Community work in social work aims to empower and emancipate communities through collective action; the tools used are social structures and nearby resources.
What is community work in social work?
Community social work is where nonprofits and grassroots organisations employ professionals working in the field to raise funds, support individuals in need, and plan infrastructure.
Since they work with communities, building human relationships is vital and their given name is community social workers.
Why is community work in social work important?
A community might have many problems, and therefore there are many types of community social workers. People need to feel safe.
A community social worker can help improve the quality of life of people.
In addition, they can help educate and create awareness which can help improve the day-to-day living of people int he community.
What are the specialities in community social work?
Some social workers specialise in mental health or substance abuse, and others might work with families and children.
These professionals are usually classified as macro social workers because they work on issues on a larger scale.
How do you become a community social worker?
To become a community social worker, a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s degree is required, as well as a few years of experience.
It might take a few years to get a degree, but meanwhile, aspiring social workers can gain some experience through volunteer work or an internship.
It is vital to get involved and get experience before starting working as an official community social worker.
Doing volunteering work also shows your supervisor you care about the job regardless of a paycheck.
While some people might have a degree, they lack experience, and this can cause many problems.
If these people who, because of the lack of experience, aren’t supervised correctly, they might cause more harm than good.
Every community should have an assigned social worker checking in from time to time.
If a community is left without a social work team, many problems can arise and make some people’s life worse.
What is the role of community social workers?
Social workers are educated professionals who are as important as teachers, doctors, and many other professionals considered essential.
They fight social injustice because they see the invisible connections between people, and they also know that those connections can break, and when these bonds fail, that’s when a social worker comes in and tries to glue them back together.
They fight to make sure that the laws are fair, and everyone has the same rights.
The hardest part of being a social worker is not failing.
It’s leaving behind all those internalised prejudices taught to young children and carried out through to adulthood.
Failing is part of life, and a professional working with people who struggle every day knows that failure comes with opportunities.
The logical question now arises: can a social worker fail?
The answer is that if they didn’t fail, they wouldn’t be human.
Hard work and passion is required to be a social worker. In addition, dedication is the key to make a community closer and stronger.
Why should social workers be community builders?
- To promote equality and social justice.
- To ensure the vulnerable has a voice.
- To safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
- To protect the rights of the oppressed and the vulnerable in society.
- To improve the lives of people.
- To create awareness and sustain the community by signposting to useful resources such as employment opportunities.
- For the safety and overall wellbeing of the vulnerable in the community.
- To educate the public.
- To reduce or prevent stigmatisation and stereotypic values.
- To help communities overcome the barriers to necessary change.
- To improve and sustain community health.
Community social work quotes
“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals.” – Jean Vanier
“To build community requires a vigilant awareness of the work, we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.”
― Bell Hooks
“All too often we think of community in terms of being with folks like ourselves: the same class, same race, same ethnicity, same social standing and the like..I think we need to be wary: we need to work against the danger of evoking something that we don’t challenge ourselves to actually practice.”
― Bell Hooks
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
“Be transparent. Let’s build a community that allows hard questions and honest conversations so we can stir up transformation in one another.”
― Germany Kent
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa
“In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it. – Marianne Williamson
“The greater puzzle of universal wisdom and beauty that we have strived to honor through our work includes the profound legacies of world artistic and spiritual traditions, the innate integrity of human communities where people seek to live in social harmony, and that regenerative stream of life sustained upon the earth itself as it spins through the cosmos to the music of the spheres.”
― Luther E. Vann
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” – Herman Melville
“Projects become complex because we try to solve it alone. Use your working relationships to help you problem solve. Your solution may be as easy as asking your online community for help and direction.”
― Lisa Mininni
“It’s so important to have a genuine human regard for the people who work for you. To be a person of integrity, fight for people when they aren’t in the room, and do what you say you’re going to do.” – Ara Tucker
“If you want to be in optimum emotional health, realize that social isolation stands between you and it. Reach out to others. Join groups—to drum, meditate, sing, sew, read, whatever. Find communities—to garden, do service work, travel, whatever. We humans are social animals. Spontaneous happiness is incompatible with social isolation. Period.”
― Andrew Weil
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” – Coretta Scott King
“Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.” – Adelaide Hoodless
“That is the one thing that makes me a Democrat, I suppose – this idea that our communal values, our sense of mutual responsibility and social solidarity, should express themselves not just in the church or the mosque or the synagogue; not just on the blocks where we live, in the places where we work, or within our own families; but also through our government.”
― Barack Obama,
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller
“I’m currently working as a social worker in addictions counseling. I’m very happy to see such intimate sides of people and support them in their growth. I draw a sense of meaning out of being that close to life – all of its beauty and its ugliness. After all, my greatest aspiration is to make my community a better place to be in.”
― Heidi Priebe
“After staring at the poor in the eyes, my thoughts on how best to help people have dramatically changed.”
― Moutasem Algharati
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” _ Unknown
“You are the fire incarnate – keep burning – keep burning – keep burning for the people – keep burning for the community – keep burning for the society – keep burning for humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar
“You will never have a missional church without missional people who engage the lives of others where they live, where they work and where they play. In other words, every church member must see him- or herself as a missionary living out their missional calling in their neighborhood, through their vocation and in social settings (third places) within the local community.”
― Lance Ford
“Righteous people fulfill God’s commands and work for the wholeness and justice of their community.”
― Jessica Nicholas,
“People took ownership of the shalom and wholeness of their community; and, if something was wrong, they worked to right it, even if it wasn’t their fault.”
― Jessica Nicholas
“Let’s try to create a new habit of slow travel; let’s forfeit the social media selfies and work on creating true links of friendship, mutual aid, trust and discovery when we are guests in other people’s communities and homes.”
― Heather Marsh
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.” – George Bernard Shaw
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