Lesson 6:

Professionals and Practitioners of Social Work

Part I. Learning Module Information

Content professionals and practitioners in social work

Standards
demonstrate a high level of understanding of the basic concepts of social
work through a group presentation of a situation in which practitioners of
Performance
social work collaborate to assist individuals, groups, or communities
Standards
involved in difficult situations (e.g., post disaster, court hearing about
separation of celebrity couple, cyber bullying)
Most Essential
Learning 1.identify the goals and scope of social work
Competencies 2. explain the principles and core values of social work
(MELC)
Duration Q1 Week 5

Part II. Learning Explorations

Social work as a professor focuses on the individual’s social functioning. According to Mendoza
(1999), a social functioning is an effect of an individual’s performance in her/his multiple roles in
the society. A social worker knows the techniques of social work which are designed to enable
individuals, group and communities to meet their needs and solve their problems of adjustment
to changing patterns of society. To be able to practice, the social worker graduate must pass the
licensure examination annually given by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), the
government’s overall regulating body for the professions (De Guzman, 1992, p3)

ROLES, FUNCTIONS AND COMPETENCIES OF SOCIAL WORKERS

Role Description
Resource broker This role is about the direct provision of material aid and other resources
that will be helpful in reducing situation deficiencies. These resources are
mobilized and created or directly provided to client being assisted.
Social broker This role involves a process of negotiating the “service jungle” for clients.
The social worker links the client to the needed services and ensure quick
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 This role includes acting as an intermediary or conciliator between persons
or in groups and the social workers engages her/his efforts to resolve
disputes between the client and other parties. The worker facilitates in
meeting halfway or finding a common ground to make all possibilities to
resolve such dispute.
Advocate This role involves taking a partisan interest in the client and her/his cause
and aims to influence another party in the interest of the client through
arguing, bargaining, negotiating and manipulating the environment on
behalf of the client.
Enabler This role is about activities that the social worker engages in order to help
the clients cope with the current situation and eventually find strengths
and 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 client’s accomplishment of a
particular goal or task.
Counselor/Therapist This role intends to restore, maintain or enhance the client’s capacity to
adapt her/his current reality. Such goals 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, guidance, logical discussions
among others.

THE FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL WORK

To further enlighten our understanding of social work, it is necessary to identify and define its functions.
According to Mendoza (2002), the Commission on Practice of the US National Association of Social
Workers in 1958 came up with a statement containing the three functions of social work namely:

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.

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 potential in individuals,

groups and communities. This function seeks to help the individual make full use of
her/his potentials and capacities and to enhance the effectiveness of available social or
community resources.
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF SOCIAL WORK

Descriptions of the social work specialties includes the following:

Specific Work Area Area

Child, Family and School Deals with all sorts of situations such as helping a child who has
Social Worker experienced trauma or abuse – counseling students and school who are
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.
Community Social Worker Helps plan, coordinate and organize efforts related to infrastructure,
volunteering, and fundraising within specific communities. Works with
community-based nonprofit organization to help heal neighborhoods in
the wake of tragedies and natural disaster.
Hospice and Palliative Care Hospice and Palliative care social workers often help or care for someone
Social Worker who is seriously or terminally ill. They help provide relief from pain;
improve quality of life; assist with difficult decision-making; help family
and friends of an ill individual and in some cases, assist with trauma, grief
and loss.
Medical and Health Social Works in hospital settings and helps navigate the emotional, financial and
Worker 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 workers proves invaluable
on the medical scene.
Mental Health and Assist individual who struggle with addiction, substance abuse, or medical
Substance Abuse Social health problems. This type of social worker provides short-and-long term
Worker solution for victims and their families.
Military and Veterans Helps both the soldiers and their families with post-traumatic stress, role
Social Work adjustments, the implications and stressors of returning homes, and any
substance abuse that may occur as a result of combat.
Psychiatric Social Worker Provides therapy and assess the psychiatric health of their patients. They
work with the individual’s family to understand legal procedures, long-
term care options, and make referrals or provide resources.

Morever, to further broaden your understanding on the functions of the social workers, Mendoza (2002)
identified the specific areas of the work that they perform in each field. These are presented in the table
below:

Specific Work Area Area

Child Welfare Is concerned with the well-being of children and youth through the provision of
programs and services for their physical, social, psychological, spiritual and
cultural development.
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.
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,
domestic/local adoption and inter-country adoption.
Foster Care A substitute temporary parental acre provided to a child by a licensed foster
family under the supervision of a social worker.
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.
Family Welfare Is concerned with the improvement and strengthening of the family in meeting
its own needs. Family welfare services refers to a program or composite of
interventions or measures focused on the preventions of problems of role
functioning and relationships that threaten the stability of the family as a social
unit.
Health Is concerned with continuously defining and solving problems aimed at
facilitating and strengthening social relationships and mutual adjustments
between individuals and their environment.
Corrections Is the administration of penalty in such a way that the offender is corrected, that
is, her/his present behavior is kept within acceptable limits at the same time his
general life adjustments is modified.
Probation A process of treatment, prescribed by the court for persons convicted of offenses
against the law, during which the individual on probation lives in the community
and regulates her/his own life under conditions imposed by the court and is
subjected to the supervision of a probation officer.
Parole Is the release of a prisoner under supervision before the expiration of her/his
sentence.
Special Groups
Drug Dependents Are persons who as a result of periodic or continuous use of drugs have
developed a physical and psychological need for/dependence on these drugs to
extent that their denial produces adverse effects on themselves.
Social Include women who are victims of gender-based violence (rape, incest, etc.),
Disadvantaged prostituted women and solo parents. Programs in this field are focused on
Women protection, prevention , treatment and rehabilitation.
Older Persons Referred to as people between sixty and above. Social services include assistance
in relation to economic dependency, health and medical problems.
Person with Are those suffering restrictions of different disabilities as a result of mental and
Disability physical or sensory impairment to perform an activity in the manner or within
the range considered normal for a human being.

What did you learn?

1. What are the roles of a social worker?

2. What are the different career opportunities if you take social work course?

Part III. Assessment Task

Encircle the correct answer.

1. A social worker is a _________ 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.
a. practitioner c. personnel
b. person d. key actor
 2. To be able to practice social work, the social worker must:
a. Enroll social work in any university
b. Finish both Bachelor of Science in Social Work and Masteral degree program
in Social Work
c. Pass the licensure examination annually given by the PRC
d. Have an intensive training certified by the DSWD
3. A legal process whereby a child who is deprived of a birth family is provided with
substitute new ties and permanent parental care.
a. Residential care c. Adoption
b. Parole d. Foster Care

4. Refers to the restorative, curative and remedial actions. This functions attempts to put
back the person to a balanced state of social functioning.
a. preventive function c. developmental function
b. rehabilitative d. none of the above

5. They are those who as a result of periodic or continuous use of drugs have developed a
physical and psychological need for/dependence on these drugs to extent that their
denial produces adverse effects on themselves.
a. drug courier c. drug dependents
b. drug abuser d. none of the above

True or False: Write T if the statement below is true, and F when it is false.

_____1. Social workers’ associations, both local and international, have formulated their own
ethical standards which usually define the rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities of
members.

_____2. The social worker’s role as an advocate involves networking enabling, bargaining and
manipulating the environment on behalf of the client.

_____3. Parole is the administration of penalty I such a way that offender is corrected, that is,
her/his present behavior is kept within acceptable limits at the same time his general life
adjustment is modified.

_____4. The following are social worker’s roles in direct service: social broker, enabler therapist,
documenter of community elite.

_____5. Interventive roles refers to the combination of tasks that is expected to be performed by
the social worker to accomplish the goals agreed upon with the client.

_____6. Foster care, adoption, and probation are forms of services categorized under child
welfare.

_____7. Primary settings in social work practice include the schools, hospitals, correctional
facilities, government planning and political offices.

_____8. The elite is composed of individual or groups who are in a position to provide the
resources by the worker in her/his work with the clients.