Pocahontas
What is a Day in the Life like for a social worker?
I am interested in majoring in sociology in college?
#sociology #social-work
2 answers
cassandra Harris
cassandra’s Answer
Social workers help people respond to and cope with social, economic, emotional, and behavioral problems in their daily lives. There are many different kinds of social workers who work with different demographics of people or on specific issues. Child and family social workers, clinical social workers, health care social workers, and mental health and substance abuse social workers represent the main specialties in social work.
On a daily basis, social workers perform myriad tasks relating to counseling, administrative duties, interviewing clients and potential clients, meeting with lawyers, and more.
Social Worker Tasks
The schedule of a social worker may change depending on client scheduling, paperwork, staff meetings, and other factors. Some social workers have more flexibility in their scheduling than others, of course. On a normal day, a social worker’s schedule generally includes some of the following.
Meeting With Clients
Meeting with clients doesn’t just mean interviewing them or checking in on their progress. It can mean scheduling appointments with other resource providers, signing clients up for classes, and listening to them and perspectives on their progress. Among the many ways that social workers help people is the fact that they are there to listen and provide insight and access to resources that lead to improved quality of life. This often manifests itself as helping clients adjust after life-altering experiences like divorce, job loss, or illness.
Responding to Emergencies
Social workers are responsible for responding to the immediate and sometimes chaotic events that come up in their client’s lives. Crises don’t necessarily happen every day, but social workers must be able to respond calmly and with advice that is helpful. Since a basic responsibility of social workers is to help people cope with their lives, this includes the times when clients need them the most.
Evaluating and Connecting With Other Services
A huge part of a social worker’s job is to act as a liaison with other human services and organizations and their clients. This includes evaluating how these other organizations and agencies provide for people in need as well as providing access to these resources.
Advocating for Clients
Advocacy takes many shapes when it comes to social work. It can be on a personal level: advocating for a victim of abuse in a domestic violence situation, for example. Social workers can be legal advocates for children in abusive homes or individuals in recovery from addiction. Public advocacy includes providing a voice and raising awareness for their clients, a specific issue, or the social work profession in general.
Hope this helps!
Angela Chan
Angela’s Answer
Hi Pocahontas:
There are many different types of jobs for social workers in different settings. In general, social workers work directly with individuals in various settings such as schools, hospitals, state agencies, courts, etc.
My social work experience has focused on working directly with youth and families and I've worked in schools, libraries, in an office and now in a city building. So I'm usually working in a specific program/service so my days resolve around making sure that specific program/service is successful. My typical day may involve going to schools, neighborhoods to recruit or outreach to let the community know what is being offered. I then often work directly with the residents who want to sign up for the program and we complete an application or other paperwork or I am working directly with individuals who are registered for the program. I may be facilitating a workshop or supporting program participants in small group setting. There are usually more paperwork I have to complete throughout the day such as case notes or reports. There are lots of phone calls and emails throughout the day as well. Hope you found this helpful.
Best of luck,
angela