Social Worker Overview

Gone are the days where only retired people or housewives would get involved in the day-to day workings of an NGO.You'll probably miss out on perks such as a fancy car, plush flat at Napeansea Road and prepaid air travels associated with management but you’ll have a million street children for company. If you are still with me, you probably are the samaj sevak kinds. So what's stopping you from turning it to a career? 

 

So now that you have decided to be one, let's find out what it's all about. As a social worker you'll work to prevent and alleviate social problems and address various social issues such as poverty, unemployment, public hygiene, malnutrition, physical, mental, and emotional handicaps, anti-social behaviour, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, old age, environmental pollution, deforestation, etc. Phew, now that's quite a heap of problems to deal with. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

 

As a social worker you won't be confined to a cubicle for an office. The whole world will be your office. Often you'll be on the field, working without a fixed schedule. Talking to people, learning about their problems, organising programmes to train and educate them, lobbying with the statutory authorities to get things done, sensitising public about social issues by organising seminars, symposiums, educational programmes, etc will be part and parcel of your daily life. 

 

You'll also be involved in the most important part of fund raising. To be able to do all this you'll either have to setup your own NGO or actually become what they term as a 'Social Entrepreneur'.

 

And now for some specialised areas for the budding social worker: 

 

Psychiatric Social Worker: It's for those who have a solution for every problem. The agony aunt kinds! Your area of work will be hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers, counselling centers treating people with psychological problems like family maladjustment, depression as the fallout of a broken home, antisocial behavior, addiction, abnormal sexuality, etc. You'll also work with mentally retarded people, handicapped persons, depressed college students, drug addicts and others.

 

Family & Child Welfare Worker: You'll specialise in solving family related problems, offer child guidance (yes birth control!), etc. 

 

Urban & Rural Community Development Worker: Here's your chance to work with national/international NGOs to crusade for development issues such as illiteracy, poverty, lack of drinking water, healthcare, land fertility, communication infrastructure, etc. That's not all. You'll also counsel male members about drinking, wife beating, environmental pollution, so on and so forth. Do we see another Shabana Azmi in the making? 

 

Criminology & Correctional Administration Worker: This is not for the chicken-hearted. You'll work in institutions like prisons, reformatories, remand homes; crime and delinquency prevention programmes, counselling and reforming adult and juvenile offenders and criminals.

 

Labour Welfare and Industrial Relations Worker: After all, there is still some hope left for the ones craving for an office set up. Thank the law that says it's mandatory under the purview of labour laws to employ social workers in industries and offices with a large work force. 

 

Your job would be to interact with these workers and counsel them on family and work related problems such as absenteeism, alcoholism, etc. This is critical in improving the productivity of the staff and maintaining cordial relations between the management and the labour force.

 

Gerontologists: This one's for someone with a softer side. Lend your strong shoulders to old and retired people who have nobody to look after them. You can drive their blues away by simply talking to them or better still running day care centers. 

 

Environmental Social Workers: If you like watching National Geographic more than Baywatch or MTV, prefer animals to kids, this one's for you. The career will help you get in touch with the real world around you. You will address various environmental issues like air pollution, deforestation, noise pollution, global warming, rehabilitation and so on. 

 

Rural Managers: You'll work in cooperatives, agro industry, NGO and also management streams like marketing, human resource development, finance, information systems, production, rural development, etc., depending on your area of specialisation. 

 

Here is a list of arts colleges

 

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