Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | страница 118

Practice Issues
all the various elements in the environment interact with one another to
facilitate or hinder the individual’s ability to develop to his or her potential.
The ability to conceptualize societal issues and challenges from a systems
perspective helps to provide insights into everyone’s stake in creating
solutions. The systems perspective helps social workers and policy makers
understand social problems not as isolated issues, but within a constantly
interactive environment of problems, solutions, and other factors.

Social work concepts, values, beliefs
So what is it about social work education and training that make social
workers ready for policy practice and to contribute decisively to policy work?
Social workers apply generalist social work perspectives (concepts, values
and beliefs) and skills to influence changes in law, rules, resource allocation
through working with policy, and resource owners. Social work practice
is guided by the values that the profession holds such as service, social
justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships,
integrity, and competence.

Social Work Skills
Social workers also apply the skills of engagement, assessment, problem
solving and negotiation, communication, goal setting, planning,
implementing, networking and collaboration, and monitoring progress
beyond individuals when influencing change in the larger social systems.
This includes laws and social conditions that will affect the lives of larger
numbers of families and individuals.
a) Assessment skills enable social workers to understand problems,
develop, analyse and propose workable solutions while taking into
account the circumstances and environment of the people involved.
As social workers are in direct work with clients and those affected by
policies, they are able to provide insights that can shape policies and
outcomes.
b) Engagement skills enable social workers to develop trusting relationships
with a wide variety of clients from many different backgrounds and
experiences. These same skills when applied to policy practice, foster
the development and nurturing of relationships with stakeholders in
policy settings. Building relationships across these different stakeholders
requires the ability to be open, honest, and respectful to all, while making
one’s social work perspective clear. As a participant in the process,
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