Professionalism In Social Work Essay

Professionalism has meant that social workers have a foundation for what the goals of the profession are, a code of ethics that all social workers must uphold, and a certain education that is required to call one’s self a social worker. There are various advantages and disadvantages when it comes to the professionalism of social work. On one hand, professionalism allows social workers to identify under the same canopy of ethics and values. However, on the other hand, professionalism can lead to a sort of suffocation of social work; social workers do much more than simply work with clientele and deal with individual issues, rather, social work has covered a broad scope of work from its very conception. For example, one could look at Jane Addams, who started settlement houses to assist immigrants in Chicago, in comparison to Frances Perkins, who was the Secretary of Labor in President Roosevelt's cabinet, both are social workers and yet their jobs entail very different things by nature. The downfall of professionalism is that it sets out to define exactly what a social worker is, and yet a social worker could be a variety of different things.
It had never crossed my mind that Social Security, as well as various other benefits available to us, are a result of Social Workers. Without the strives made by those in the social work profession in the past, my uncle would not be able to get paid due to his disability; however, because of the history of social work, the fact that my uncle cannot walk does not hinder his right to be able to take care of himself and his