The social work field has a virtuous career path. This can be a good career option for those who want to bring change in people and the community, nation. In this profession, people see their growth and motivate the audience to bring change in society. You must have seen people who are mentally handicapped and who are begging. But you know how can you help them and how can you make changes in society. This career option will show you a different career opportunity. Here is the Career Trail For Social workers.
There are six common steps to becoming a social worker:-
- Complete a bachelor’s degree in social work or related field
- Pursue a master’s degree in social work.
- Complete fieldwork hour requirements.
- Apply for state social work licensure.
- Choose a social work career.
- Advance your practice through continued learning.
1. Complete a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work or Related Field
1. Bachelor of social work (BSW)- If you feel that social work is a great career option for you, then you can do a bachelor’s of social work in your undergraduate studies. Within, this course you will get to read about different types of classes.
Such as social behavior, practical in social work and introduction of social work, human behavior, and also, how to give information about an event to humans and society and how to change them.
One of the advantages of doing a bachelor’s in social work is that you get to know quickly how to do things in a shorter time.
2. Non-BSW (Bachelor of social work)- when you feel that social work is not a good career option while doing a bachelor’s, you can do your master’s in social work and choose it as your career option.
It is not new that students have done their graduation in different fields ( sociology,psychology, political science, human development, etc), and later they have done their master’s in social work.
2. Pursue a Master’s Degree in Social Work
To get a license as a social worker, you must master social work. You can find both online and offline programs in masters in social work. If you want to grow professionally within yourself, then for that you should experience the internship while doing a master’s.
There are 5 types of programs to master in social work
- Accredited MSW programs- In this program, it is not seen in which field you have done your bachelor’s and master’s within this program you are taught very well, you are given practical about social work so that in future you can make a good career in this field.
- Traditional standing program- If you have enrolled, This program for fulltime then it takes 2 years to complete. Students who didn’t get to do bachelor’s in social work, but they decide they want to masters in this, then they can apply in traditional standing program.
- Advanced standing program- Those students who have done their bachelor’s in social work , but they don’t have much time to do master’s .they can easily apply in advanced standing program because this program is only for short period of time.
- Online MSW program- A lot of students are comfortable doing online MSW program. Online course is suitable for students who live for away from the campus or those who are working it, and for them studying online is quite comfortable. It takes both time and energy to do a masters program, so it is very important that students look at each kind of program according to their suitability.
- On-campus MSW program- Students who pursue On campus program are also offer some online options because it contains the same accredited coursework that you can see in the online MSW program. On campus MSW program also gives us, plenty of internship offers in between by doing the on campus MSW program, you get to do a lot of different practices, you are able to understand your studies very well.
3. Complete Field Work Hour Requirement
Many times, the campus offers internships to students because they want to see how many students have learned and how much they have read inside the course. This is the time to observe and learn from social workers currently in the field. Students are given internships so that when the placements are done on campus later, they will give all their answers through confidence, and through their fieldwork experience, they can speak to the confidence.
- Traditional MSW placement hours- In this traditional MSW placement, first year students are given two days a week field placement is about 14-20 hours and second year students are given three days a week. The “field” will be a site currently employing social workers.
- Advanced MSW placement hours- advanced MSW placement will depending on the program. It is necessary to expected between 450-900 hours of field work required to fulfill your degree requirement.
4. Apply For State Social Work Licensure
Getting a license inside the social work field gives you one more step forward in this field. Not all social work fields require a license. If you get supervision under the licensed social worker and you get direct service to do all the work. This is one step closer to becoming licensed. Licensure requirements are varied by state.
There are two types of license social workers.
- Clinical social work licensure- this license is given to Those workers who provide clinical services in the society, often in the form of psychotherapy, also Licensure will permit social workers to have an independent private practice.
- Master social work licensure– this Licensure will not allow to permit you have a private practices. license is taken when you are not interested in clinically practicing in, rather you have to do treating patients in hospitals such as mental disorder, diagnostic.
5. Choose a Social Work Career
Four ways of work are described in this topic-
- Clinical social work- this focuses on the assessment, diagnose, treatment and prevention of mental illness, and is also centers emotional and other behavioral disturbance. They can treat any type of commodities such as individual, family, group etc.
- Macro social work- macro social work is a large field. Which focuses on the wide scale social problems. Macro social work centers the development in the society, so that positive changes are seen in the community on state as well as national levels.
- School social work- school social work is a school-based program in which the focus is specially on students and they also focus on their development. This service focus on the students who have difficulty in learning and experiencing emotional and behavioral difficulties in the school.
- Medical social work- medical social work is basically a medical based background (clinical, nursing facility, hospice.) Medical social worker helps patients and their family during psychological help.
6.Advanced Your Practice Through Continued Learning
There are many ways of continue education that social workers can pursue-
- Formally organized learning events- course, workshop, distance learning, and other education program comes under the accredited programs of social work education.
- Professional meeting or other organized learning experience, panel discussion, online/offline conference.
- Individual professional activities- journal books, training assessment and study, tutorial paper, writing or books.
