Social workers
help relieve people’s suffering, fight for social justice, and improve lives and communities
. Most people think of social workers when they think of poverty alleviation and child welfare. Many social workers do that kind of work — and we do much more.
Work Environment
Social workers are employed in a variety of settings, including child welfare and human service agencies, healthcare providers, and schools.
Most work full time, and some work evenings, weekends, and holidays
.
- Social work can be stressful.
- Emotional burden.
- Many social workers cannot unplug from their work.
- You see the worst of people.
- Social work is not always safe.
- You often have to walk into unknown situations.
- Some people can’t deal with the high level of responsibility.
Provide individuals, families, and groups with the psychosocial support needed to cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses
. Services include advising family caregivers. Provide patients with information and counseling, and make referrals for other services.
Generous annual leave
starting at 23 Days and rising to 31 Days
.
After 5 Years of continuous Local Government Service 28 Days
- Job Satisfaction.
- Variety in the work you do.
- Good pay.
- High demand.
- You can make real positive impact.
- List of cons of being a social worker. Long / Irregular Hours. Risk of Compassion Fatigue. High Workload. You Might Be Seen As “The Enemy” …
- Conclusion.
- List of the Pros of Being a Social Worker.
Social work is a challenging career in many ways – emotionally, mentally and often physically. The education required to attain this career is
easy in some ways but difficult in other ways.
Social work is
a practice-based profession
that promotes social change, development, cohesion and the empowerment of people and communities. Social work practice involves the understanding of human development, behavior and the social, economic and cultural institutions and interactions.
Among the hardest things about working as a social worker are factors like the
emotional stress
that comes with seeing the extremes of injustice and abuse, the challenge of working with vulnerable and marginalized client populations, the stress and physical injuries that often accompany the job and the inability to fix …
Because of the intensive nature of the work,
it’s imperative that clinical social workers possess the compassion of which Booth speaks, as well as the ability to compartmentalize the most emotional cases to achieve some form of work-life balance
.
Social workers are below average when it comes to happiness
. At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, social workers rate their career happiness 2.9 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 23% of careers.
School social workers
offer consultative support to school teams, intervention with students and families, and liaison with community agencies
. The goal of school social workers is to enhance the overall functioning and academic performance of students.
Job Title Median Salary Career Outlook | Child, Family, and School Social Workers $48,430 14% | Healthcare Social Workers $58,470 20% | Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers $49,630 19% | All Other Social Workers $60,900 8% |
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Social workers salaries are comparable with any other public sector profession
. At the most senior level you could earn a very competitive salary as a service manager, principal social worker or director with regional responsibility and multi-million pound budgets.
Senior Assistant Principal Medical Social Worker may be deployed at a National Hospital
and will be responsible for the efficient management and administration of the psychosocial rehabilitation programmes.
Clinical social workers focus on mental health, while medical social workers help people deal with physical illnesses
, such as AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other chronic or terminal diseases.
- Assessing new patients as they are admitted.
- Providing emotional support or counseling.
- Developing and implementing a patient’s plan of care.
- Working with agencies or insurance companies to cover costs of treatment and medication.
- Arranging outpatient treatments.
While
most social workers will take well deserved time off at Christmas
, Emergency Duty Team and other out of hours Social Workers continue to work through nights, weekends and holidays, offering social work in emergency and urgent situations, alongside colleagues from other disciplines.
Does annual leave reset each year?
The leave accumulates gradually during the year
and any unused annual leave will roll over from year to year.
Is annual leave by calendar year?
The statutory leave year runs from 1 April to 31 March.
Many employers use the calendar year (January to December) instead of the statutory leave year for administrative reasons but this does not affect your statutory leave entitlements
.
Social workers protect children and adults with support needs from harm. From helping keep a family under pressure together to supporting someone with mental health problems,
social work is a varied, demanding, often emotional and very rewarding career
.
Social workers do use math in their work to some degree
, although their jobs don’t require them to know advanced calculus or abstract mathematical theory.
Social Work focuses on
helping people overcome difficult challenges in their life
. These include poverty, addiction, unemployment, disability, abuse, mental illness, and many others. Social Work also places a strong emphasis on social justice and equality.
Social work makes for an incredibly fulfilling yet emotionally taxing career choice
. Professionals enter challenging work environments to aid people facing uphill battles and often find themselves helping with crisis situations, such as mental health or abuse emergencies.