2. Agency name | Role of agency | 1. Shropshire Safeguarding Children’s Board (SSCB) | A representative group of agencies involved in Safeguarding Children and Child Protection | 2. Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013 | This agency covers the legislative requirements and expectations on individual services to safeguard and promote the welfare of children | 3. Social services | This agency aims to create more effective organisations, making communities stronger, and promote equality and opportunity.
As defined in the An Introduction to the Profession of Social Work Becoming a Change Agent textbook, “generalist social work practice is defined as social work practice backed with broad range of training an primarily used to guide and coordinate service” (p.155). To me a generalist social worker basically practice skills to help aid families, communities, groups and individuals with their life problems. There are several types of employment/occupational settings for social work practice. Some are child social workers, family social workers, school social workers, healthcare social workers, mental health social workers and substance abuse social workers. Child, family, and school social workers are pretty much in the same category.
Tassoni. P (2007) says that “we need to work as part of a team to provide a quality service for children and their parents”. We also need to work with the parents and show respect towards them and encourage parent’s involvement within the setting. Tassoni says that “early years setting will have a management structure which should clarify practitioner’s responsibilities”. A responsibility practitioners have is to make sure the health of the child is paramount this could be by preventing hazards and carrying out risk assessments and safety checks.
Social policy is the actions, plans and programmes of government bodies and agencies aim to deal with a problem or achieve a goal, for example, preventing crime or reducing poverty. Social policies are sometimes influenced by the findings of sociologists, however this usually depends on the government in power and their political ideologies. There are different types of social problems that cause public concern such as crime and poverty; these usually need some sort of solution. And there are also areas of sociological interest that may have an impact on policy such as why some people are poor, commit crime, or fail in school. Sociologists carry out their research from a number of theoretical perspectives, and depending on the views they adopt they will have different ideas about the nature of social problems and know how to solve them.
THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL WORK The aim of this essay is to seek to examine the roles,skills and functions of social workers in England and Wales.It will try to identify and discuss current changes in Children’s Services and the Personalisation Agenda in Adult Social Care.The essay will then try to relate social policy to social work,describe and explain some core professional principles and values of social work, and analyse the service user and carer expectations in relation to social work. Social work has been defined as a profession which promotes social change,problem solving in human relationships and to empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing,(International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers).It is about enabling people to take action for themselves.Banks (2006).Thompson (2009) argues that part of social work is to do society’s ‘dirty’ work.He goes on to say that it involves carrying out tasks that the wider public will give a wide berth,and prefer not to know about or deal with,things like abuse,poverty,deprivation and exploitation.Some key roles and functions are to prepare for and work with individuals,families,carers,groups and communities,to assess their needs and circumstances.Social workers minimise and manage risk to self and others.A social worker is expected to be accountable for their own practice,having subject knowledge,managing,presenting and sharing records and reports with colleagues and other relevant professionals The skill to demonstrate professional competence by researching,analysing and using current knowledge to attain the best social work practice is also invaluable.As such,social workers need to have people skills to be able to work effectively with service users.As Parris (2012) states, being able to assess is a high skill activity
Functionalists see society as a group of institutions. A social institution being a place where there is a set of rules for behaviour. For example, schools, churches and families. To Functionalists, each institution has its own place in sustaining society and maintaining order. The functionalist perspective recognises that families perform vital functions for their members and for their society, to ensure stability and harmony in order to achieve social order (Giddens, 2009).
As the issue of welfare is a very large one. I have decided to look at the education system, as it is a central cornerstone to society and see how it has undermined or supported the working classes. I will then look at policy and see how it’s tried to change the issue or whether it is still apparent in society today. Social policy is concerned with the study of the welfare state and the services provided. It is often described as an attempt to give social order.
This essay is going to discuss what is meant by the term social context and how society today and its services benefit families in this term. It will identify relevant skills, principles approaches to the assessment process, explore the stages of this process and how these key services and findings from the article will help benefit the family in a social context. It will explore the findings of Morawska et al 2011 on his research on parenting programmes and culturally diverse families and if the findings from his research were valid. The term social context refers to the social and physical setting in which people live in or where something develops. This can include the culture in which an individual lived or was educated in as well as people or organisations they interact with.
The Hyacinth Berry case study will be used throughout to identify and discuss the interconnections of values, ethics and legislation. The General Social Care (GSCC) and BASW offer the social work profession its value base. The message from reading their requirements is that values are a fundamental part of a competent social worker. There is also a clear need for both students and qualified workers to ‘identify and question their own values and prejudices and their implications for practice.’ The need for social workers to have respect for persons and their right to self determination still remains the key to practice. Complexities of the social work task relate partly to the worker having to negotiate the tension between these values and the dilemmas that decision making brings.
Social workers continue to address the needs of society and bring our nation’s social problems to the public’s attention. As one of the helping professions, social work focuses upon working with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities in order to assist them in functioning better in their social environments. In working with people, social workers apply knowledge from the social work courses and from experience. Qualities required in persons who consider careers in social work include flexibility, concern for people, patience, and ability to express ideas, resourcefulness, and emotional and physical energy. Career opportunities for social workers are available in hospitals, home health agencies, hospice agencies, nursing homes, schools, community action agencies, correctional agencies, programs for the aging, recreation programs, mental health centers, mental retardation centers, juvenile courts, child welfare agencies, and others.