Careers in social work
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In the current context of market globalisation, mass cultural consumption, economic rationalism and extensive privatising of responsibility for education, health, child care, social support and retirement, social work can play a critical role.
Social workers provide an array of direct services to individuals, families, groups and communities. These include responding to the social sources of personal distress and marginalisation, fostering social participation and involvement, and working with people to sustain a decent quality of life.
Social workers do this by providing information, advocacy, social support, practical help, counselling and negotiating with officials and organisations. They also provide statutory services to children and adults of all ages, services that aim to meet basic human needs, whether for safety, income maintenance, shelter, appropriate care, productive work, physical and mental health. Social workers can also be involved in:
- the development and planning of community services;
- the initiation and implementation of a wide range of social policies addressing issues of inequality;
- project and research development and the management in human service organisations.
In every field of practice, social workers must be able to communicate clearly, analyse critically, assess coherently, convey understanding, write succinctly, speak confidently in public and demonstrate versatility.
Social workers are employed in a variety of government (federal, state and local) and non-government and not-for-profit organisations. One of the largest employers of social workers is the health sector where social workers are employed in hospitals, community health services, mental health and other community health services. Centrelink, Department of Community Services, Department of Corrective Services and the Department of Ageing, Disability and Homecare employ social workers in policy, research and to provide direct social work services. At the local government level social workers contribute to the planning, administration and management of community and welfare services as well as providing services to the local community.
Large non-government organisations employ social workers to do project, research and policy work and to provide direct services to their clients. This could include working with individuals, families and groups who are experiencing problems such as poverty and depression associated with unemployment; people who have been affected by a mental or physical illness or disability; or people who have to deal with personal distress or crisis associated with family relationships.
Social workers are also employed in smaller community based organisations to co-ordinate a range of services or as community workers working with local residents to bring about desired changes and develop needed services. Some work in private practice as management or organisational consultants, or as family therapists or counsellors.
Some of the diverse range of settings and contexts in which social workers are employed are listed below (this is not an exhaustive list):
- Health – hospitals, community health centres, rehabilitation centres, Sexual Assault Services, NSW Department of Health
- Family Services - services for women, children and young people, NSW Benevolent Society, Barnardos Australia, Burnside, Department of Community Services, refuges, family law, family support services
- Community Services- local government, community resource or information centres, specialist community centres
- Policy and planning services - ACOSS, NCOSS, Social Policy Research Centre, various government departments
- Income Security - Centrelink, employment agencies, St Vincent de Paul, Smith Family
- Ageing and Disability Services – services for people with intellectual, physical and psychiatric disability, services for older people
- Housing - Department of Housing, crisis accommodation services, transition housing, residential services
- Advocacy Services – community legal centres, court support schemes, welfare rights and public advocacy centres
While social work has come to be regarded as a profession only during the last sixty years, appropriate training at the tertiary level is now widely accepted and demanded. This demand has accompanied developments in the biological, psychological and social sciences and the increasing complexity of industrial society. The emergence of 'social work' has, in fact, been universally associated with the growth of industrial society.
In Australia in the last fifty years, developments in the field of social work have been rapid. These have included the provision of undergraduate social work education in university departments of social work, among which Sydney's is the oldest. Courses given take a variety of forms but in no case can a recognised undergraduate qualification be obtained in less than four years, dating from the beginning of this period.
At the undergraduate level, the University offers the Bachelor of Social Work degree course.
At the postgraduate level, the University offers a wide range of coursework degrees (including Masters degrees, Graduate Diplomas, Graduate Certificate courses) and research degrees (including PhD's, the Doctor of Social Work, and the Master of Philosophy in Social Work).
In carrying out these activities, whether in community development, in social policy initiatives including research or in the direct provision of services, social workers are employed by a range of government and non-government organisations. In New South Wales, their major employers are hospitals and the Department of Health, Centrelink, the Department of Community Services and the Department of Corrective Services, the last being responsible for the probation and parole supervision. In the non-government or voluntary sector there are employment opportunities in women's and youth refuges, and in residential child care, with housing associations and a variety of self-help organisations concerned to develop services for particular minority and other disadvantaged groups.
In some of those organisations there are career ladders, in others the duration of the social worker's job is limited to the completion of particular projects. In all of these posts the direction of social work depends partly on the values and beliefs of the practitioners and on their skills in making effective alliances with people who share their objectives. In all of these activities the competence of social workers depends on their knowledge of policies and agencies' resources, their skills in research and administration and on their ability to communicate effectively, orally and in various forms of writing from letters to memoranda, and from social enquiry reports to the completion of research-type papers. The demanding standards expected of social workers and the complex nature of their activities underline the need and importance of professional training.
A professional qualification in social work opens up opportunities for experience outside Australia. In the first place, Australians find interesting employment in most English-speaking countries, and secondly, provided they hold a degree, they may proceed to a higher qualification or take shorter specialised courses offered by schools of social work, particularly in the United States and Britain.