BSSW1001
The Social Work Profession
Social Work
• A profession that is practice independently or a part of a team in many different fields.
✓ Health (medical psychiatric social worker);
✓ Education (school social worker);
✓ Labor and industry (industrial social worker);
✓ Corrections (court social worker or probation social worker); and
✓ Community development (community organizer)
Social Workers intervene in countless problematic situations people find themselves in today:
Poverty-stricken heads of Slums dwellers seeking Victims of armed conflict and
families who hardly provide for assistance to be able to adjust other refugees with no
their families’ basic needs in settlement areas resources to start new
Rural residents who are
Women and children who are A former dissidents
suffering from lack of certain
victims of sexual abuse and
basic amenities like water
other forms of violence Released prisoner
supply
Discharged mental patients
Drug abuser desperately Victims of natural disaster who
who all need to be reintegrated
needing rehabilitation need to rebuild their lives
to the community
• All of these concern the social worker.
• What then, does the SOCIAL WORKER do?
• “Social Work seeks to enhance social functioning of individuals, singularly and in groups,
by activities focused upon their social relationship which constitute interaction between
individual and their environment.” Werner Boehm (1958)
• “The general assignment for the social worker profession is to mediate the process
through which individual and society reach out to each other through a mutual need for
self-fulfillment.” William Schwartz (1961)
• “The central focus of social work traditionally seems to have been on the person-in-his-
life-situation complex- a simultaneous dual focus on man and his environment”. William
Gordon (1969)
• “Social functioning is the relation between the coping activity of people and the demand
form the environment”. Harriet Bartlett (1970)
The Functions of Social Work
a. Restorative/ Curative/Remedial/ Rehabilitative Functions
• The Curative aspects seek to remove factors which have caused the breakdown in the
person’s social functioning.
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BSSW1001
• Rehabilitative aspect tries to put back the person to normal or healthy state of social
functioning.
b. Preventive Functions
• Identifying potential areas of disequilibrium between individuals or groups and the
environment in order to prevent the occurrence of disequilibrium.
• It involves the early discovery, control and elimination of those condition or situation
which may have a harmful effect on social functioning.
c. Developmental Functions
• To seek out, identify and strengthen the maximum potential in individuals, groups and
communities.
• The aim is both to help individual make maximum use of his own potential and
capacities as well as to further the effectiveness of available social or community
resources
Is Social Work a Profession?
• Republic Act 4373 (R.A 5175 as amended)
• An act to regulate the practice of social work and operation of social work agencies in
the Philippines and for other purposes- gave social work formal recognition as a
profession.
5 Social Work Attributes
by: Ernest Greenwood
1. Systematic Body of Theory
• These skills that characterize a profession flow from and are supported by a fund of
knowledge that has been organized into an internally consistent called a body of theory.
Theory serves as a base in terms of which the professional rationalizes his operation in
concrete situations.
3 TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE
• Tested Knowledge
o Knowledge that has been established through scientific study. (research)
• Hypothetical Knowledge
o Still has to undergo transformation into tested knowledge.
• Assumptive Knowledge
o Or “practice wisdom” of course, abound in social work.
2. Professional Authority
• Extensive education in the systematic theory of her discipline provides the
professional with a type of knowledge which the layman does not have.
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BSSW1001
• This authority ascribed to the professional by reason of her educational background
gives client a sense of security that the professional has the capacity to help him
with his problem.
3. Community Sanction
• A profession’s authority by way of giving it certain powers and privileges.
• Among these powers and privileges are the profession’s control over its:
a) Training centers;
b) Admission into the profession; and
c) Standards for professional performance
4. Regulative Code of Ethics
• Every profession has a built-in regulative code, partly formal and partly informal, which
compels ethical behavior on the part of its members.
• This code serves to check possible abuses which can arise out of a profession’s exercise
of authority and its accompanying powers and privileges.
5. Professional Culture
• Formal and informal groupings characterize all occupations, including the profession.
For social work, the network of formal and informal groups within which it operates
includes the organizations that benefit from a profession’s services (schools, courts,
social agency, hospitals, etc.).
References:
• Guzman, L. S.-d. (1990). Introduction to Social Work. Quezon City: New Day Publisher.
• Mendoza, T. L. (2008). Social Welfare and Social Work. Quezon City: Central Book Supply
Incorporated.
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