Question

Before taking a macro level social work approach as an individual social worker to lower the rate of issues like child maltreatment, poverty, and age discrimination, how can we prepare ourselves to work toward this mission to get better outcome? Ask a question at the end to encourage more discussion for this topic.

Answer 1

One of the most important things to develop as a social worker to lower the rate of issues like child maltreatment, poverty, and age discrimination is by developing an open-mindedness towards people without stereotyping and prejudicing them for their disadvantage. This would mean that a social worker would have to work with people from various backgrounds such as, race, religion, ethnicity, culture, socio-economic background etc. Thus, it becomes very important that the social workers keep themselves open to experience and exposure. Secondly, building a wider network of people is really important because poverty, maltreatment and age discrimination cannot be eliminated by a single person because it requires both material and human resources. This would mean gathering information and connecting with people who are willing to contribute would be a better preparation. Finally, one needs to identify resource centers and counselling centers that would help people by counselling and strengthening them. Finally, one needs to equip oneself with cultural competency that would help one to work in a multicultural environment by understanding, appreciating and acknowledging the changes in people’s beliefs, values and practices.

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