The Role of Social Worker in Community Development

Abstract

Every members of the community desire to stay safe, healthy and healthy in all manners. To enjoy all amenities of the society one who need to have a vibrant economic status as well as excellent public services. Social services and social work have important role in helping the people to improve the quality of life by creating awareness and sustain the community by creating employment opportunities on their own effort. Present paper is an essential contribution to understand the role of social worker in community development (CD). Effective social work service promote independence and resilience, enabling some of our most vulnerable sections of the community. Present effort is to know the role of social worker in the process of community development.

Full text

International Science Community Association 61
International Research Journal of Social Sciences E-ISSN 2319–3565
Vol. 5(10), 61-63, October (2016) Int. Res. J. Social Sci.
Short Review Paper
The Role of Social Worker in Community Development
Dhavaleshwar C.U.
Dept. of Social Work Rani Channamma University PG Center, Vijayapur Karnataka State, India
chidanand.dhavaleshwar@yahoo.com
Available online at: www.isca.in, www.isca.me
Received 6th April 2016, revised 14th September 2016, accepted 30th September 2016
Abstract
All the community's individuals desire to stay safe, healthy and wealthy. To enjoy all amenities of society, one needs to
have a vibrant economic status and excellent public services. Social services and social workers have an important role in
helping people improve their quality of life by creating awareness and sustaining the community by creating employment
opportunities on their effort. The present paper is an essential contribution to understanding social workers' role in
community development (CD). Effective social work services promote independence and resilience, enabling some of our
most vulnerable community sections. The current effort is to know the role of social workers in community development.
Keywords: Society, Social work, Resilience, Vulnerable, Community development.
Introduction
Every individual in society aspire to live a healthy, tolerant,
profession, a Social worker can provide psychological
counselling, guidance and assistance in the form of helping
people to help themselves.
Safe, inclusive and fair life. Social work
essential contribution to achieving services that have
that goal. Social Social Worker: A social worker is a professional who works
work education has many challenges, but with the effort of
educators, field practitioners, and social work trainees are
turning towards meeting local needs and adopting local
techniques to resolve issues of an individual, the group, and the
community by adopting Community development skills.
Community development is the core component of social work.
It concentrates on increasing the literacy rate, creating and
generating employment opportunities, poverty eradication, and
eradicating acute hungriness, gender equality and welfare of the
vulnerable sections of the society by adopting social work
methods. Social workers have a vital role in understanding the
people's heritage to help them manage their daily lives with
respect and dignity.
Community Development: "Community Development is a
process designed to create conditions of economic and social
progress for the whole community with its active participation
and fullest possible reliance upon the community's initiative.1"
Methodology
Explorative research methodology has been used to explore the
social work as well as to understand and inculcate the role of a social work community development in changing the
Professional skills of western practice of social work profession.
Social workers with the knowledge of both literature and
practice can immensely contribute to community development.
Objectives of the Study: i. To understand community
development as a core component of the social work
lifestyle scenario in Indian society. The paper is designed with
secondary sources, academic articles, online journals, expert's
expressions, and self-observations to comprehend and analyse
the new wave of social/ public service buffeting the lifestyle of
the weaker sections, down-trodden orphans, in India.
Practice. ii. To examine the Roles of
community Development.
Conceptual Framework
social worker in Social Work - As a Profession and Community
Development
The social work profession is broader than most disciplines
concerning the range and types of problems addressed with the
Social Work: Social work is an organised professional to
extend the helping hands to an individual, group, and
community, for their betterment and sustain them to help
themselves by adopting various professional strategies.
Disadvantaged sections of the society like weaker sections,
down-trodden,
settings in which the work takes place, the levels of practice,
interventions used, and populations served. Social workers may
be engaged in various occupations, including hospitals, schools,
clinics, police departments, public agencies, court systems, and
private practices or businesses. The practice of social
orphans' labours are considered to be needy of the work requires knowledge of human development and behaviour,

International Research Journal of Social Sciences E-ISSN 2319–3565
Vol. 5(10), 61-63, October (2016)
Int. Res. J. Social Sci.
International Science Community Association 62
of social, economic and cultural institutions, and the interaction
of all these factors. The main tasks of professional social
workers can include a variety of services such as; case
management (linking clients with agencies and programs that
will meet their psychosocial needs), counselling
(psychotherapy), human services management, social welfare
policy analysis, policy and practice development, community
organising, international, social and community development,
advocacy, teaching (in schools of social work), and social
research.
Social development is the holistic approach, whereas
community development is restricted to geographical areas like
Tribal, Rural, and Urban communities. It concentrates on
various sections of the society and target groups like
Marginalised Sections, Religious groups and issue-based
activities. Community development adopts various techniques
of social work to work with individual groups and communities.
Community organisation is one of the essential methods of
social work. It helps consistently understand community needs
and find the resources to fulfil their needs. The prime purpose of
social work towards the community is to empower various
sections of society by all means.
Role of Social Worker in Community
Development
Social work is a dynamic profession; the longitude and latitude
of the profession are vastly widened. The direct roles of social
workers begin with practising primary social work methods.
Primary methods are the participatory method with the
individual, group and community. Secondary methods are both
participatory and non-participatory to benefit society at large.
Therefore, the social worker's role is widened to better
individual, group, and community2. Social workers may play all
of these roles in different contexts and at different times in their
career; the roles are as follows:
The caseworker looks after the individual's issues to help every
problematic person holistically. Casework is about addressing
every individual's issues, who seek help from caseworkers and
solve them professionally.
Group Worker: he looks after the treatment and fulfilling the
psychosocial needs of the problematic groups of the community.
Constitutes Teams, Committees and invite delegates to fulfil
group members' psychosocial needs. He tries to develop
leadership quality; increase group members' awareness on
various issues, and educate them for sustainable development.
Community Organiser: significant role of the social worker in
community development begins with organising community on
various social issues. Initially, it is all about (Murry G. Ross
1955) bringing out the match between societal needs or
objectives and resources available to deal with those needs.
Doing so
extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes
and practices in the community3. Further, community organisers
must concentrate on developing skills in the exciting profession
of the members and create political awareness. Thereby,
community members will be more strengthened and lead to
individual and community development.
Need Analyser: To fulfil the societal needs, scientific need
analysis must be undertaken, prioritising. Therefore, social
workers analyse the community's needs with the help of
community members and prioritise them. Various client groups,
NGOs s govt officials of the community take an active part in
the process of need analysis and ideas of members to be
incorporated with the proposals of needs of the community.
Project manager: Professional social workers always lead a
project or Programme sanctioned for community benefit. Social
workers have a vital role in analysing, implementing, and
managing the project. They are trained in preparing and
administrating projects, and they know every pulse of the
individual, group and community. Active participation with the
various communities' various groups can contribute
exceptionally well to community development.
Facilitator: Social workers facilitate the various benefits
provided by the govt, NGOs, international agencies like WHO,
UNICEF, WTO, UNO to the poor, socially excluded,
disadvantaged or disempowered individuals and groups and
marginalised sections of the society.
Middle manager: who help the community members to take
the services from the government; especially he is a middle
manager in arranging social security programmes, general
insurances and health insurances provided to the various
beneficiary of the society. He is the actual middle manager
between employer and employee in collective bargaining and
gets sanctions with the various benefits from an employer in the
view of labour welfare.
Counsellor: every individual of the society has a unique
character in nature, therefor individualising the people and
fulfilling their needs is the most significant task before social
workers. Meaningful and scientific interaction between social
workers and every individual of society is expected in the
preview of counselling, which is the only solution to address the
issues of community members and individuals whose behaviour
is problematic. Such effort helps to improve tolerance among
all, and it leads to community development.
Role in Grama Sabha: Grama sabha is another means of
people participation and community development. (CUD 2014)
83.55% of the respondents are aware of rural development
schemes such as; NREGP, GANGA KALYAN YOJANA, and
ASHRAYA YOJANA, higher level of education, good
economic background and interest of people appear to be the
causes of their high level of awareness4. Therefore social
workers must take active participation in Grama Sabha and be
aware

International Research Journal of Social Sciences E-ISSN 2319–3565
Vol. 5(10), 61-63, October (2016)
Int. Res. J. Social Sci.
International Science Community Association 63
community members about facilities made for individuals and
the community. (Dhavaleshwar C U, B. C. C. 2012) An
excellent aspect of the panchayat raj institution is that it has
made provision for reservations for women in panchayat it leads
to another face of development5.
Researcher: social worker takes the scientific investigation of
social and individual issues. Every community (Tribal, Rural,
Urban) has its issues, which are significant obstacles to
development. A scientific and emotional investigation by the
social worker may help every individual groups community, and
forecasted community development may make it possible.
Conclusion
Social work education and profession have greater
responsibility in community development. Hand by hand,
support of education and field practice can contribute to the
welfare of the various sections of society. Therefore, there is a
need for well-qualified, practice-oriented, committed social
workers to improve community members' socioeconomic status
and quality of life.
References
1.
PEER NTBC (2016). What is community development?.
Peer NetBC http://www.peernetbc.com/what-is-community
-development 13.8.2016-3.33pm.
2.
Dhavaleshwar C.U. and Umesh T. (2012). Socioeconomic
Status of Prostitutes and Intervention of Social
work." Thematics Journal of Social Sciences, 1(4), 102-
105.
3.
Talwar Upamesh k. (2013). Community organisation as a
Method of Social Work.
http://www.grin.com/en/e-
book/212517/community-organization-as-a-method-of-
social-work 13.9.2016-3.33pm.
4.
CUD. (2014). People's Participation in Gram Sabha and
Rural Development A Study. International Journal of
Research in Commerce and Management, 5(1), 44-46.
5.
Dhavaleshwar C.U. and BCC (2012). Women's
participation in Panchayat raj institution of Belgaum district
in Karnataka state.' Political Empowerment of Women in
India-Challenges and Strategies', 1, 10.