AREAS OF

SPECIALIZATION
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
OF SOCIAL WORKERS
Erick (2014) pointed out that social
work has social work specialties
namely;
 Areas of
Specialization of
Social Work

✓Child, family and school social worker

✓Community social worker
✓Hospice and palliative social worker
✓Medical health social worker, and
✓Substance abuse social worker,
✓Military and veteran social worker, and
✓Psychiatric social worker
 What is the importance of having work
specialization?
❖A benefit of job specialization is that it
reduces your risk of making mistakes.
When you are highly specialized in a
certain job function, you have mastery
of tasks within that function.
 1. CHILD, FAMILY, AND SCHOOL
SOCIAL WORKER
• Deals with all sorts of situations such as
helping a child who experienced trauma or
abuse, counseling students at school who are
experiencing grief over the death of a friend,
or helping parents find the right resources for
a child who suffers from severe mental illness.
• Provide social services and
assistance to improve the
social and psychological
functioning of children and
their families and to
maximize the family well-
being and the academic
functioning of children.
2. COMMUNITY SOCIAL WORKER

• Helps plan, coordinate, and organize efforts

related to infrastructure, volunteering, and
fundraising within specific communities.
• Works with community-based nonprofit
organizations to help neighborhoods in the
wake of tragedies and natural disasters.
• Community social workers lead
the charge when problems
occur involving community
members. They work with
existing organizations or groups
of concerned citizens to solve
problems such as addressing
inadequate living conditions or
helping to fight the placement
of a toxic landfill.
 3. HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE
CARE SOCIAL WORKER
• Help or care for someone who is seriously or
terminally ill.
• They help provide relief from pain, improve the
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.
• is a type of health care that
focuses on the palliation of a
terminally ill patient's pain and
symptoms and attending to
their emotional and spiritual
needs at the end of life.
Hospice care prioritizes comfort
and quality of life by reducing HOSPICE CARE
pain and suffering.
4. MEDICAL AND HEALTH SOCIAL
WORKER
• Works in hospital settings and helps navigate the
emotional, financial, and 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
worker proves invaluable on the medical scene.
• They help patients understand their
diagnosis and how it may impact their
lives.
• They help connect patients with
resources and programs that can assist
them in adjusting to their new lifestyle.
• They may aid in making housing
arrangements or selecting healthcare
providers.
5. MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE
ABUSE SOCIAL WORKER

• Assists individuals who struggle

with addiction, substance abuse, or
mental health problems.
• This type of social worker provides
short and long-term solutions for
victims and their families.
6. MILITARY AND VETERANS SOCIAL
WORK

• Helps both soldiers and their families

with post-traumatic stress, role
adjustments, the implications and
stressors of returning home, and any
substance abuse that may occur as a
result of combat.
7. PSYCHIATRIC SOCIAL WORKER

• is a specialized type of medical

social work that involves
supporting, providing therapy to,
and coordinating the care of
people who are severely
mentally ill and who require
hospitalization or other types of
intensive psychiatric help.
• Psychiatric Social Work is
provides therapy and
assess the psychiatric
health of their patients.
They work with individual's
family to understand legal
procedures, long term care
options and make referrals
or provide resources.
• Mendoza (2002) identified the specific areas of
work that they perform in each field.
CHILD WELFARE SPECIAL GROUPS
-Adoption CORRECTIONS
-Probation -Drug Dependents
-Legal Guardianship -Social Disadvantage
-Foster Care -Parole
woman
-Residential Care -Patients of Psychiatric
Institutions
SCHOOLS -Persons with disability
FAMILY WELFARE
COMMUNITY CULTURAL
WELFARE COMMUNITIES
HEALTH
INDUSTRY AND
LABOR
RESPONSIBILITIES,
ACCOUNTABILITIES
AND CODE OF
ETHICS
 ETHICAL STANDARDS
• Usually define the rights, responsibilities, and
accountabilities of a certain profession.
• Refer to the principles that promote trust,
good behavior, fairness, and governing the
conduct of a person.
• Ethics is what guides us, to tell the truth, keep
our promises, or help someone in need.
ETHICAL STANDARDS
RESPONSIBILITIES TO RESPONSIBILITIES AS
CLIENTS PROFESSIONALS

RESPONSIBILITIES TO RESPONSIBILITIES TO
COLLEAGUES SOCIAL WORK PROFESSION

RESPONSIBILITIES IN RESPONSIBILITIES TO
PRACTICE SETTING BROADER SOCIETY
 CLIENTELE, AND
AUDIENCES OF SOCIAL
WORK
 CHARACTERISTICS AND NEEDS OF VARIOUS
TYPES OF CLIENTELE

Social work profession is concerned

with helping individuals, families,
groups, and communities to enhance
their individual and collective well-
being.
 CLIENTELE AND AUDIENCES
OF SOCIAL WORK

WORKING WORKING WITH WORKING

WITH GROUPS AND WITH
INDIVIDUALS ORGANIZATIONS COMMUNITIES
 WORKING WITH
INDIVIDUALS

✓ In casework, the individual is the principal client, and

efforts of helping are focused on him or her.
✓ The person's inability to manage stress which may
have been a result of a distressful situation or
problem caused her/him or those concerned with
her/him to seek professional help.
✓ The social worker then needs to acquire basic
knowledge of human behavior, stress, and the
human being's response to it in order for her/him to
understand the situation of the client and eventually
help the latter.
 WORKING WITH
INDIVIDUALS

✓ In the casework process, the aim of the intervention

is to facilitate the individual's social adaptation, to
restore, reshape, or reinforce her/his functioning as
a social being.
CASE WORK
❖It is a method employed by social workers to help
individuals find solutions to problems of social
adjustments that they are unable to handle in a
satisfactory way through their own efforts.
 WORKING WITH GROUPS
AND ORGANIZATIONS

✓In the Social group work as a process

and method is rooted in the sociological
concept that a person is a social being
who has the inclination and need to
associate with other human beings.
✓Group can be utilized as a target for
change, as a medium for change, and as
an agent for change.
TARGET FOR CHANGE
MEDIUM FOR CHANGE
▪ Members in a group are clients
of an agency who have common ▪ The group is used to
problems, needs, and concerns facilitate the growth and
that match the agency's or development needs of some
work's group service orientation. members of the group as
the need for self-expression,
communication, relationship,
AGENT OF CHANGE
developing self-confidence,
and modifying negative
▪ The group is used to effect the
attitudes, behavior, and
desired change needed outside
values.
the group.
 THE PURPOSE OF SOCIAL
GROUP WORK:

✓ To enhance the social adjustment of the individual

and develop social consciousness.
✓ To provide opportunities for planned group
experiences that are needed by all people.
✓ To provide experiences that are relaxing and that
gives individuals a chance to create, share and
express themselves and,
✓ To help individuals in groups to take responsibility
for their own behavior, relate with others and how
to become participating members of society.
 WORKING WITH
COMMUNITIES

Community - it is a group of people gathered

together in a geographical area, large or small, who
have common interests, actual or potentially
recognized in the social welfare field.

TWO CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITY:

1. Geographic Community - refers to the people in a
specific geographic area like the village, barangay,
sitio, district, municipality, city, province, region,
nation, or the world.
 WORKING WITH
COMMUNITIES

TWO CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITY:

2. Functional Community - is composed of
people who told common values, share some
common functions, or express some common
interest such as education, health, livelihood,
labor, welfare, or recreation. Examples of this
concept are the community chest, the
professional community, the fisherfolk
community, the banking community, etc.
 WORKING WITH
COMMUNITIES

✓ A process in which a community identifies its needs or

objectives, ranks them, finds them, finds the internal or
external resources to deal with them, take action, and
extends and develops cooperative and collaborative
attitudes, and practices in the community.
✓ The philosophy of community organization is the
acceptance of the right of the community to decide what it
wants rather than having the organizers' views imposed
upon it, belief in the capacity of the people to find richer and
more satisfying ways of living if they are helped to use
resources within themselves and their environment which
are and could be made available for them.
SOCIAL WORK SETTINGS,
PROCESSES, AND
SERVICES
 SOCIAL WORK
SETTINGS

❖Social work is performed and exercised in

different settings, including but not limited to
government departments, such as mental
health hospitals, social welfare units,
institutions for the aged, disabled, youth and
correctional, private institutions such as
family and marriage, offenders outside of
prison, early childhood development, and
social work in corporate and educational
institutions (SACSSP, 2016).
 TWO TYPES OF SOCIAL WORK SETTINGS

PRIMARY SETTING - are those whose programs and services direct

purview of social work.
Examples: Christian Children Fund, Save the Children, Hospicio de San
Jose, Department of Social Welfare and Development and among others.

SECONDARY SETTING - are agencies, institutions, or organizations

whose primary function is not to provide social welfare services but
employs social workers to support/strengthen/ complement their own
services.
Examples: Hospitals, Family Courts, Nutrition Center, Schools,
Corporations, etc.
 SOCIAL WORK
SETTINGS

GOVERNMENT
• Basically, social worker involves research, technology, development,
policy analysis and development, planning, standards development,
capacity building, program management including crisis intervention and
disaster relief operation and management, social marketing and special
projects such as 4P's, Kapitbising laban sa kahirapan-Community
Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS), Sustainable
Livelihood Programs (SLP), National Housing Targeting System for
Poverty Reduction (NHTSA-PR), etc.
PRIVATE SECTOR
• social workers offering various kinds of services such as but not limited
to the following: advocacy, counseling, mediation, policy and program
development, organizational development, research, capacity building
activities, corporate social responsibility, consultancy services, and
employee assistance program.
 SOCIAL WORK
SETTINGS

CIVIL SOCIETY
• social workers are often employed in different child-caring and child placing
social welfare agencies offering services related to adoption, foster care,
residential care, independent living, reintegration/reunification services, after
care services, etc. others are involved in managing cases of children in conflict
with law, children in need of special protection, children affected with HIV,
children in armed conflict, abused or exploited children, children with special
needs, trafficked children, among others.
SCHOOLS
• some schools hiring social workers to aid students in their adjustments in school
as well as guide them in their scholastic performance. School workers conduct
assessment, case conference, referral and home-visitiation to deal with students
with concerns and problems like truancy, bullying, low self-esteem, aggressive
behavior, discrimination, and family conflicts.
 SOCIAL WORK
SETTINGS

COMMUNITY
- specifically, social workers are also employed in different
community service centers (either run by local councils, church
and the people's organizations).
-they are involve in counseling services to individuals or
families.
-others are engaged in community development work assisting
groups or communities to identify their needs and find means
to respond them.
 SOCIAL WORK PROCESSES

❖Like any other helping professions, social work

follows a helping process when working in a
specific clients.
Helen Harris Perlman is known to be the originator
of the problem--solving framework in the social work
profession.
Problem-Solving Framework is a set of tools and
techniques to -identify the causes of the problem and
find adequate solutions.
 SETTINGS, SERVICES AND
PROCESSES IN SOCIAL WORK

In social work literature, there are a number of other

well-known authors who follow a framework for
problem-solving. Among these are the following
whose writings are based on the traditional social
work methods of casework, group work, and
community organization:
SETTINGS, SERVICES
AND PROCESSES IN
SOCIAL WORK
SETTINGS, SERVICES AND
PROCESSES IN SOCIAL
WORK

Mendoza (2002) later on summarized this into five

basic steps:
BEGINNING MIDDLE ENDING

Assessment - Intervention and Evaluation-

interpretation to reach Plan Implementation gathering information which
understanding of the client can be utilized for
- the action that would undergoing assessment.
solve clients' problems.
Termination-
Planning- TRANSFER (client is transferred by
identifying the means to his social work to another worker)
reach the goals REFERRAL - directing a client to
worker/agency.
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK

METHODS - A systematic procedure,

technique, or mode of inquiry employed by or
proper to a particular discipline or art. (Merriam
Webster Dictionary)

TOOLS - something (such as an instrument

or apparatus) used in performing an operation
or necessary in the practice of a vocation or
profession. (Merriam Webster Dictionary)
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK

SOCIAL CASEWORK - is a helping process that consists of a

variety of activities that may include giving material assistance,
referrals, to other community facilities, rendering emotional
and psychological support through sensitive listening,
expressions of acceptance and reassurance; making
suggestions, appropriately advising, and setting limits,
encouraging the individuals her/him to affect her/his plans,
assisting the individual to narrate and examine her/his
situation, and or working out with her/him consideration and a
better understanding of the causal connections between
her/his present attitudes and mode of adjustment with past
experience.
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK

SOCIAL GROUP WORK

• This is a process and method through which group life is
affected by a worker who consciously guides the interaction
process toward the accomplishment of goals that are
conceived in a democratic frame of reference.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
• is a process by which a community identifies its need or
objectives; orders (or ranks) these needs or objectives; find
the internal or external resources to deal with those needs
or objectives, and takes actions in respect to them, and in
so doing extends and develops cooperative and
collaborative attitudes and practices in the community.
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK

SOCIAL ACTION/ SOCIAL REFORM

• This is an organized effort with the aim of securing
social progress and solving mass social problems
by influencing legislation or the administration of
social services.
SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH
• involves a critical inquiry and the scientific testing
or the validity of social work organization, function,
and methods in order to verify, generalize and
extend social work knowledge and skill.
METHODS AND TOOLS
IN SOCIAL WORK

SOCIAL ACTION/ SOCIAL REFORM

• This is the administration and private social
agencies designed and organized to achieve
the full effect of the services for which they
have been established. Management of
social agencies is oriented to aid people
more efficiently.