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Back to Subjects - Social Issues

social welfare

social welfare …Brittany walks into her room and slumps on her bed. Although she knows tears should be running down her cheeks, her face is dry. She clutches the envelope that she received in the mail today with the results of her blood test. She just found out she is HIV positive four weeks after she was hit with the news that she was pregnant. If her brother was here, he could help, but he died in a car accident four months ago. “What am I going to do? What are my parents going to say? Who is the father of this baby?” Without a job or high school education she feels like she has not hope. She is trapped. “Maybe I should just end it all right now. This is too much for me…” There are people in our society that have committed their lives to helping people help themselves. Emerging as a profession in the early twentieth century, social work has become a vital component in society. The main goal of all social workers, no matter their area of expertise, is aimed at enriching and enhancing an individual’s or a community’s social or economic condition. Social workers interact with people and attempt to enhance the quality of life that people in a community live. They help people find the resources they need to help them out with problems they might have on a physical, emotional, or mental level. Social workers are special people. They spend their lives assisting others in their life crises no matter how large or small someone else might perceive them to be. The have unique qualities that are a prerequisite to be successful at the job and at relating with the people who come to you for help. Personal qualities make a significant difference in one’s ability to interact with others on a social and professional level. Social work professionals are warm, personable, and compassionate. They make a person feel like they are relating to someone who understands where they are coming from. The client is made to feel equal to the social work professional rather than inferior. Probably one of the most important qualities that they possess is their ability to appreciate one’s inner worth. There are always potential and positive qualities in a person no matter their present situation. A social work professional knows how to bring out those positive qualities and work with their potential. The social workers have four main goals to accomplish when working with people. These goals are the skeletal structure of how they will deal with each individual case. The specific problem that a person has is the meat for those bones. The first goal is to enhance people’s capacities to resolve problems, cope, and function effectively. To meet this goal, the social worker must know and understand the specific problem. They also establish with the client the resources that they have within themselves to try to improve on this problem. The might also have some additional solutions for the problem, for instance, outside counseling. The second goal would be to link clients to outside resources. The social worker is looked at as a professional “helper.” They are there to give the people places to go so that the person’s goals can be met. Whether it is an Alcoholics Anonymous session or an unemployment agency, these are all outside resources that a social worker can direct a person to. The next goal is to improve the social service delivery network. This means that all social workers must work together to insure quality service and compassion for all clients that come for help. Advocate planning that focuses on clients does this. The last goal of the social services community is to promote social justice through the development of social policy. The social workers will make suggestions for new policies that will improve the system or the community based on their experiences in the area that they work in. In seeing a wide rang of people a social worker can develop some generalizations that can be very helpful in solving problems that are wide spread in a community. The social work profession has been evolving for many years. It has its roots in the Judio-Christian religion. They believed that we are all God’s children and deserve to live a life that is decent. In 1877 a man named S. Humphreys Gurteen established the first Charity Organization Society. Administrating social services through private charities formed the first charity organizations. This is where “friendly visitors” were first started, who later became the social workers of today. They would meet with the applicants of the social services and people already receiving social services to make sure there was a definite need. In the late nineteenth century, the settlement house movement began. Activist for this movement were concerned at how some people lived and thought that it was up to the community proved for its citizens. The people who ran the settlement house lived among the poor and were called “settlers”. They would provide the people with good role models and help them get on their feet. They would also provide outside resources for these people. Social workers have to follow a code of ethics when on the job to ensure the quality service of all requiring their help. The code of ethics guides decision making, assessing competence, regulating behavior, and provide and standard by which to evaluate the profession. If the code is not followed, it puts the client in jeopardy, as well as the social worker. The client might not get the adequate help that the need while the social worker may lose his/her job or even their license. The Code of Ethics is at the core of the social work profession. People who are involved in this profession have an obligation to abide by these ethical principles, values, and standards. This ensures that each client receives the best possible service available. There are six purposes that the code serves. It identifies values at the core of the profession that the basic mission of social work is based on. The code also summarizes broad ethical values that are used to guide the social work practice as a whole. Sometimes situations arise that social workers have conflicts within themselves on how to deal with them. The Code of Ethics tries to put into perspective the ways in which delicate and, at times, confusing situations can be handled. It provides standards, which the public can hold the social work profession accountable when certain ethical issues arise. Finally, it serves as a way for the social work profession to keep up with its professionals and determine when unethical conduct has occurred. Social workers’ primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems. Social workers should also challenge social injustices that arise in society. The inherent dignity and worth of a person is also respected and recognized by social work professionals. Relationships with other people are important for people to have in order to move down the road of change more smoothly. Social workers almost behave in a trustworthy manner in order to establish a trusting relationship with their clients and uphold on of the basic principles called confidentiality. The last ethical principle that needs to be followed by all social workers is of competence. They need to practice the social work within their area of competence and continually educate themselves to maintain and enhance their competence. One agency that was started to help people out and provide awareness is Project Lifebeat. This is a program that is based in Manhattan. They use peers to provide information about sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, HIV, and safe sex to teenagers and young adults. LIFEbeat’s mission statement: LIFEbeat’s ultimate goals are both to prevent the transmission of HIV and help people living with HIV and AIDS. Through our education programs, we hope for zero cases of HIV transmission. Until there is a cure, the board, staff, and volunteers share a vision that, through LIFEbeat grants, all people living with HIV or AIDS can receive the necessary services from their respective community organizations. LIFEbeat is a non-profit organization that is centered in Manhattan. They have many volunteers ranging from all ages, mostly teenagers and young adults that help send out the messages and carry out the mission statement. There are concerts that are going on through out the city ranging from artists such as Sarah Mac Lachlan and Busta Rhymes. These artists give money to the organization to have condoms and literature about STDS and AIDS distributed before their concert. This is a great way to get young adults and teenagers to be more aware of the sexually transmitted diseases that are out there affecting people everyday. The volunteers of this organization devote their time and energy to promote awareness. Their services are greatly appreciated. So much so, that all of the artists that provide funding for the organization invite the volunteers working their concert to join the party and watch the performance free of charge. Using music idols to get across to people is a genius idea. Artists are looked up to and have a certain amount of clout that others cannot seem to grasp. Many people are also embarrassed to ask questions about STDs or about AIDS. TO talk to someone you may never see again or to anonymously grab a pamphlet off of a table and read it in your own spare time is an effective way to provide awareness to people that would otherwise be hard to reach. Sometimes the volunteers do not know all that answers to questions that are presented to them. In these cases, they will provide numbers of hotlines that can be called to insure that the person seeking the information receives the proper and accurate answers to the questions that they need answered. Some of the hotlines that are provided by the organization are as follows: National Hearing Impaired AIDS Hotline Bibliography:

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