicted of offenses against the law,
during which the individual on probation lives in the
community and regulates his/her own life under
conditions imposed by the court (or other constituted
authority) and is subjected to the supervision of a
probation officer.
 Parole – is the release of the prisoner under supervision
before the expiration of his/her sentence.
5. SCHOOLS – exists primarily to provide a helping service
to those students whose problems in such school stem from
social and emotional causes which interfere with their
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL
WORKERS
6. SPECIAL GROUPS
 Drug dependents – are persons, who, as a result of periodic or
continuous use of drugs (usually in the form of sedatives,
stimulants, and hallucinogens) have developed a physical and/or
psychological need for dependence on these drugs to the extent
that their denial produces adverse effects on themselves.
 Social disadvantaged women – include women who are
victims of gender-based violence (such as domestic violence/wife
beating, marital rape, incest rape and sexual harassment),
prostituted women, victims of armed conflicts and militarization,
and solo parents. Programs in this field are focused on
protection, prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation.
 Patients of psychiatric institutions – are patients released
from psychiatric institutions like the National Center for Mental
Health who may need assistance in their post-institutionalization
adjustment in the community.
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6. SPECIAL GROUPS
 Older persons – referred to as people between sixty and
above . Social services include assistance in relation to
economic dependency, health and medical problems
emotional needs and problems, social problems such as
family and community relationships, personal care,
recreational needs and living arrangements.
 Persons with disability – are those suffering from
restrictions of different disabilities as a result of a mental
and physical or sensory impairment, to perform an
activity in the manner or within the range considered
normal for a human being.
7. COMMUNITY WELFARE – encompasses a variety of
programs and services which have for their main goal the
well-being of entire communities. Social workers work with
individuals, families, and small groups with the main goal of
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8. CULTURAL COMMUNITIES – these communities are
affected to a certain degree because of the prejudice and
discrimination they are subjected to. Other problems they
face include poverty, health and disease, lack of
education, vulnerability to natural disasters, human rights
violations such as being victims of forced evacuation or
relocation due to militarization, lack of access to basic
social services, deculturalization, and psychological
traumas.
9. INDUSTRY AND LABOR – social welfare services in
the filed of industry are generally concerned in efforts to
establish or improve social security, health, and general
welfare of employees and their families.
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10. EDUCATION AND TRAINING – can be
considered a field of social work practice since it
involves the transfer of social work knowledge and
skills.
11. INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL WORK – the
international professional practice and the capacity
for international action b y the social work profession
and its members. International action has four
dimensions: internationally related domestic practice
and advocacy, profession exchange, international
practice, and international policy development and
advocacy.