The value of social work to the Maltese people

Abstract

Social work is concerned and involved with interactions between people and the institutions of society that affect the ability of the people to accomplish life tasks, realize aspirations and values, and alleviate distress. In order to link people with these institutions and services, social workers perform a variety of activities related to teaching, and supporting people, as well as helping them to help themselves through concerted group activities. Underlying these activities are some basic skills having to do with communication, relating to others, planning and executing helping efforts, and professional self-awareness and self-assessment. Social workers should also be involved in policy related activities in order to expand the scope, quality, and availability of services to help people. "It is to be noted that the function of social policy in general, and therefore of the social worker in particular, is to provide a modicum of mediation between a healthy and affluent society and the strains of social distress. For social policy, applied under whatever pretext and based on any of the available models, is by definition a byproduct of a new awareness of distress. It is based on a conscious appraisal that society is imperfect, unequal and full of stress points which need to be looked into rationally." The social worker is the one who is specifically charged by society to minimize the effects of nature's aberrations when they result in a physical or mental handicap, to offset the misplacement of opportunities that lead to relative deprivation and at times to crime or some other forms of deviance, to appease the effect of time on ageing members of the community and to smoothen the shock of bereavement.