Social workers serve the societies in a variety of settings

Social Activist gives his introductory speech among social workers

‘Social workers serve the societies in a variety of settings’ said by Dr.K.Govindaraju, Director of SEVAI while addressing the social workers of SEVAI as a process of refreshing their know-how in Social work. He further added, “Globalization is seen as something which encapsulates economics, culture, political processes and people. Personalization is driving the shape of all public services, with a growing public expectation that services will meet their needs, helping them achieve personal goals and aspirations. This may pose a particular challenge for social work, given the need also to manage growing demand and complexity as well as the need to protect the public by taking measures to control some people's liberty. To be effective in meeting that challenge, social work services will need to engage individuals, families and communities and to work in new ways with other parts of the public sector, focusing increasingly on prevention in terms of  mixed economy of care, personalization, social workers, accountability, capacity building. It is argued that social work has an integral place in this process and needs to be re-defined to encompass the changes incurred around the world through globalization. The central concepts and their associated affiliations came to the newly-devised definition for social work and why they chose it. There are many varying types of social work practice around the globe consisting of community development and associated social works. Social work is a professional approach that seeks to improve the quality of life and subjective well-being of individuals, families, couples, groups, and communities through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, crisis intervention, and teaching for the benefit of needy and under privileged. It is to this end that a sufficiently wide definition was constructed to encompass the array of social work practices occurring. This was reconciled by suggesting the hypothesis that all social work practice whatever the type focuses on “person-in-environment”. It was suggested that social work is the interface where people meet and interact with their environments. It was also suggested that a premise of all social work practice is to increase human well-being. Social work aims to help people develop their skills and their ability to use their own resources and those of the community to resolve problems. Social work is concerned with individual and personal problems but also with broader social issues such as poverty, unemployment and domestic violence. Social justice is the philosophical underpinnings of social work practice. The uniqueness of social work practice is in the blend of some particular values, knowledge and skills, including the use of relationship as the basis of all interventions and respect for the client’s choice and involvement in a socioeconomically context which increasingly generates insecurity and social tensions, social workers play an important and essential role.Social workers work in a variety of settings: family services agencies, children’s aid agencies, general and psychiatric hospitals, school boards, correctional institutions, welfare administration agencies. An increasing number of social workers work in private practice. Social workers provide services as members of a multidisciplinary team or on a one-to-one basis with the client. The duties performed by social workers vary depending on the

Group discussions of social workers of SEVAI

settings in which they work. In general and psychiatric hospitals, social workers are members of the treatment team. They provide a link between the team and the family as well as with community resources. In these settings they contribute to the care, treatment and rehabilitation of the aged and of physically or mentally ill individuals, as well as the care of disabled persons. Their services include counseling, psychotherapy, policy and program development, organizational development, and employee assistance programs. In order to support this hypothesis a number of theories and practices were highlighted. Problem-solving, empowerment, critical consciousness of social workers, theories of human behaviour and social systems, psycho dynamic, cognitive behavioural, person-centered and crisis theory were initially explicated. It was then suggested that social systems theory is also important because of social works holistic approach to issues. Globalization is an important new aspect of social work in many countries. It brings to the forefront questions about cultural awareness and respect in social work. It perhaps fits into the critical consciousness aspect of social work mentioned, as well as indigenous knowledge. Social work has major challenges now in how to reconcile the policies and laws of a country with the diverse beliefs of new populations in the country. Globalization is a big issue that needs more specific attention for social work going into the future”. Kris