Social Workers
There are 3 primary commitments of social workers which consist of the pursuit of social justice, the enhancement of the quality of life, and the development of the full potential of each individual, group and community in the society. As social workers are concerned with social problems along with the causes, solutions, and human impacts possible, they perform the duties through working with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Before 19th century, social works were simply conducted together with the natural process of human societies. It began to be a defined profession entering 19th century and developed more professionally in the beginning of 20th century. Today, we find lots of institutions offering social works programs. The demand of improving professionalism is service is getting more inevitable, including a concern of across system assessment when dealing with various clients’ problems. In this regard, we would like to know why across system assessment upon the client’s problems is important, especially before designing a particular intervention approach. Another question we would like to answer is in what specific ways social and economic justice and human rights issues are essential aspects of social work practice.
The social work profession in its micro level is a critical service provider serving individuals. According to ecological perspective explained by Ivery (2008), individuals along with the family can only be understood well within the context of the systems and the environment where they live. Assuming that a system is a combination of related parts organized into a complex whole in which the elements or conditions influence each other through interactions, we have to treat individuals in accordance to the context given. Individual social system, which is comprised of people and the prevailing norms influencing their development, consists of family, school, neighborhood, and also work. From a system perspective, a person’s culture affects his worldview as well as influence the way he interacts with social workers. Meanwhile, from a client’s perspective, interaction with a social worker who is not only sensitive culturally but also competent will be likely more positive once trust is gained and established. In terms of client-driven priority, across system assessment will help support the effectiveness of social works as it suggests contextual opinion and appropriate judgment towards individuals as the basis of would-be given services and intervention approach.
In order to enable supporting structures that will let social workers view the clients holistically and within the context of their culture along with the professional relationship given, the balance between client and provider-driven priorities has to be created.