Are you interested in becoming a social worker? You might want to learn more about social work different fields available.
Known widely as a helping profession, social work seeks to promote social change by meeting people’s and communities’ basic and complex needs.
Here, the most vulnerable members of society tend to be the focus. These include those living in poverty as well as the oppressed.
Due to the complex nature of human needs, social work has an array of specializations that seek to cater to those. It’s a profession that intersects with multiple disciplines.
List of Careers in Social Work
To begin with, it’s interesting to note that social work is primarily categorized into direct and clinical social work.
Direct social work deals with caregiving, while clinical social work involves counseling. To practice as a social worker, you must be fully recognized or licensed by your state.
As a social worker, you get to engage in multiple ways. These include private practice, mental health, hospitals, and schools.
As you’ll learn below, each type of social work focuses on a specific area of need. Social workers are trained to be valuable and relevant for each of these.
Types of Social Work
There are many to consider when it comes to the types of social work. Examples include school guidance counselors and child & family social workers.
Others include public policy advocates, planners, community social workers, disability social workers, and criminal justice workers.
More social work types include rehabilitation social workers, public health social workers, military & veterans social workers, and palliative & hospice social workers.
There are others like political, social workers, occupational social workers, and mental health social workers.
Additional areas of social work include international social workers, medical social workers, environmental, social workers, and gerontological social workers.
Substance abuse social workers, school social workers, youth social workers, and trauma social workers are more types.
i. Child and Family Social Workers
Social workers specialized in child and family matters help children and families improve social and psychological social functioning.
Here, parents get vital assistance in helping their kids reach their full academic potential. Overall, the family is better for it as the well-being of young members is prioritized.
ii. Public Policy Advocates or Planners
Are you drawn toward policy advocacy? If so, you might want to go for this type of social work. This involves inspiring decision-makers on critical public policy issues relevant to society.
Examples include education, at-risk youth, disability, community security, welfare, prison reform, etc.
iii. Community Social Workers
Community social workers are primarily involved with communities as they help set up systems within communities that offer critical help.
You’ll find community social workers promoting community health and wellness.
These professionals work with grant writers, non-profit organizations, and other community organizers.
iv. Disability Social Workers
As the name suggests, disability social workers primarily involve people with varying disabilities. Such disabilities may be mental or physical.
They help clients better understand their challenges while providing guidance and support to help them cope.
v. Criminal Justice Social Workers
Social workers are also involved in the field of criminal justice. Here, professionals interact frequently with victims, offenders as well as their families.
Inmates may be prepared for a smooth transition to a life outside of incarceration or one of incarceration. Criminal justice workers perform several other roles.
vi. Rehabilitation Social Workers
Rehabilitation social workers are another type that primarily focuses on providing recovery assistance to patients.
Specific examples include patient education, psychosocial assessments, dealing with changes caused by the patient’s condition, and provision of support services.
vii. Public Health Social Workers
As the name suggests, public health social workers mainly deal with public health issues.
These include identifying individuals or communities facing health issues as well as the provision of intervention services.
What more? Design and implementation of preventive plans to address public health issues are also included.
viii. Military & Veterans Social Workers
This social worker role may interest you if you’re interested in military and veterans affairs.
Here, social workers focus mainly on providing support services to servicemen, women, and their families.
Clients in the Veterans Administration system get access to counseling and case management services.
ix. Palliatives & Hospice Social Workers
Social workers specialized in palliatives & hospice services offer critical care for patients and their families.
Examples of services provided include counseling and psychotherapy, psychosocial assessments, patient education, crisis intervention, and a range of others vital to full patient recovery.
x. Political Social Workers
Political social workers are primarily engaged in issues promoting social change, significantly as it involves the political arena.
Here, political action is engaged in challenging inequalities and discrimination. Issues focused on include economic and social risk factors, racial justice, etc.
xi. Occupational Social Workers
Occupational social workers help organizations and employers boost productivity and efficiency. Part of the measures to achieve this is through the design of strategies to boost employee morale.
All kinds of resources are available to address issues of domestic violence, anger management, and employee substance abuse.
xii. Mental Health Social Workers
As a mental health social worker, you’ll primarily support persons diagnosed with mental health disorders.
Mental health social workers typically conduct risk and psychosocial assessments while implementing measures for crisis intervention, among others.
xiii. International Social Workers
For an international social worker, the focus is global. In other words, global issues are focused on through education counseling and additional related assistance.
Several areas are focused on, including natural disasters, gender inequality, child labor, poverty, war, etc.
xiv. Medical Social Workers
For medical social workers, job descriptions include coordination of patient care by identifying and addressing complex needs.
Also, the review of admission information to identify special needs is part of the responsibility of such professionals. Medical social workers also handle tasks like developing discharge plans, amongst others.
These are some of the common types of social workers available.
You may also want to look up others like alternate dispute resolution, social work administration and man,agement, program coordinator, social work intern, etc.