Essential Skills for Social Work

This assignment explores the crucial skills necessary for effective social work practice. It delves into both generic skills like respect, understanding of human relationships, managerial abilities, and specific intervention skills required by social workers. The author reflects on their personal background and aspirations to become a social worker, highlighting their motivation to support vulnerable individuals and their belief that they possess the essential qualities for this profession.

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Social Work Practice
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Social Work Practice
Table of Contents
The values that inform the profession of social work............................................................................3
The core knowledge that informs social work practice..........................................................................3
The diverse roles social workers can occupy.........................................................................................4
The generic skills needed for competent social work practice...............................................................6
Reflective about you 'fit' with the profession.........................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9
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The values that inform the profession of social work
The social work includes various types of values which reflect different professional aspects
of the social workers. First of all, ethical values are playing an essential role that informs the
profession of social work. In addition, the social workers are helping individuals who suffer
from difficulties by ethical values (Payne, 2009). On the other hand, cultural background is
another important value that influences a social worker to help seek and helpless people of
Australia. Aside from that, the social work is kind of activity which includes correspondence
and human needs for helping seek people. Besides that, the profession of social work is also
affected by historical values, for example, a person had to lose a close family member due to
lack of treatment and social responsibility. Also, the values of social work stand for that
person due to that previous accident. In other words, losing family members works as strong
values that critically affect and influence the profession of social work. Along with this part,
self-assessment is one of the significant value that informs the profession of social work. In
other words, a person who has the dedication to perform the role of a social worker needs
core competency of an honest social work. In simple words, with the help of self-
involvement, a person can freely choose the profession of social work (Brown, 2013).
The core knowledge that informs social work practice
There are five types of core knowledge that inform social work practice discussed below:
Practice with professionalism: it is one of the most important factors of core knowledge
which helps a social worker by advocating client access for continuous professional
development. Besides that, this core knowledge also describes professional demeanour in
appearance, communication and appearance of the social worker.
Practice in an ethical manner: ethical consideration is another significant aspect of the core
knowledge for successful social work practice. In other words, to guide social work practice,
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Social Work Practice
the ethical values help the social worker. In addition, in order to get fruitful conclusions, the
social workers should apply strategies of ethical reasoning (Cook, 2009).
Critical thinking and professional judgment: in social work practice, the social workers can
distinguish various types of resources of knowledge which help for critical thinking and
professional judgement. In other words, the social worker should analyse models of
intervention and evolution for a development of professional judgement and critical thinking.
Embrace diversity: with the help of core knowledge of embrace diversity, social work
practice would be evaluated. In other sense, the social workers determine the extent of
cultural values and structures occupied by the society. In addition, the social worker can learn
personal values and diverse group's values (Gerson and Gerson, 2014).
Advance human rights and socioeconomic justice: the knowledge of human rights and
socioeconomic justice are playing an essential role in social work practice. Along with that,
the social worker should understand various forms of discrimination and oppression through
advance human rights and socioeconomic justice (Miller, 2015).
The diverse roles social workers can occupy
The social workers have various types of roles to play in social work practice, and some of
them are discussed below:
Broker: the social workers play a role of a broker as the link of a person or a family to
required resources. In addition, social workers as professional do not disclose critical
information easily. Moreover, an efficient social worker always knows the location where
service is required (Sharma, 2006).
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Advocate: this role simply justifies the ability of social workers to fight for the rights of
others by convincing others. Besides that, social workers are concerned with vulnerable
people who unable to speak for own rights.
Case Manager: the social workers play a role of case manager in some specific circumstances
such as homeless, vulnerable people. In addition, the social workers also fight for seeking
people who have mental health issues or any chronic physical health issue as a case manager.
Moreover, victims of violent crimes or domestic conflicts are also be cared by social workers
as the case manager.
Educator: many social workers are playing the educator role in order to spread the light of
education. In addition, social workers help to develop skills of seeking and vulnerable people
by teaching them. Moreover, in order to prevent basic violence, the education is playing an
essential role which offered by social workers as an educator.
Facilitator: the social workers are gathering a variety of purpose including community
development in this role. In addition, policy change and political companies are also included
in the assessment of the social workers (Brinkerhoff, 2014).
Organizer: in the case of economic development, union growth and policy specialist, the
social workers are playing the role of an organizer. In addition, the social workers also
organize the development plans of seeking and vulnerable people.
Manager: due to many levels of applications, the social worker needs to play the role of a
manager. Along with that, the social workers can influence policy change on a large scale as
an effective manager for all underprivileged people.
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The generic skills needed for competent social work practice
There are ten essential generic skills are needed for competent social work practice which is
discussed below:
Assessment Skills: with the help of this types of generic skills the social workers can
accommodate the official statements and documents for social work practice.
Advocacy and Leadership: through implementing proper leadership styles which are an
essential generic skill which measures the social work practice. Along with that, the social
workers can get advocacy practice as generic skills that contribute their professional career
which is social work practice (Thyer, 2010).
Critical Thinking Skills: the social workers require this critical thinking ability as a generic
skill comes from DNA. In other words, the son of a scientist might get father's thinking
power and skills.
Problem Solving Skills: in order to conduct a successful social work practice, the social care
workers needed to have this kind of generic skills. In other words, in every stage of social
work practice, the social workers have to solve various serious and legal problems.
Respect for Diversity: the social work practice should not be based on culture or any religion
based. In other words, the social care workers should respect all vulnerable people of any
religion which come as generic skills (Thyer, 2010).
Intervention Skills: the social care workers must have intervention skills which help them to
conduct a successful social work practice.
Documentation Skills: the social care workers must record every step as the document for the
future security of many vulnerable seek people.
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Understanding of Human Relationships: the social workers must understand the human ethics
and relations for the effective practice of social work.
Managerial skills: the social work practice requires the high level of managerial skills as
generic skills which needed in the behavioural approach of social workers.
Reflective about you 'fit' with the profession
According to family background, I have all essential skills and abilities which are required to
become a successful social care worker. In other words, I have various types of managerial
and generic skills for effective social work practice. Moreover, social work as the profession
is the completely suitable career option for me (Coulshed and Orme, 2012). Along with that, I
was born in a poor family, and I lost my father who suffered from cancer at the age of 14. In
addition, my father died because the social care workers did not perform in that critical
situation. As a result, I had to lose my father due to lack of attention of health care workers of
a governmental health care centre of the Australia. On the other hand, I would not want
somebody to lose their close people due to lack of attention in sensitive time. In addition,
after that incident of my life, I promised myself that one day I would officially look after the
old and vulnerable people of the Australia who has not enough funds to live happily. Thus, in
order to meet my desired profession, I started work hard and complete my graduation.
Moreover, after completing my graduation, I observed the operational structure of an
Australian NGO. Besides that, I have lots of concern about seek and vulnerable people due to
my personal background. Therefore, I have good communication skills and management
skills which are required to become a successful social worker. In other words, I can
communicate with any seek people and determine the requirement with the help of effective
communication skills. On the other hand, with the help of management skills, I can operate
any kind of department of any social work practice centre (Coulshed and Orme, 2012).
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References
Brown, M. (2013). Organization and management. 1st ed. London: IMO [u.a.].
Cook, S. (2009). The effective manager. 1st ed. Ely, Cambridgeshire, U.K.: IT Governance
Pub.
Gerson, S. and Gerson, S. (2014). Technical communication. 1st ed.
Miller, K. (2015). Organizational communication. 1st ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Sharma, A. (2006). Work management. 1st ed. New Delhi, India: Global Vision Pub. House.
Brinkerhoff, S. (2014). Social worker. 1st ed. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Mason Crest.
Coulshed, V. and Orme, J. (2012). Social work practice. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Payne, M. (2009). Modern social work theory. 1st ed.
Thyer, B. (2010). Cultural diversity and social work practice. 1st ed. Springfield: Charles C
Thomas Publisher.
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