Social Work and Human Relations

Social Work and Human Relations takes a fresh look at the profession of social work to arrive at a better understanding of its professional character, to increase its effectiveness in helping people. It highlights the inability of social work educators to come to terms with a lucid definition of social work, clearly demarcating the scope and role of social work. It argues that social workers have specific resources and capacities to intervene in the lives of people at different level to help them. The basic expertise of social workers consist of their understanding of human relationships and social and psychological environment that structure these. The strategies of dealing with these, particularly at community and societal level, are more complex in nature, and hence require greater persistence. These, therefore, should not be clubbed with dealing with face-to-face relationships in families and other smaller groups, where a more definite timeframe is possible for dealing with these. Both require very different knowledge inputs to provide effective professional expertise and skills for social work practitioners. The book addresses both the social work educators and practitioners to become more focused in what they chose to do in practice, by discussing individual and family problems on the one hand, and larger social issues requiring social action on the other.