Social worker job has become demanded, and its popularity keeps growing all around the world. Up to the present moment, the corresponding specialists provide essential assistance to many different people. During their working process, the employees deal mainly with various kinds of unprotected categories of citizens. For example, most often, they support refugees, pensioners, and orphans. The main direction is assistance in receiving social, legal, and material support.
General Job Description for Social Workers
Modern social educators and contemporary social workers are considered to be the specialists, who are involved in the essential process of required prevention, necessary resolution, and immediate solution of the appeared social problems. These people, both men, and women, usually give some useful recommendations and pieces of advice. They also support individuals, as well as the whole families, or even groups of people who are in stressful situations .
Up to the present moment, most of them are represented by women, not by men. All of them can work in various places and spheres. The most typical destinations are, for example, boarding schools for adolescents, orphanages, nursing homes, departments for youth affairs or family counseling, and centers for people suffering from drug and other forms of dependence, or in self-help groups.
How to Be a Social Worker: Advantages and Disadvantages
Investigating a list of careers in social work, modern people often think about pluses and minuses of the chosen destination. There are a lot of them, and following the experts’ points of view, every point should be thought carefully.
The List of Advantages:
- The social importance of the occupation. In practice, the experts of this destination perform vital and challenging work daily. They do their best to improve the lives of many people around;
- Employment on an official basis and an amount of available vacancies is usually substantial;
- Masters in social work are usually in demand. They are required all around the country;
- For some spheres, you do not even need to be a bachelor of social work. Under this condition social work degrees are not so important;
- Available training and constant development.
- A significant amount of places in local colleges as well as state universities all around the country. As a rule, the students are free to get a social worker degree online.
Main Disadvantages:
- Social worker salary is not always high;
- The necessity to contact quite different existing segments of the population. Unfortunately, sometimes the representatives are not very friendly;
- Working with sick and addicted people;
- A huge amount of work;
- Irregular working schedule.
Clinical Social Worker: Profession Features
Among the essential requirements to be a social worker is an absolute love of people. This is the first thing that is tacitly put forward by modern specialists. The duties of such an employee include the following list of required works:
- analysis of the place, the choice of people in need of social assistance and protection (temporarily or permanently);
- work with complaints and appeals of the population, verification of information, decision-making on each application;
- the provision of all types of social services, informing citizens about their rights and obligations;
- assistance in obtaining legal and other kinds of advice;
- home delivery of food, drinking water, medicines, and other goods. A social worker can monitor the order in the house of people to whom food is got, cook or heat, deliver ready-made food from relatives or individual dining rooms, and pay bills;
- assistance in processing applications for social assistance, preferential vouchers, services;
- communication with socially vulnerable citizens and their relatives;
- the provision of additional services: first aid, psychological support, and others;
- maintaining the required accounting and reporting documentation.
Following a list of the social worker requirements, a social worker should have minimal knowledge of medicine, be an excellent psychologist, because this work combines the main features of these professions. The segment has a high staff turnover, so employees are always needed. As a rule, the specialist interacts with representatives of the rule of law, volunteer organizations, various groups of teachers, and doctors.
Important Personal Qualities for a Social Worker
The only question that bothers many potential specialists sounds like “How long does it take to become a social worker?” It is quite easy to answer it, as the only thing we have to do is to look through the educational schedule in the local college or state university. However, not everything is as visible as it may seem at first sight. To become a real specialist in this sphere, a person should have a whole list of essential personal qualities.
Emotional stability and calm are two of the essential qualities that must necessarily be present in the character of an excellent social worker. This specialist should have a pleasant speech, inspiring trust, and sharing respect. Moreover, he or she should be able to listen to and understand people.
Other essential qualities are philanthropy, tolerance, resourcefulness, self-control, propensities to work in a team, a heightened sense of justice, parity, and passion for social processes. At the same time, in the character of a specialist, there is no place for pride, greed, and disgust.
Typical Clients of Social Workers
Following the specialists’ points of view, it should be mentioned that this profession is very ancient. Several hundred years ago, such specialists were called philanthropists or missionaries. Part of the social responsibilities was assigned to the monks and nuns who provided shelter, food, and a minimum level of education for poor people.
However, today, everything has changed, and this work is carried out by authorized representatives of social services, which are attached to each person or family in need of state assistance and support. Mostly the specialist deals with the following groups of citizens:
- senior citizens and people with disabilities;
- children and adolescents suffering from congenital and acquired diseases, domestic violence and other problems, women who are victims of any abuse, large families and others (a sphere of child and family social worker);
- addicted citizens;
- people who have lost their homes, injured, lost loved ones during a disaster;
In the modern world the profession of the social worker is considered to be very demanded and popular. These specialists have direct contact with the population. Their most typical tasks are checking the conditions in which the children are kept and how the funds given by the state for the newborn are distributed. However, they also carry products to sick people and pensioners. Moreover, social workers provide emotional support to citizens suffering from addictions (alcohol, drugs, games, and others).
Finally, it should be mentioned that this work is difficult and dangerous: a specialist never knows what awaits him or her behind the closed door of a particular apartment. Unfortunately, modern social workers do not receive too high salaries. Despite of this fact, the direction is considered to be rewarding, as many people need psychological assistance in different corners of the planet. Social workers are to help them and make their lives easier.
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