What Do Social Workers Do?

Many problems that exist in today's complex society have more than one root cause. The conditions that accompany social and economic problems need to be addressed through direct counseling, referral to other services, advocacy and policy development.

In practice, social workers gather information, assess situations, define issues, develop plans action, implement plans and evaluate results. Today's social workers must be professionally educated and prepared to perform a variety of tasks with such diverse populations as:

  • infants and their parents
  • children
  • adolescents
  • families
  • the elderly
  • students
  • couples
  • the learning disabled
  • the physically and developmentally challenged
  • industry, business and labor organizations
  • the physically and mentally ill
  • ethnic groups, immigrants and refugees, and
  • urban and rural communities.

Social workers advocate and mobilize for social change so that society is more responsive to people's changing needs and more focused on social and economic justice.