ROLES, TECHNIQUES AND

SKILLS OF SOCIAL
WORKERS APPLIED IN
WORKING WITH
INDIVIDUALS AND
FAMILIES

BY : KAREN C. GAYONAN
Roles of Social Workers
List Role
of  Advocate
s
 Counselor
 Mediator
 Researcher
 Educator
 Manager
 Case Manager
 Facilitator
 Community Change Agent
 Broker
 ADVOCATE
• In the advocate role, the
social worker fights for the
rights of those
disempowered by society
with the goal of empowering
the client. The social worker
speaks on behalf of clients
when others will not listen or
 COUNSELOR
• In the role of counselor, the social worker
helps clients express their needs, clarify
their problems, explore resolution strategies,
and applies intervention strategies to
develop and expand the capacities of clients
to deal with their problems more effectively.
A key function of this role is to empower
people by affirming their personal strengths
and their capabilities to deal with their
problems more effectively.
 MEDIATOR
• In the mediator role, the
social worker intervenes in
disputes between parties
to help them find
compromises, reconcile
differences, and reach
mutually satisfying
agreements. The mediator
takes a neutral stance
among the involved parties
 EDUCATOR
• In the Educator role, social
workers are involved in
teaching people about
resources and how to
develop particular skills such
as budgeting, the caring
discipline of children,
effective communication,
family planning and the
prevention violence.
 CASE MANAGER
• In the role of Case Manager, the
social worker locates services
and assists their clients to
access those services. Case
management is especially
important for complex
situations and for those who are
homeless or elderly, have
chronic physical or mental
health issues, are disabled,
 COMMUNITY CHANGE AGENT
• As a community change agent, the social
worker participates as part of a group or
organization seeking to improve or restructure
some aspect of community service provision. A
change agent, working with others, uses a
problem solving model to identify the problem,
solicit community input, and plan for change.
A community change agent acts in a
coordinated manner to achieve planned
change at multiple levels that helps to shift the
focus of institutional resources to meet
identified goals.
 FACILITATOR
• In this role, social workers
are involved in gathering
groups of people together
for a variety of purposes
including community
development, self advocacy,
political organization, and
policy change. Social
workers are involved as
group therapists and task
 BROKER
• In the role of broker, a social worker is
responsible for identifying, locating, and
linking clients to needed resources in a
timely manner. Once the clients needs are
assessed and potential services identified,
the broker assists the client in choosing the
most appropriate service option an assists in
negotiating the terms of service delivery. In
this role the social worker is also concerned
with the quality, quantity and accessibility of
services.
 MANAGER
• As managers, social
workers are better able to
influence policy change
and/or development, and
to advocate, on a larger
scale, for all
underprivileged people.
Skills of the Click icon to add picture

Social Work
Professional
 SOCIAL
PERCEPTIVENESS
 EMPATHY
• Empathy is the ability to identify with
or vicariously experience another
person’s situation. Empathizing is
both an intellectual and emotional
process that makes it far easier to
understand and help others solve their
problems. Most social workers are
empathetic by nature; in fact, empathy
is a major reason people enter the
profession.
 SELF-AWARENESS
• Social Workers routinely receive
feedback on their performance
from clients, supervisors and
other sources, but there is no
substitute for self-awareness.
Being able to evaluate one’s own
performance and work toward
improving it (while also taking
valid criticism and praise into
account) is an invaluable skill.
 BOUNDARY SETTING
• In addition to being empathetic, a social worker
must also maintain the capacity to set
boundaries and accept the limits of what can be
accomplished during a specified period of time.
The nature of the profession can be all
consuming, especially for those who sense their
work is never truly complete. Establishing
boundaries and setting milestone can help set
expectations that are more easily accepted.
 ACTIVE LISTENING
• The ability to listen carefully, ask pertinent
questions and retain verbally transmitted
information is vital to the counseling
aspect of social work. It’s how we
established trust, open doors and discover
valuable details about the individuals who
seek our help in understanding their
unique circumstances.
 SOCIAL PERCEPTIVENESS
• In addition to receiving and
processing verbal information,
a social worker must be
sensitive to body language,
social cues, implications and
cultural patterns of behavior.
While some clients may clearly
state their needs and work
 SOCIAL PERCEPTIVENESS
Cont’d
• Many others will find it more
challenging to express
themselves verbally, requiring a
perceptive social worker to
“read between the lines” in
order to interpret the thoughts
and feeling being held with.
 CRITICAL THINKING
• How a Social Worker interprets
data obtained not only through
observation, interviews, and case
file/ document review but also
clinical supervision, research, and
consultation influences the client’s
assessment, diagnosis, treatment,
evaluation and termination.
 CRITICAL THINKING
Cont’d
• Critical thinking asks the social
worker to consider how his
motivations, assumptions,
expectations and biases (self-
awareness) shape the lens through
which he analyzes and draws
conclusions from the available data.
 WRITTEN
COMMUNICATION
• “If it isn’t documented, it never
happened” is one of the first lessons
learned in almost any social work
employment, particularly if programs
are accountable to public or private
funders. Micro-level practitioners
gain legitimacy with their supervisors
and colleagues by writing clear and
concise progress notes,
correspondence and reports.
 VERBAL COMMUNICATION
• Verbal Communication involves actively
listening to understand and speaking to
be understood by your audience. As a
result, a social worker may alter her
communication style multiple times
during a single workday to maximize her
effectiveness with clients, colleagues,
supervisors or community members.
 ORGANIZATION
• Social workers are often required to deal
with busy schedules, heavy caseloads and
gratuitous paperwork. Successfully
managing and prioritizing the logistical
aspects of the job can help you maximize
the amount of time you’ll have on your
schedule to provide meaningful services to
your clients.
 COORDINATION
• The ability to coordinate
communication and action among
multiple parties is a vital part of a
social worker’s role in connecting
clients with services.
 PERSUASION
• Whether it’s to help client change behavior,
motivate a healthcare worker to provide
service or justify to coverage of expenses to
an insurance provider, the ability to
influence, coax or invite others to take
action is invaluable to any social worker.
 COOPERATION
• Just as often as gentle persuasion might
solve a problem, active cooperation can
provide an alternative (and sometimes more
efficient) route to a manually satisfying
solution. Being able to negotiate,
compromise and work well with others is
essential to the coordination of efforts
 RELAXATION AND DE-
COMPRESSION
• Social work is a deeply rewarding profession, but
it can also be an incredibly stressful one. In order
to remain engaged and effective at work, it’s
imperative to take advantage of your personal
time by focusing on and tending to your own
needs. Leaving your work at the office and
enjoying yourself is as yourself is as important for
your own well-being as it for that of your clients.
 CONCLUSION
• The skills of the social work
professional are endless due
to the diversity of our society.
Social Worker are called to
fulfilled many roles which see
the Social Workers as a
generalist practitioner trying
to meet the need of all who
seeks their help.
 SOCIAL CASE WORK
TECHNIQUES
•SUPPORTIVE •COUNSELING
TECHNIQUE TECHNIQUES
S
 SUPPORTIVE TECHNIQUES
• Acceptance • Encouragement and
• Assurance Reassurance

• Facilitation of Expression • Emotional Support

of Feelings
• Accrediting and Building
of Self-Confidence
• Change of Physical
Environment
• Enhancing Information
and Knowledge
ACCEPTANCE
FACILITATION OF EXPRESSION
OF FEELINGS
ACCREDITING AND
BUILDING OF SELF-
CONFIDENCE
 ENCOURAGEMENT
AND REASSURANCE
.
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
CHANGE OF PYSICAL
ENVIRONMENT
ENHANCING INFORMATION
AND KNOWLEDGE
 Counseling TECHNIQUES
• Reflective • Clarification
Discussion
• Modeling
• Advice
• Motivation
REFLECTIVE DISCUSSION
MOTIVATION
MODELING
 WHY SOCIAL WORK?
• We wanted our life
work to be about
impact, social justice,
helping others and
creating hope in a
world full of problems.
And Social Work is