Working within the System as a Social Worker

The Basic Principles

Seven basic principles could be said to constitute the generally accepted standard of professional social work today. These are:

1.To allow people who seek help to make their own decisions once they have been helped to bear a stressful situation, so that they retain their self-respect and their sense of individuality.

2.To understand that the behaviour of an individual is not due to original sin or to perversity, but is explicable in terms of the individual in the course of his development.

3.To understand their own emotional involvement with the people who seek their help and to recognize the importance of their own feelings on their work.

4.To develop a scientific attitude towards their work and towards social questions, and to abandon moralistic judgments in the professional setting.

5.To be aware of the wider social aspects of individual problems and to assess whether there is some need for some change in the environment or within the individual.

6.To respect all confidence in regard to information obtained from people who seek their help

7.To help the community to develop a sense of responsibility for those who find it difficult to conform to the prevailing social norms.

Pick two of the above basic principles, and answer the question, and then answer, why does the profession of social work, line up with social democracy?