5 Key Term for Social Services
- Cultural Competency
- Empowerment-Oriented Practice
- Individuation
- Self-determination
- Vulnerable Populations
According to the BLS, social service specialists help coordinate therapy, rehabilitation, and numerous other social services for individuals and families. In addition to helping individuals identify and obtain benefits, a social service specialist may also develop, organize and conduct programs that will help prevent or resolve social issues. If you are considering a career in the social services field, here are 5 key terms you should know.
Cultural Competency
Cultural competency is the ability to employ various skills and values to acknowledge and respect the relationship between identity and culture. Cultural competency requires sensitivity to diverse beliefs, appearances, and behaviors. The ability to recognize and respect various cultures optimizes a social workers ability to positively interact with clients. Effective communication, especially active listening, is the key to cultural competency. It also requires awareness of individual biases to minimize discrepancies between professed beliefs and actions when working with individuals from other cultures.
Empowerment-Oriented Practice
Empowerment-oriented practice focuses on developing client strengths through education, self-help, consciousness raising, and mutual support. The goal of empowerment-oriented practice is to promote problem solving through successful transactions between individuals and their environments. In this practice clients are encouraged to reframe experiences to create personal narratives in which the client is able to overcome obstacles. Through this process of reframing, the client is able to envision an innate ability to survive and grow.
Individuation
Individuation is the psychological process of creating a unique identity that differentiates one person from another. Carl Jung believed self-realization was a primary goal, leading to the recognition of one’s life purpose. In Jungian psychology, it is this individuation that helps one discover the meaning of life. Individuation occurs in stages. In early childhood, children begin their lives in a state of fusion with their caregivers. In adolescence through early adulthood, children begin to differentiate themselves from their caregivers by making their own choices about friends, hobbies, careers, etc. Developing a healthy sense of self-identity is important to achieving goals and maintaining relationships. Without healthy individuation, an individual can suffer from interpersonal dependence, poor-decision making, depression, and anxiety.
Self-determination
Self-determination is a psychological theory that addresses motivation and personality. Self-determination is based on three psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and psychological relatedness. Competence is the need to control the outcome of events with a sense of mastery. Autonomy is the need to be the agent in one’s own life and acting in harmony with the integrated self. Psychological relatedness is the need to be interconnected with others. The theory proposes that if these needs are met, individuals will achieve optimal performance. Social work based on this theory, defers to the clients right to identify, define, and clarify their own goals.
Vulnerable Populations
Vulnerable groups are those groups that are at an increased risk of experiencing harm from social, environmental, or health problems due to a unique set of life conditions. This increased risk makes vulnerable groups more susceptible to disempowerment, social injustice, and low quality of life. The combination of poor skills, low incomes, bad health, family break down, and high crime environment leads to social exclusion. These vulnerable populations are the most common clientele of the social service practice.
Related Resource: Top 10 Affordable Master of Social Work Online (MSW) Degrees
Building a career as a Social Services Specialist can be a rewarding undertaking. As these five key terms indicate, it is a profession that focuses on empowering the disenfranchised, helping them build productive lives and secure futures.