CONCEPTS AND DEFINITION OF SOCIAL CASE WORK

CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL CASE WORK

The social case worker is oriented towards the principle of social justice. Social justice provides everyone equal right to prowess. Therefore, social case work does not believe on the survival of the fittest. In other words, social case work is based on the assumption of human welfare. It provides help to every needy and disabled person. Its ultimate aim is to establish harmonious relationship between the client and the society to which he belongs.

Thus in the social case work individual client is treated as a total unit. Internal and external forces are motivated in such a manner so that he may solve his problems. Social case work covers the individual aspect of assistance as such; the method adopted in it is purely psychological. But side by, social worker has also to understand the various aspects of human behavior. He must establish workable combination between the available social services and the psychological understanding. Therefore, as a method, social case work gives much emphasis on environmental reorganization and thereby attempt to bring about a change on clients attitude and behavior. Social case work does not make a person entirely free from his disabilities through social assistance. Besides, in certain favorable circumstances social case work makes prevention and treatment of pathological problems.

Social case work, as taught and practiced today, is understood as an approach to help individuals but not at random. As a method of social work profession, it seeks to help individuals in a systematic way based on knowledge of human behavior and various tested approaches. 

Every individual, child or adult, in order to grow and develop, has various needs (psychological, physical and social) to fulfill. In this task, he has to interact with different types of people and face different environmental conditions. Very often, the individual fails in his attempts fully or partially and sometimes, he has to face non-helpful reactions of the people around him.

Lack of resources, non-fulfillment of needs, unpleasant social reactions and unfavorable physical conditions make human development and functioning (i.e., adaptation) difficult and sometimes impossible. An individual, under these stressful conditions, seeks help, sometimes from the near and dear ones (like parents, siblings, friends, etc.) and sometimes from the professionals (priests, teachers, lawyers, doctors, social workers, etc.) Every professional’s help has two components: one, his professional skills and knowledge, and the other are his personal characteristics and experiences of life.

These two components set the way the professional helper will move to help the needy individual to meet his needs or solve his problems to live a full life. What aspects of life will be aided by whom will depend upon the professional expertise of the person in the helping role. 

Social case work enables an individual to obtain a higher level of social functioning through an interpersonal transaction or face-to-face or person-to-person encounter. The caseworker helps the client to act in order to achieve some personal/ social goals by utilizing the available resources in terms of strength of personality of the client, his social system or material provisions available in the community and/ or agency. Caseworker’s knowledge and expertise, and material resources are used (as tools) to inject strengths in the person to enable him to move more satisfyingly in the social situation he finds difficult to deal with.

Thus, we can say that

§  Social case work is the method of social work that offers help to individuals to overcome their psycho-social difficulties.

§  Case worker need to establish a good relationship with client and encourages him/her to communicate his/her problems.

§  The case worker studies his/her problems and its causes.

§  Caseworker helps Client in understanding the problem he/she is facing and helps him/her to identify the ways to overcome it.

§  Further client is enabled to choose a suitable course of action to overcome his/her problems.

§  Social case work is a primary method which assists individuals to adjust with his/her environment in a more satisfying way.

§  Social work has developed a method to help individuals with psycho- social problems, in order to enable them to cope more effectively with their problems and to have a better social adjustment with the environment.

(Note: These materials are copied from various sources to support social work students)