Personal Essay: The Role Of Social Work As A Profession

The Role of Social Work
Social work is one types of profession that helps people to fulfil their needs by applying professional and legal advice. It is a profession that mostly can be found in everywhere. For example, hospital social worker will be handle up the case in One Stop Crisis Centre (OSCC) which set up in almost every hospital in Malaysia. The objective of OSCC is to assist the survivor or victim from any forms of violence. Apart from that, the function of social work according to International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) and International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), 2000, explained that social work advances social change, empowerment, and advocate of human right. In other words, Social work profession addresses the marginalize people such as the poverty, disabled people, and other oppressed groups. For example, Sabah Child Welfare Association (SCWA) is to promote the welfare

Besides that, social work has it specific term too. For instances the term “client” or “service user” in social work which have the same meaning as the term “patient” in doctor profession. Usually, the clients or service users of social worker are the individuals, groups, community, and organizations. Social workers also involved in different areas such as medical social workers, school social workers, clinical social workers, international social workers, forensic social workers and social work-community organizer. Different areas of social worker serve different purposes but they aimed of the same thing that is, to help the clients to solve their problems and to enhance their ways of living. This paper focuses on three professional roles play by social workers. These professional roles have been practice by different writers such as (Anderson, 1981; Hernandez, Jorgensen, Judd, Gould, and Parsons, 1985). Generally, the three professional roles play by social workers are the advocate, mediator, and broker (refer to