Universal Social Work

1. Explain why social work practice has universal objectives when working with clients?
Social work practice has universal objectives when working with clients because social workers need to see the issues in a bigger picture to come out with a complete assessment. As social workers deal with multicultural and multi-background clients, universal objectives can help the social workers to take into account all aspects that are contributed to the issues and to have a view that the clients are not the only cause of the problems. The social workers cannot see the issues from one point of view only. For instance are macro social workers. Macro social workers deal with issues by seeing the needs of society as a whole (Boudman, 2011). A holistic view …show more content…
People interact with their environment every day either with their families, colleagues or even a passerby. These interactions may benefit them and sometimes can cause problems to them. When clients’ are referred to the social workers, it is important to remember that the problems might be related to others around the clients. The environment stated here are not only people around them but also include the economic conditions and policies. According to Pardeck (1988), same environment will bring different inputs to different persons. As an example, we can clearly see that a very small amount of disabled people entering universities. This is not because they do not want to or they are not eligible enough. The environments in most universities actually become problems or hurdles for them as it is not user-friendly enough. The facilities such as elevator is not provided with Braille button or space in the toilet for disable people is not big enough are making this group of people feel uncomfortable and decided not to enter universities. Social workers need to see that it is not the people are the causes of the problems but the environment are. Appropriate interventions are needed so that the issues can be solved in the most right way according to the clients’ capabilities. …show more content…
The word well being could give different meaning to different people. According to Shah and Marks (as cited in Dodge et al., 2012), to promote a good life, government should ensure that citizens are happy, healthy, capable and engaged. In order to achieve that, social workers can help in fulfilling the necessities and expectations of the clients by channel them to the best way in solving their problems. To achieve the well being or quality of life, they must meet their needs. Beside of the basic needs, people must meet other necessities as according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which are self-actualization, esteem, belongingness, safety and physiological. As they lack of these needs, then the role of social workers are required to help them in solving their issues. As an example, a client came to see a social worker and ask for money assistance. Social workers need to ensure whether money assistance is the only aid that he need or he might lack of spiritual needs as well which resulted him to not have source of income. Social worker need to come out with interventions that help the clients to achieve both basic and spiritual needs. Therefore, it is important for the social worker to ensure that the clients’ need and expectations are fulfilled as the aim of social work is to enhance and