CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK

The core values of Social Work serve to provide

consistency in the fulfillment of the social welfare
delivery and in the general promotion of well-being and
quality of life of all people.

“The core values in the pursuit of social work include

compassion, service, social justice, dignity, and worth of
the person, importance of human relationships, integrity,
and competence.”
(Du Bois & Miley 2008;Segal,Gerdes, & Steiner 2005)
CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL
WORK
Aluran, Christine
Cababaro, Lysa
 Compassion – can be considered as an important value of all
humankind but in social work, it occupies a special impetus to the
functioning of the profession.
 Service – as a value, directs social worker to go beyond purely
performing a service for a pay and allow them to be generous with
their time. Their work borders on charity and professional service.
Without a cspecial interest in pure service, much of the social work
could not be property accomplished.
 Social Justice – as a value for social workers, is a basis of their
understanding of the need to ensure that everyone get serviced and
that everyone get a share of what the community possesses in
material and non-material assets.
 Dignity and Worth of the Person - is a value that provides the
determination and drive for social workers to seek the marginalized
in all forms without much regard as to whether such problem is self-
inflicted or socially imposed.
 Importance of Human Relationships – as a value, make it possible
for social workers to do their job as most human situations they seek
to address require collaborating with so many others professionals
and individuals with a strake in the issue.
 Integrity– is necessary in all human endeavors. In Social Work,
nothing can be accomplished without integrity.
 A social worker will have difficulties to be accepted by the people
to receive services and by those he/she needs to collaborate with to
facilitate problem solving and empowerment of an individual or a
group.
 Competence- is a very important value for social work because it
separates social caregiving from social work professional practice.
Through special training, a social worker becomes separated from
all common sense, culture, and religious-based care.