What is Social Work
Social work is the professional activity of helping individuals, groups or communities to enhance or restore their capacity for social functioning and to create societal conditions favorable to their goals.
Adopted by the professional social work organization:
National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
What is the purpose of social work?
The purpose of social work is to promote or restore a mutually beneficial interaction between individuals and society in order to improve the quality of life for everyone. Social workers hold the following beliefs:
The environment (social, physical, and organizational) should provide the opportunity and resources for the maximum realization of the potential and aspirations of all individuals, and should provide for their common human needs and for the alleviation of distress and suffering.
Individuals should contribute effectively as they can to their own well-being and to the social welfare of others in their immediate environment as well as to the collective society.
Transactions between individuals and others in their environment should enhance the dignity, individuality, and self-determination of everyone. People should be treated humanely and with justice.
A client may be an individual, a family a group, a community or an organization.
(Social Work, 1981, 26, p. 6)
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), professional social workers are the nation’s largest group of mental health services providers. There are more clinically trained social workers—over 190,000 in 1998—than psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric nurses combined. Federal law and the National Institutes of Health recognize social work as one of five core mental health profession.
©2010 National Association of Social Workers
