Social Worker's Responsibilities

The primary mission of the social workers is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic needs of all people, with a particular focus on the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.  Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living. 

Social workers promote social justice and social change with, and on behalf of, clients "Clients" is used inclusively to refer to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.  Social workers are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice.  Social workers also seek to promote the responsiveness of organizations, communities, and other social institutions to individual's needs and social problems.

The mission of the social work profession is a set of core values.  These values are the foundation of social work's unique purpose and perspective:

• service
• integrity
• human relationships
• dignity and worth of a person
• social justice
• competence

Social workers utilize these core values to evaluate a potentially negative social problem.  A detailed set of values, principles and standards which help guide a social worker to an appropriate response to an ethical issue can be found in the social worker's code of ethics.  Please review the documents found at this website: www.naswdc.org