- BASIC CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL WORK
Contents of the Unit
1.0. Introduction
1.1. Unit Objectives
1.2. Social Work
Meaning and Definition
Scope of Social Work
Objectives of Social Work
Functions of Social Work
Methods of Social Work.
1.3. Social Welfare
Meaning and Concept
Scope of Social Welfare
Objectives of Social Welfare
Residual and Institutional Concept of Social Welfare
Distinctions between Social work and Social Welfare.
Distinction between Social Welfare and Social Service
1.4. Social Action
Meaning and Concept of Social Action
Process of Social Action
Social Work and Social Action and Social Reform
1.5. Social Security
Meaning and Concept - Methods of Social Security
- Social Security in India
- Social work and social security in India
- 1.6. Social Justice
- Concept of Social Justice
- Scope of Social Justice
- 1.7. Human Rights:
- Meaning and Concept
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1.8. Social Development
- Meaning of Social Development
- Indicators of social development
- Objectives of Social Development
- Principles of social development
1.0. Introduction
Social work as profession of the most recent times has not developed in isolation. It has developed its body of knowledge by pulling various ideas from different relevant disciplines. ‘The basic concepts of social work’ in the sense we use in this unit, deals with the fundamental knowledge about some of the important concepts which are incorporated/included in the study and practice of social work profession. In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss those concepts in a lucid way.
1.01 Objectives of the Unit
The main objective of the Unit is to make the students or readers familiar with the basic concepts which constitute important part of social work knowledge. It is of optimum importance to understand and know about these basic concepts for they are the foundation of social work practice.
After studying this unit, the readers will be able to comprehend and conceptualize the following matters:
Meaning, concept, scope, objectives, function and methods of social work,
Concept, scope, and objectives of Social welfare.
Distinction between social work, social welfare and social service
Meaning, process and methods of social action and difference between social work, social action and social reform,
Meaning and Methods of social security and social security in India
Concept and Scope of social justice
Concept and importance of Human Rights
Meaning and objectives of Social Development
Interrelationship between some basic concepts
Meaning and definition of social work
The meaning of social work is so complex and dynamic that it is almost impossible to give a universally accepted meaning. It has been graded by different individuals in various ways on the basis of understanding of different individuals in the society under the following points:
Meaning of Social Work to a man in the street
A common man in the street has a very simple interpretation about social work. According to any one who performs some good deeds for the people is doing social work. In this regard the man in the street however, tries to make a distinction between an ‘ordinary man’ who carries on community activities voluntarily without any payment and the ‘welfare worker’ who is appointed by a welfare agency for undertaking welfare work in the community and paid for his work. He has his own way of explaining social work in the light of his experience and knowledge needy people in the community. According to him good and voluntary work by an ordinary man and the social welfare by the paid agents more or less is the same thing, but in case of the former, there is more warmth of feeling towards the beneficiaries.
Meaning of Social Work to a Semi-professional
This interpretation of social work is given by those who are not trained social workers but work in some welfare agency. They believe that they have the right to be called as social worker just because they are engaged in welfare activities. In their belief, because a person employed in the welfare agency, and carries on welfare activities, he is a social worker and his activities are social work practices.
However, Proff. Clarke points out two deficiencies in their concept of the social worker and social work. Firstly, they seem to forget that not all persons who work in the
large welfare fields are social workers but may be experts in housing, recreation, social insurance, nursing, accounting etc. Secondly, they neglect to consider the professional qualities of a social worker and so fail to understand what makes a person social work professional. In this connection, it may be argued that a mother who successfully relieves her sick child is not for this reason, entitled to be called a doctor, who is a professional. A profession is characterized by special knowledge and skills, systematic training, certain code of ethics, social recognition etc. all of which social work has. Therefore, it can be concluded that the interpretation of semi-professionals about social work cannot be valid for social work.
Scientific meaning
The third interpretation of social work is given by Dr. Helen Witmer. It is of course scientific but it is too narrow to represent the real and perfect concept of social work. She says the function of social work is “to give assistance to individuals in regard to the difficulties they encounter in their use of an organized group services or their own performance as member of an organized group.” By organized group she meant institutions like family, the neighborhood, the school, the church, hospitals etc. For example in regard to family, the function of social work is to facilitate the family’s normal activities through counseling with individuals about the difficulties they encounter in family life, providing financial assistance or other material helps that are necessary to secure a family’s adequate functioning or helping the members to avail the required services from the different sources.
In her scientific interpretation of social work Dr. Witmer does not consider all agencies which claim to carry on social work activities as social work agencies. For instance, she does not believe that public relief agencies are social work institutions because they primarily concerned with providing some form of assistance to all who meet certain specifications temporarily rather than working at scientific solution of the problems through social readjustment with their impaired environment. She excludes many activities which she feels are not directly connected to the problems of the people. If the end is not the development of general capacities but that of helping individuals solve the particular problems they encounter in group relations, then alone she would call the activities as social group work in particular and social work in general. In this sense most of the activities like that of Scouts, Boys Clubs, and recreational activities are excluded from social work activities by her.
Having limited the activities of social work, she further points out that social work has a defined personnel norms and values and material apparatus. The personnel of social work operate largely through agencies which utilize professional knowledge to carry on professional activities and laymen to determine agency policy. It has its norms of conduct, which define its organization and its material apparatus includes land, buildings, furniture, records, food and clothing for clients and journals and books etc. She was of the view that the main objective of social work is to remove those obstacles which are felt in the process or in performing the role.
Generally accepted meaning of social work
Social work is a profession primarily concerned with the remedy to psycho-social problems and deficiencies which exists in the relationship between the individual and his social environment. This phenomenon always existed in the society in one form or the other, but achieved its scientific basis in the last decades of 19th century.
People in distress, destitution and deprivation have been helped in the past by individuals joint families, caste communities, religious institutions motivated by religious philosophy that assumed ‘charity’ as a reward or medium for salvation, humanism, philanthropy, humanitarian feeling, democratic ideology, equality of all citizens; regard for human personality; respect for other’s rights including the indigents, the handicapped, the unemployed, emotionally challenged and above all, those in need. The charitable work taken up by individuals and some voluntary organizations came to be termed as social work in the due course of time. The most frequently seen misconception about social work is that people mistake charity, alms giving and voluntary activities as social work, but this in reality is not social work, as it does not provide any permanent solution to the person’s problems and does not empower a person to face his problems by himself. Social work aims at making a person self-dependent and self-reliant. It attempts to explore the casual factors behind the problem and tries to solve them scientifically.
Therefore, it is visualized that social work is scientific process for helping to the needy suffering from material deficiencies, physical disabilities, mental disorders, emotional disturbances and so on by using knowledge in human relationship and methods and skills in dealing with them.
Speaking in a nut shell, social work intended to assist individuals, families, social groups and communities in sorting out their personal and social problems and permanently solving those problems through a systematic process.