Employed by a public or private agency, the social worker does this by individual casework, group work, or else through community organizations.
Social work is primarily a development of this century, and its indispensable function is considered to be public interest jobs. Although persons in fortunate circumstances have always felt that it was necessary to come to the aid of those who were unfortunate, they thought of their aid as being charity or philanthropy. Help for the poor has often been provided by various churches, but usually the help was on an emergency basis and temporary in nature. There seldom was any attempt to follow up with persons who had been helped, and rehabilitation was not considered the central part of the process. It has been said that charity has often given more to ease the consciences of the rich than to help the conditions of the poor. Furthermore, the opening of the Hull House in 1889 is usually marked as the beginning of formal social work. Jane Addams, the daughter of a banker, devoted her life to helping underprivileged persons and encouraged them to help themselves to gain a more satisfying existence. Her work and her philosophy inspired others to try similar programs. It was not until after World War I, however, that social work began to be recognized as a true occupation. Work War II and its aftermath, when thousands of persons had to be assisted to adjust to changed conditions of life, provided the impetus for growth in social work.
Social work is divided into three major categories: casework, group work, and community organization work, like community organizer jobs. Social workers often are employed by agencies that specialize in one of the three approaches to community problems. Casework is primarily concerned with face-to-face contacts between the caseworker and an individual or a family. It may involve conferences in the caseworkers’ office, home visits, work with individual patients in a hospital setting, or work with children who need assistance, either in schools, institutions, or homes. Any case may entail all of these procedures or any one of them.
Meanwhile, part of the public interest career of group workers is that they may be involved in either rehabilitation or recreation or a combination of both. They may be employed in community centers or settlement houses as well. Youth organizations, institutions for children or the aged, hospitals, penal facilities, or housing projects are also places that public interest workers are found. Group workers may work with groups of children with social adjustment problems in an effort to divert their interest to wholesome activities. They may work with old people, with groups who face similar handicaps, for instance, diabetic children, or groups with similar economic and cultural problems, like migrant workers. Further, the community organization worker attempts to analyze the problems of the whole community and to discover ways in which to meet them. Problems inherent in juvenile delinquency, for instance, may require total community cooperation for a solution. Delinquency prevention social workers try to mobilize the efforts of all agencies to focus on the complex aspects of such a problem.
In addition to the workers in the different types of social work, there are some who are in teaching positions in one of the nearly one hundred recognized and accredited graduate schools of social work. There are also a few social workers who devote themselves to research either exclusively or to a large extent. Further, caseworkers are employed in many different kinds of activities, but the basic pattern of working with distressed individuals or families characterizes most of their effort. Caseworkers are employed to assist many other kinds of professional occupations, such as the teaching and medical profession, the courts, the penal institutions, and many others. Meanwhile, child welfare caseworkers monitor the problems of children, visiting their homes and working with their parents and teachers. If necessary, the child welfare caseworker places children in adoptive or foster homes. These caseworkers may work with other agencies in the community, either taking or referring a child to them for further help. They also work with the courts, particularly the juvenile courts, in an attempt to help children and parents work out a satisfactory pattern of relationships and behavior. Likewise, the school social workers’ public interest job provides aid, as well as consulting with students, teachers, and parents. Their basic function is to provide a bridge of communication between the school and the home, and to help each exert the maximum effort to aid the child. The may work with a child who is habitually truant or who exhibits other kinds of problem behavior.
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