The Broad Spectrum of Social Work

Introduction

Social work is a broad term and it deals with various facets of academic and applied world. The work form commoners and the work for society is not an easy job and needs interventions of various levels of society. A social worker is a service provider for the people in need belonging to different social, age and gender groups. They encompass a broad spectrum working and academic disciplines to solve various problems related to wellbeing, social justice, basic and fundamental right, empowerment, racism and liberation. They work as a part of multidisciplinary team of privet or government sectors. However, several problems are obstacles are there which prevent a smooth social work practice. Say for example the current situation of coronavirus pandemic when the work-flow of every social, economic and cultural has slowed down, has a huge impact on the social work. In this essay the scope and domain of social work will be discussed with an assessment of risks and problems.

Social justice: Social justice is a broad term and covers various disciplines of working class. The basic rights of human being is covered under this topic. British Association of Social Workers (BASW) have defined the scopes for social worker working for social justice and economic empowerments. (Wiels, 2017) Social justice exerts the laws of equality and parity of social facilities for every class of people with diversity in ethnic, language, cultural and economic background. They create a sustainable environment for the people needed service and the people who provide service. They get advice from the experts and convey it to the needful group, develop strategies to achieve the gaols and monitor the progress. (Thompson, 2016) Spolander et al, have discussed the social works’ role in social justice from perspective of macro-economics. They have argued that the social work at micro level may affect the macro level and should be addressed with more care. (Spolander, et al, 2016)

Vulnerable older adults and children: UK is in growing need for the complex care of older adults. The gerontological social work is therefore growing with time with problems related to mental health among the aged population. Richards et al, have done a survey to measure the adequacy of social service for older people in UK. (Richards, et al, 2014) The social workers provide complex support to the elderly people in a community care basis and for this they develop specialised skills for emergency care. Critical analysis of the risk, crisis management and reflective behaviour for safeguarding older adults are frequently solicited by them. (Milne, et al, 2014)

Duties of social workers in safeguarding children and/or younger adults are important in the scenario of growing population. They constantly find strategies to combat child abuse, neglect, endangerment of the children, psychological problems in adolescence through a channelize way of community, friendship circle, school and college. Rogowski have discussed the scope of social work for children under the scenario of neo-liberalism (Rogowski, 2012).

Alcohol and drug abuse: The problem of alcohol and drug abuse has been a serious problem for the society and duty of a legitimate social worker is seeking every possible remedy of this topic by active engagement. They frequently interact with the people with abusive behaviour and motivate them to quit. Even after change in abusive pattern they need constant support from the social workers (Galvani, 2015).

Mental health: Social workers working for mental health help people with constant support of therapy from health sector, mental counselling from the professional and at the same time they monitor the psychological wellbeing of the social groups. McGorry et al, have discussed about the less accessibility of youth mental health intervention and the future need of social work in this context (McGorry, et al, 2013).

Social work at disaster management: It is worth to mention here the social workers take the frontline responsibility in disaster management. In an organised way they steadily approaches the problem and supply the needful commodities to the endangered persons. Perron et al, have discussed the role of social workers in disaster management through e-communication technologies (Perron, et al, 2010). In the current situation of COVID-19 in UK the social workers have taken a very pragmatic role by providing constant allied support to the local health authorities, care providers, leading agencies and by providing care delivery services. (BASW, 2020)

So far we have discussed about the important social crises that need intervention of social workers. Obviously this list in not a complete description, many other social, cultural and ethnic sectors need social workers’ intervention. People with physical disabilities from all kind of age group, young offenders, school dropouts, homeless and many others. However, they face several complex problems and obstacle during their day to day practice such as:

Social work needs huge economic involvement and the flow of money is necessary. Any problem related to funding can stop social interventions to a considerable extent. (Banks, 2012)

Policy and bureaucratic problems have long standing effect on social works. These can hamper decision making and management skills of social workers. (Evans, 2010)

During the work for vulnerable adults and children it is necessary to take help from the associated teachers, caregivers or family persons. Therefore it is necessary to work in a concerted manner which is not always easy. Moreover, emotional factors can play negative a role.

Working hours of a social worker is not fixed and flexibility is required which can be a problematic factor in maintaining a good work-life balance.

The workload of paper works is a laborious job the social worker and can hamper the workflow of the person involved.

Effects of COVID-19 on social work: Outbreak of coronavirus is hindering the mobility of society and economy in every way. The personal and social life of people has largely hampered. The outbreak of contagious disease has made the life of social workers thousand time more difficult than usual condition. The meetings and official works and meetings are mostly going on virtually and the regular notice from government is needed to be followed by every social worker. BASW have declared new guidelines for the social workers in this situation related to “end of life” process (BASW, 2020). For aged persons the co-morbid factors has increased a lot which has increased the workload of the social workers related to the old age care homes. At the same time the problems related to self-neglect has also increases which is another alarming aspect. (Golightly, 2020; Mason, 2020; Milne, 2020)

References

Banks, S., 2012. Ethics and values in social work. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Evans, T., 2010. Professionals, managers and discretion: Critiquing street-level bureaucracy. The British Journal of Social Work, 41(2), pp.368-386.

Galvani, S.A., 2015. Alcohol and other drug use: The roles and capabilities of social workers.

Golightley, Malcolm, and Margaret Holloway. "Social Work in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic: All in This Together?." (2020): 637-641.

Mason, K. and Evans, T., 2020. Social Work, Inter-Disciplinary Cooperation and Self-Neglect: Exploring Logics of Appropriateness. The British Journal of Social Work, 50(3), pp.664-681.

McGorry, P., Bates, T. and Birchwood, M., 2013. Designing youth mental health services for the 21st century: examples from Australia, Ireland and the UK. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(s54), pp.s30-s35.

Milne, A., Sullivan, M.P., Tanner, D., Richards, S., Ray, M., Lloyd, L., Beech, C. and Phillips, J., 2014. Social work with older people: a vision for the future. London, The College of Social Work.

Perron, B.E., Taylor, H.O., Glass, J.E. and Margerum-Leys, J., 2010. Information and communication technologies in social work. Advances in social work, 11(2), p.67.

Richards, S., Sullivan, M.P., Tanner, D., Beech, C., Milne, A., Ray, M., Phillips, J. and Lloyd, L., 2014. On the edge of a new frontier: Is gerontological social work in the UK ready to meet twenty-first-century challenges?. The British Journal of Social Work, 44(8), pp.2307-2324.

Rogowski, S., 2012. Social work with children and families: Challenges and possibilities in the neo-liberal world. British Journal of Social Work, 42(5), pp.921-940.

Spolander, G., Engelbrecht, L. and Pullen Sansfaçon, A., 2016. Social work and macro-economic neoliberalism: Beyond the social justice rhetoric. European Journal of Social Work, 19(5), pp.634-649.

Thompson, N., 2016. Anti-discriminatory practice: Equality, diversity and social justice. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Wiles, F., 2017. Developing social work students’ professional identity: the role of England’s Professional Capabilities Framework. European Journal of Social Work, 20(3), pp.349-360.