Social Worker
Purpose Of Role
To provide Social Work and Care Management services to service users within a defined geographical area. To co-ordinate the assessment of needs of designated service users. To work with service users and their carers in accordance with agreed multi-agency processes and hospital discharge procedures. To ensure that care plans are produced and to arrange or commission the provision of services appropriate to meet the assessed needs.
Skills
* Empathy
Empathy is the ability to identify with a person’s situation. Empathizing is both an intellectual and emotional process that makes it far easier to understand and help others solve their problems. * Boundary Setting
In addition to being empathetic, a social worker must also maintain capacity to set boundaries and accept the limits of what can be accomplished during a specified period of time. The nature of this challenging profession can be all consuming. Establish boundaries and setting milestones can help set expectations that are more easily accepted. * Active Listening
The ability to listen carefully, ask pertinent questions and retain verbally transmitted information is vital to the counselling aspects of social work. * Social Perceptiveness
In addition to receiving and processing verbal information, a social worker must be sensitive to body language, social cues, implications and cultural patterns of behaviour. While some clients may clearly state their needs and work toward solutions in a focused manner, many others will find it more challenging to express themselves verbally, requiring a perceptive social worker to “read between the lines” in order to interpret the thoughts and feelings being held within
* Self-Awareness
Social workers routinely receive feedback on their performance from clients, supervisors and other sources. Being able to evaluate one’s own performance and work toward improving it.