Research Essay: Role of Values in Community Service (WEL101A)

This essay delves into the multifaceted world of community services, examining the crucial role of social work and the contributions of community workers to societal well-being. It begins by outlining the four main domains of human services: families, individuals, groups, and the broader community, highlighting the diverse levels at which community workers operate. The essay then explores the concept of social justice, emphasizing the importance of fair relationships and equal opportunities within society, and analyzes the social barriers faced by both clients and workers in the field, such as collaboration challenges, self-identity issues, and communication breakdowns. Furthermore, it provides a theoretical understanding of communication services, particularly through the lens of intersectionality theory, which recognizes the interconnected nature of social categories like gender, race, and social class. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of social workers in addressing the needs of distressed communities and facilitating their integration into mainstream society.

INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES
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Author Note:

Introduction:
Social workers make potential contribution for the betterment of the society and for the
betterment of the lives of the people around. As a social worker, the prime focus is to work at
a larger scale, considering the whole of the society, however, they can be working at a macro
scale, which includes working with any bigger associations, or they may be working at a
micro level, working closely with local communities or smaller organizations, and thus
serving for the nation (Browne, 2019). Therefore in the following essay, the main domain
where the community workers or the social workers work, will be discussed and analysed.
Further, the concept of social justice and the barriers that these workers come across will also
be analysed (Shakespeare, & Watson, 2017). Further, a theoretical understanding based on
the communication services will also be provided.
The prime objective or the main aim for the research is to understand and develop a
knowledge regarding the concept of community services.
The Main Domains of Human Services:
Social Work, has different and multiple layers to work at or to address. Majorly, social work
or community work has two layers, the Macro Perspective and Micro Perspective. However,
upon a detailed analysis, it can be observed, that the community workers, work closely, on
four layers, or they have four min domain to work upon.
Family: The community workers serve a great role towards serving the Families. In the
modern times, the families are often faced with certain difficult situations, where they
essentially need social services, especially in the forms of counselling. The major areas where
the families need help with, are facilitating communication, between the family members, as
in the modern families all are much preoccupied with their work life that there is often a huge
communication gap among the family members. Secondly, the community workers also serve

a great role in the resolving conflict situations, that is the familial issues and problems, where
the community workers, intervene and help in coming up with solutions (Hepworth et al.,
2016).
Individuals: At the individual level as well, the community workers play a great role in
helping the individuals. Again, the counselling method is the most effective tool, that, the
community workers use to help the individuals. Here also, the community workers help with
two most common situations, one is helping the individuals with the problems related to
addictions. As it can be seen a majority of the youth generation is involved into addictive
behaviours, therefore, the community workers play a great role in there (Smith at al., 2013).
The other area of need is the personal development of the individuals, so that, they can
effectively perform at their workplace. It is often seen that they get issues like affected
workplace behaviour and affected performance.
Groups: The community workers also work with the social groups, and these social group
includes, working towards bettering the communication skills, the critical thinking skill, .the
collaborative skills, and the cooperative learning skills. Working with the and for the social
group works involve certain models., such as, the Remedial Model, which focuses on the
dysfunctions present among the people and utilizes the group as a context to better the
situation. The next model is the developmental model, whereby, the community workers
focus on the holistic development of the groups (Neff, 2017). Lastly, is the Social Goals
model, which, propounds to provide the groups with goals and objectives to work upon and
help them gain social consciousness and awareness.
Community: The community workers help the community members to function. The
communities include, poverty stricken community, or slum communities, or disaster stricken
community. They help them to get educated, help them with their language and

communication skills, and also help them with employment, and thus, help them to get back
to the normal course of life (Li et al, 2014).
The Concept of Social Justice:
Social justice refers to the promotion and the proposition of maintaining a just and fair
relationship between the individuals and the country or the society. Social Justice is
essentially a political concept, however, it also has a philosophical and sociological approach,
and refer to a just relation between the polity and the individuals, where the former grants the
fundamental rights and basic rights and all the socio- political rights to the individuals. The
social justice can be measured by the tacit and explicit systems of distribution of wealth
opportunities and social privileges (Tyler, 2015). The social justice also refers to the social
roles and duties appointed by the society. The basic notion here is that all the individuals
must address the social role that they are provided with, and also, they must account to all the
duties that they are assigned with. As according to the social systems and the social rules,
every individual has a social role to perform, just as, the society has a certain role towards
each of the individuals.
However, the concept of social justice emphasizes upon the inequal social mobility, to the
inequal economic situation within the society, and the inequal dispersions of the safety nets
among all the members of the society. Social justice also incudes the rights and duties of the
social institutions and the organizations, within the society. These social institutions, include
the taxation system governing within the society, the educational institutions, the
governmental institutions, social insurances systems, the public schools, public services, the
labour laws, the public health system, the equal opportunities, the market regulations, and the
like, which are governing within the society (Greenberg & Ronald, 2014). The role of the
public schools are, to include all the children from all the sectors and all the layers of the

society, and to provide all the students equal opportunities and maintaining an equal criteria,
for all. The public sectors and the public health must include all the members of the society,
form all sectors and layers of the same. Thus, the society, must maintain equality within the
society.
The social justice also includes the behaviour of each of the members towards each other.
Being a social being it is the duty of the members to have an equal approach towards all the
members of the society and to treat everyone with equal respect, it is must be followed that
every individual of the society are equal and must be treated equally, irrespective of where
they belong from (Schlosberg, 2013).
Thus, it can be stated that social justice refers to maintaining a reciprocal relationship within
the society, where the roles and duties of the society and the social institutions, will be
preserved, and so will the responsibilities of the individuals, and the role of the social
workers here, is to make these two major sections to remember and maintain their
responsibilities.
Social Barriers faced by workers at Community Services:
As the importance of the social workers within the social system is increasing, the challenges
or barriers faced by them, are also increasing. A current report has been developed to
understand and identify the major areas that are posing challenges to the social workers.
First, the social workers have accounted that the workers must have a collaborative attitude
towards each other, and have a mutual understanding of works must be conducted (Fernando
Chang-Muy, & Congress, 2015). However, there is a huge lack in this area, especially for the
position of leadership.
Second is the self- identity. The collaboration can only be started if all the members have the
understanding of their own contribution in the process, but the social work, as a concept is

much complex, therefore, it is difficult to identify one’s own self- identity and role
consciousness within the process of work (Greenwood et al., 2015).
Third is the communication process. The social workers work at various fields and a greater
magnitude, therefore, it is often seen that there is a lack of communication within the group,
which then further, leads to complications, and misunderstandings within the group
(Greenwood et al., 2015).
Theoretical Approach to Communication Services:
One of the best approach to define and discuss about the communication services is the
Intersectional theory. All the social groups and the social concepts, today, are connected with
each other. For example, gender race, social class, all are interconnected and are also
overlapped in certain sections. They all have the same feature of discrimination, and gas a
disadvantageous position within the social system. Therefore, all these can be tied together
and can be explained together, from a theoretical perspective. It provides a framework,
whereby, individuals, a community, and a social problem can be conceptualised and further
discussed (Hancock, 2017). Therefore, the basic notion of this is that all the individuals are
deserving more than one roles and have all these roles overlapped, with each other. Also the
theory holds that the prejudices, governing within the society, is characterised with
complexity, and these complexities cannot be segmented, or of segmented, then would lose
their significance, therefore, kit is likely that they are explained together. Therefore, the
theory includes all these complex ideologies and concepts and explain them together,
individually and then again with their relation with each other. Now the relation between the
community services and intersectionality, is that, the former essentially works in these areas.
As the community or the social workers, work with the areas faced with extreme prejudices,
therefore, they must know how to address and counsel a person who belong to intersectional

category. For example, when a community worker is helping a woman facing challenges by
the patriarchal society, then he or she will have certain approach, but when the person is
helping a black women through the similar situation, then there is an intersectional area,
which is, a gendered approach and an approach of discrimination based on colour. Therefore,
the person must approach differently in case of the second situation.
The intersectional theory not only includes certain people who are faced with double
discriminations or layered discriminations, but also, talks about the sources of discrimination,
and the roots behind these discriminating approaches and also describes in what ways these
areas can be addressed and accounted. Therefore, the intersectional approach is needed to be
understood by all the community members as it will help them to address the areas of
difficulties area faced with prejudices and discriminations, in a double layer, better
(Mattsson, 2017). The intersectionality approach provides the knowledge of reasons of
discriminations and forms of discrimination and methods of discriminations, and if these are
not properly understood by the community members, then they cannot address the issues and
the areas properly. It is often seen that the people suffering or in need belong more from the
intersectional layers, and the approaches to solve their problems, or provide them with an
understanding or developmental plan, is much difficult and hence the community workers
must have a proper understanding and knowledge of the intersectional approach.
Conclusion:
Considering the present social condition and situation, it is seen that the need of the social
workers within the organizational context is important and the community workers or the
social workers help the communities to function and to get involved with the mainstream
society. Many community workers work voluntarily on their own, and some of them work
with big or small business houses, and there are some non- profit organization as well who

work in the same sector. However, the role and the job of the all of the community workers
are same, that is to help the distressed and the need stricken communities of the society and to
develop the same, through, modes of education, social perceptions, and counselling. The
community workers also work with and for the families that are faced with difficult
situations, and counsel them and help them to maintain their family structures and the
familial communication system, among the members.

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INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES
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INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES
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