Social Work Clientele and Audiences
Motivated by the principles of empowerment,
liberation, social justice, and human rights, social
workers render services to a wide array of
clientele in various settings.
Individuals
Individual clients cover a very wide range of clientele groups depending on
the field of practice. Individual clients may be children, youth, adults with
mental health problems, adults dealing with substance abuse, people with
physical disabilities, battered women, and the elderly.
In rendering services, the social work profession has a particular bias for
individuals who are poor, depressed, disadvantaged, oppressed, exploited,
marginalized and discriminated by virtue of age, status, race, gender, class,
and ethnicity.
Groups
Social works professionals work with primary groups, or groups
characterized by intimate, personal, and enduring relationships
among its members. Toseland and Rivas provided a refined
classification of treatment groups, as follows:
● Support groups assist members manage life stresses by strengthening
coping skills to more effectively adapt to future life events.
● Educational groups basically aims to help members gain an understanding
of one’s self and their society.
Groups
● Growth groups, also referred to as encounter groups, emphasize
self-development by providing members opportunities to enhance
their capacities and awareness of one’s self and make personal
changes.
● Therapy groups help members replace maladaptive behaviors,
deals with their personal problems.
Communities
Practitioners involved in community social work aim to identify and address
systemic issues that cause community dysfunction. Apart from individuals
and groups, social workers also provide services to communities. For social
work community efforts to succeed, there is a need for representation and
action from groups within community. This approach lies at the belief that
people working together have a greater capacity of improving their lives.
Social Work Practice
Settings
Social work practitioners work in various types of
practice settings. Du Bois and Miley (1996, 91)
identified two broad categories of social work settings:
Primary and Host setting. Primary settings chiefly
provide social services, that are directly related to the
mission of the organization. Hot settings, on the other
hand, provide social work services as adjuncts to the
goal of the organization.
Primary Settings
Morales and Sheafor (2002,110) identified three
primary settings where social workers can be
found:
Government sectors, voluntary sectors and
business sectors.
Government
In the Philippines, the government provides job
opportunities for social workers primarily through
DSWD. Social workers assigned at DSWD’s central
office are primarily fulfilling the role of system and
program developers, planners, advocates, and
researchers.
Social workers also work for local governments units,
either a City or Municipal Social Welfare and
Development Office. City and municipal social
welfare officers usually cater to clientele groups from
Private Sector
This “ corporate conscience” is referred to as
corporate social responsibility. To ensure that this goal
is fulfilled, companies hire social workers, who work
as researchers and system and program developers.
Example: Ayala Foundation, Inc.
“productive, creative, self-reliant, and proud to be
Filipinos”
Voluntary Sector
The voluntary sector includes civil society
organizations (CSO)-community groups, non-
governmental organizations (NGO’s), labor unions,
indigenous group, charitable institutions, faith based
organization, professional associations, and
foundation.
Expressing interests and values of their members
based on ethical, cultural, political, religious, or
philantrophic consideration. (World Bank, World
Vision)
Host Settings
Schools, courts, and hospitals are examples of
host or secondary setting. In these settings,
social work professionals work as members of
an interdisciplinary team.
Healthcare Settings
Social work practice in these setting have greatly
evolved since its beginning. The tasks of social
workers evolved to following tasks:
• plan for a patient’s transition to home or to
another level of care;
• provide specialized services, such as care for
people with serious illnesses or for elderly
• research and case management
Court Settings
Social work practitioners provide testimonies in
court hearings, predominantly in childcare or
family proceedings. They also conduct interviews,
gather and assess data, and cite recommendations
in social case reports for court use.
Answer the following
question.
1. Among the different social work practice
setting, which one do you prefer? Explain
your answer.
2. How do social work practitioners address the
needs of individuals, organizations, and
communities?
