Free Essay: How Social Workers Shape Policies and How They Identify Harmful Policies

Social workers are distinctively trained individuals in society that aid clients inflate the opportunity for change and evolution within themselves and in their various situations (Dulmus and Sowers 16). The phrase client here circumscribes families, individuals, organizations, communities, and groups. Social work is unique because of its professional ethics and values, embracing human diversity, comprehension the social welfare policy, and lastly firm foundation in the education sector.

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Social workers can contribute to shaping the policies in various ways. When social workers understand their power, they can make use of their discretion and expertise in a rightful manner to positively contribute to shaping policy. The social workers can avail of input to the people who are coming up with policies (Ferguson, and Lavalette 8). This will help in decision making. They can also shape the already existing policies because they provide services. Social workers are tactful to ethnic and cultural diversity and aim to bring to end discrimination, poverty, oppression, and other social injustice. The services they provide that can help shape the policies are community organizing, consultation, advocacy, and administration.

Social workers can also come up with policies in their practice environment where no policies exist. This enables people to increase their ability to deal with their own needs. They can also contribute to shaping policy by encouraging and advising clients to get involved in policy creation. This act ensures that the policies that will be made are fair and supportive. For social workers to identify and know the social policies that are detrimental to the community, they should comprehend and puzzle out the nature of the policies. Since the social workers provide services like consultation, administration, and organizing the community, they can easily know the social policies that are affecting the community negatively and hence correct them. Social workers seek to facilitate the receptiveness of communities and organizations and other social corporations to people's social problems and needs (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 14). If the policies that have been put in place to ensure receptiveness are not effective, hence the workers will know which policies are harmful. Social workers mostly perform direct practice to mediate the planned policies. Instructions to implement the policies are given out; hence the social worker can filter out the harmful social policies to the communities.

Works Cited

Dulmus, Catherine N., and Karen M. Sowers. The profession of social work: Guided by history, led by evidence. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

Ferguson, Iain, and Michael Lavalette. "Critical and radical social work: an introduction." Critical and Radical Social Work 1.1 (2013): 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986013X665938

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Communities in action: Pathways to health equity. National Academies Press, 2017.