With the modern world in the economic and social state that it is currently in, due in part to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, people across the length and breadth of this country and beyond are rethinking their professional, as well as their personal, life in a huge way.
If you are someone who is either currently between jobs and looking for a rewarding, exciting, and equally as challenging opportunity to move into, or else are getting bored and feel discontented within your current role, then you have definitely come to the right place.
There is a myriad of reasons why you would choose to start a lucrative and fulfilling career in social work, and here, for your information and, of course, reading pleasure, are the two most important and fulfilling benefits of becoming a professional and practicing social worker.
An Immense Feeling of Job Satisfaction
One of, if not the, most important and deep-seated reason to consider pursuing a professional career path in social work is simple; the incredibly high level of kin satisfaction that you will automatically and instantaneously be afforded.
The very nature abs indeed the purpose of social work is to talk, be professionally bound, and ultimately help people from all cultures, of all ages, and from a myriad of different lifestyles improve their quality of life.
Social workers in a wide variety of situations as well as locations, the latter including assisted living facilities, nursing care homes, orphanages, hospitals, schools, and even for governmental agencies and, on occasion, on behalf of the court.
Not only does a professional and practicing social worker work proverbially ‘all over’, but they also deal with an almost limitless list of different issues, problems, and situations including, but in no way limited to, the following:
. Racial discrimination
. Poverty
. Spousal abuse
. Child abuse
. Learning Problems
. Sexual discrimination
. Disabilities
. Terminal Illness
. Mental Illness
. Alcohol Abuse
. Addiction
. Phobias
. Grief and Loss
. Educational Problems
. Unemployment
. Physical Illness
. Divorce
A Way to Help Fight & Tackle Serious Social Challenges & Issues
Another overarching benefit of choosing to become a social worker and to dedicate your professional daily life to making a difference in people’s lives is that it gives you a platform to help tackle and fight serious social issues which, unsurprisingly, can present challenges to the social worker themselves.
Below are two of the most prominent challenges currently facing social workers today:
- A Lack of Public Understanding
When dealing with a client who is either unable or indeed feels unable to represent themselves and/or stand up for their rights, you will quickly realize that, unfortunately, and to the detriment of humanity’s progression, there is still substantial prejudice, discrimination, and judgment present in today’s society.
It is for this reason that another significant role of a professional social worker is to work to fight this stigma surrounding both social work itself and the issues related to emotional health and wellbeing by the initiation of campaigns and affiliations with governmental representatives.
- Feeling Exceedingly Emotionally Drained
However proficient you are at maintaining an emotional distance between you and the individual patient or even between entire families you are, if you are dealing with matters of extreme distress, grief, or other soul-destroying issues, then it can still have an extremely negative and even long-term effects on your own mental health.
Often, social workers who have been working with such a client for either a prolonged amount of time or else a particularly intense few weeks tend to take a week or more break from their clinical roles and temporarily opt for a more administrative role in social care.
Additionally, there are a multitude of causes and fights that make up the fundamental core values and ethical stances of a professional social worker, as discussed in detail below.
The Fight to Eliminate Social Isolation
Social isolation has always been a problem, both in this country and overseas, and one of the primary duties and ethical obligations of a professional social worker is the ensure that, as an end target, social isolation is entirely eradicated.
There has been a multitude of ways in which the effects and influences of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, for example, have negatively affected people’s emotional health and wellbeing levels. As a social worker, it would be your professional duty to ensure that the people in your jurisdiction at work have access to the same mental health treatment options as others who are perhaps more privileged.
Signs in someone who is displaying symptoms of social isolation, to one extreme or the other, include, but are not limited to, the following:
. Frequently canceling appointments, therapy sessions, or meetings with other professionals
. Regularly canceling meetings and social gatherings with friends and family
. Expressing feelings of dread and anxiety at even the mention of going out somewhere in public
. Feeling depressed and displaying symptoms of low mood
. Spending most of their day alone
. Keeping the lighting low in their home as well as the windows closed and the drapes shut too
The Fight to Use Technology ‘For Good’
Whether you like it, or indeed not, the modern world has been positively ambushed and taken over by computing and digital technologies, and where older people who did not grow up with computers, this can affect the way in which they are able to interact with the said modern world.
Additionally, the potential for digital technologies to have wholly positive influences and impacts on the individual members of society as well as the local communities and even towns and cities is essentially endless. Social workers strive to encourage those people and leaders in power to put into place measures to make such technologies be used to help people who otherwise do not have access to them.
The Fight Against Economic Hardship
There is a wide plethora of ways in which people who have a low or even job-existent income are in a much worse position when it comes to being able to successfully change their lifestyle and situation.
One of the biggest and, admittedly, most complex fights that social workers have is against this economic disparity between the rich and poor, techniques of which include encouraging the government to address how they look at taxes and wages.
The Fight to End Homelessness
According to a recent study conducted and published by the National Alliance to End Homeless, at the end of 2016, there were approximately 550,000 people living on the streets in the United States.
When discussing the disparage between both healthcare and opportunities in relation to salary and wages, it makes logical sense, of course, that homeless people have the worst of everything.
The Fight to Eliminate Family Violence
A recent in-depth study conducted and published by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence revealed that, in the United States alone, an average of a shocking twenty people every ten minutes are abused physically by their girlfriend, boyfriend, or marital spouse.
Family-focused social work sessions are conducted by the social worker, and, more often than not, a nurse or other medical professional as well works to talk through problems and issues in a controlled and safe space for both parties.
The Fight for New Social Responses
Professional social workers, as much as they are entirely focused on the individual people, or indeed families, who they are in charge of helping, are also involved with fighting for environmental issues and can be so knocked that sometimes these things take up more time than speaking to people when the situation requires of course.
Social workers who have either been working in the profession for many years or else those social workers who deliberately followed this career path so they could enact environmental changes often work together to create transformative individual and group social initiatives to inspire local communities to make a tangible and effective environmental difference.
The Fight to Revolutionize the Prison System
Just as the general levels of people being admitted or else admitting themselves to mental health treatment facilities is so high, so too is the hunger of men and women exponentially rising who are being sent to prison.
Another key responsibility of social workers is to come up with and present new and innovative ways of protecting the safety of the general public yet still work to reduce the number of people who are incarcerated each year.
The Fight to Close the Health Gap
Another issue that seems to have always been a problem, perhaps even far back to when medicine and treatments were just beginning to be developed and invented, is that of the health gap between the wealthy and privileged and the poor and underprivileged.Poverty, discrimination, and existing in dangerous and even unsanitary environments are all catalysts for disease and always possible proverbial roadblocks for those diseases and people being treated. Social workers aim to bridge this gap between the wealthy, or at least comfortably well off, and the poor and underprivileged with the overall aim of ensuring that every single person in the country has access to the proper health benefits they deserve.
