Micro and macro approaches in social work practice

Social Work

Comparing micro macro approaches

Social Work from Different Perspectives

In this paper, we will assess the roles and duties which a social worker can provide from an individual and through a community basis to any other individual or community. We will also examine the advantages and disadvantages in both of the work types and then prefer our chosen methodology supported by valid reasoning. Finally, we will list our current capabilities to carry out a community/administrative practice approach.

Individual/Micro basis

On an individual basis, social work can be performed by any person having a specific set of means needed to help any other person who is in need of any sort of aid. The means with which any person can rely on to help others can vary such as through financial assistance, skills, technical expertise and so on. There are many different fields which allow its practitioners to help others through social work; one of those fields is nursing. Let's focus on it in some detail.

The field of nursing is related to medical practice; it involves a trained personnel who offers its services to those who are sick or suffering from any sort of physical or mental problems. The field of nursing is a vast topic and the practitioners here are also of various types depending on their overall education in their field and on experience.

Nurses perform various sorts of social work besides their regular duties which bound them to a specific institution which they represent such as any hospital. Nurses often perform health related checkups for those who cannot afford the expensive medication or treatment facilities, these treatments are extremely valuable in many different parts of the world where war, famine or any other calamities arise.

The practitioner of the field of Nursing is required to be extremely calm under any emergency situation, always mentally and physically prepared for any emergency and it should also be able to help more than one person at a time. These are only some of the qualities which can make a nurse an extremely valuable social worker who tends to help humanity regardless of any return favor.

Besides through field of nursing, any person can contribute to the social work through financial means such as donating money to a charity, feeding the hungry and providing shelter to the needy people of society or just to help others in starting any business or job which can benefit the needy person and its family in the short as well as the long-term.

Let's focus on some of the advantages and disadvantages of performing charity on an individual basis.

Advantages

When a person chooses to perform a social work on an individual basis it does not rely on anyone else's assistance. This greatly benefits the person in doing what it wants to do and how it wants to do it. Any person can get involved in social working depending on its expertise and desire to help others. The goodwill it earns by doing the social work is also a huge benefit which it earns from the practice and this encourages others to do the same since it is tougher to perform any social work alone rather than through any organization or charity.

Similarly, an individual social worker is its own boss and does not rely on any foundation for support. It also makes the worker free to perform its services in the manner which it desires i.e. It is not bounded by any restrictions, stipulations or conditions of its employer.

Disadvantages

A single person is often not capable of doing social work at a huge level, i.e. any nurse might help any sick or disabled person for a time being but it may not help hundreds of others who are out of its reach in different other places where the nurse can't afford to go to.

Advantages

Through a community basis, it is also relatively easy to perform any kind of social work. There are many different charities which tend to provide help, their social working tasks include helping children, women or poor people who cannot afford to live on their own. Through the macro level, any firm or institute can collect a large amount of capital which simply can not be attained through individual efforts. Therefore the quality of social work provided and the amount of people whom the social services are provided to is also great.

Social work performed at macro level also has the advantage of documentation of events, here any person is liable for its actions as to where it served, the duration of its service as well as the type of duty it performed. This is extremely useful when a specific person intends to transfer its expertise regarding social work from one place to another and is often dependent on its experience as well as any certificate of recommendation from the institution where it served.

Social workers in a community setting also tend to learn more through experience as compared to workers who perform individually since gatherings allow a huge amount of personal expertise to be shared among many individuals. This can greatly result in the overall experience being improved by sharing ideas and past cases among fellow workers.

Disadvantage

A disadvantage of performing social work in community settings is that any single worker may have to abide by the rules and regulations regarding the institution through which it is serving others thus greatly reducing its chances of fulfilling its other services according to its utmost capabilities.

Our preference

As an individual worker, we should rather prefer to deliver our social services under any community settings rather than performing at individual level if we want to remain dedicated to the field. Since most of the new workers are inexperienced therefore it is a very interesting prospect for all to work in an environment which supports building healthy community relationships as well as providing help to those in need.

Under any community settings we can also make ourselves better in doing many tasks such as working in a team, identifying our strengths as well as weaknesses, developing the ability to work under extreme conditions and so on. Therefore it is these reasons that we would choose to work through an institution to perform social work.

Current capabilities

Our current capabilities regarding the social work depend on many factors such as education, line of service, experience, physical and mental abilities and so on. We should also focus on developing key characteristics which are considered to be ideal for any social worker such as good behavior, patience and the ability to perform our tasks under a specific time.

Here it should also be noted that not every person is liable to perform social work through monetary ways and a lot of people prefer to work for a charitable cause rather than to invest in it. It is therefore advised for all of the newly recruited social workers in any institution to focus extremely on developing educational skills which can then be transferred to other workers as well. Finally, it is very important for any social worker to look at great examples in history which have served humanity as whole without any greed and make self comparison with them.