Dr.

Boban Joseph
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Roles of Social
Group Worker
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Introduction

 In working with individuals, groups, families,

organizations, and communities, a social worker
is expected to be knowledgeable and skilful in
filling a variety of roles.
 The particular role selected should (ideally) be
determined by what will be most effective, given
the circumstances.
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Roles Assumed by Group Workers
Enabler

 In this role, a worker helps individuals or

groups to articulate their needs, clarify and
identify their problems, explore resolution
strategies, select and apply a strategy, and
develop their capacities to deal with problems
more effectively.
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Enabler role continued…

 This role model is perhaps the most frequently

used approach in counselling individuals, groups,
and families, and is used in community practice.
 Primarily when the objective is to help people
organize to help themselves.
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Broker

 A broker links individuals and groups who need

help (and do not know where to find it) with
community services.
 For example, a wife who is physically abused
by her husband might be referred to a shelter
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for battered women.

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Advocate
 The role of advocate has been borrowed from the law
profession.

 It is an active, directive role in which the social worker

represents a client or a citizens’ group.

 When a client or a citizens’ group needs help and existing

institutions are uninterested (or openly negative and
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hostile), the advocate’s role may be appropriate.

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Advocate
role continued…

 The advocate provides leadership in collecting information, arguing

the validity of the client’s need and request, and challenging the
institution’s decision not to provide services.

 The purpose is not to ridicule or censure a particular institution but to

modify or change one or more of its service policies. In this role, the
advocate is a partisan who is exclusively serving the interests of a
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client or a citizens’ group.

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Empowerer

 A key goal of social work practice is empowerment,

the process of helping individuals, families, groups,
organizations, and communities increase their
personal, interpersonal, socioeconomic, and political
strength and influence.
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Empowerer role continued….

 Social workers who engage in empowerment-focused

practice seek to develop the capacity of clients to
understand their environment, make choices, take
responsibility for those choices, and influence their
life situations through organization and advocacy.
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Empowerer role continued….

 Empowerment-focused social workers also seek a

more equitable distribution of resources and power
among different groups in society.

 This focus on equity and social justice has been a

hallmark of the social work profession, as practiced
by Jane Addams and other early settlement workers.
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Activist

 An activist seeks basic institutional change; often the

objective involves a shift in power and resources to a
disadvantaged group.

 An activist is concerned about social injustice,

inequity, and deprivation.
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Activist role Continued….

 Tactics involve conflict, confrontation, and negotiation.

Social action is concerned with changing the social
environment in order to better meet the recognized
needs of individuals.
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Activist role Continued….

 Activities of social action include fact-finding, analysis

of community needs, research, dissemination and
interpretation of information, organizing activities with
people.

 Also, other efforts to mobilize public understanding

and support on behalf of some existing or proposed
social program.
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Activist role Continued….

 Social action activity can be geared toward a problem

that is local, state wide, or national in scope.
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Mediator

 The mediator role involves intervention in disputes

between parties to help them find compromises,
reconcile differences, or reach mutually satisfactory
agreements.

 For example, divorcing spouses, neighbours in conflict,

landlords and tenants, labour and management, and
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contenders for child custody.

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Mediator role continued…

 A mediator remains neutral, not siding with either

party in the dispute.

 Mediators make sure they understand the positions of

both parties.

 They may help to clarify positions, identify

miscommunication about differences, and help both
parties present there cases clearly.
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Negotiator
 A negotiator brings together people in conflict and seeks to
bargain and compromise to find mutually acceptable
agreements.

 Somewhat like mediation, negotiation involves finding a middle

ground that all sides can live with.

 However, unlike a mediator (who maintains a neutral position),

a negotiator is usually allied with one side or the other.
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Educator

 The educator gives information to clients and teaches

them adaptive skills. To be an effective educator, the
worker must first be knowledgeable.

 Additionally, the worker must be a good

communicator so information is conveyed clearly and
readily understood by the receiver.
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Educator role continued…

 An educator can teach parenting skills to young

parents, instruct teenagers in job-hunting
strategies, and teach anger-control techniques to
individuals with aggressive tendencies.
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Initiator
 An initiator calls attention to a problem or to a potential
problem. It is important to recognize that sometimes a
potential problem requires attention.
 For example, if a proposal is made to renovate a low-income
neighbourhood by building middle income housing units, the
initiator will be concerned that low-income residents could
become homeless if the proposal is approved.
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Initiator role continued…

 Because calling attention to problems usually

does not resolve them, the initiator role must
often be followed by other kinds of work.
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Coordinator

 Coordination involves bringing components together

in an organized manner.

 For example, a multi-problem family may need help

from several agencies to meet its complicated
financial, emotional, legal, health, social, educational,
recreational, and interactional needs.
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Coordinator role continues…

 Frequently, someone at an agency must assume the

role of case manager to coordinate services from
different agencies and avoid both duplication of
services and conflict among the services.
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Researcher
 At times every worker is a researcher. Research in
social work practice can involve reading literature on
topics of interest, evaluating the outcomes of one’s
practice, assessing the merits and shortcomings of
programs, and studying community needs.
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Group Facilitator
 A group facilitator serves as a leader for a group
discussion in a therapy group, an educational group,
a self-help group, a sensitivity group, a family therapy
group, or a group with some other focus.
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Public Speaker
 Social workers occasionally talk to a variety of groups (e.g.,
high school classes; public service organizations such as
Kiwanis; police officers; staff at other agencies) to inform them
of available services or to argue the need for new services.

 In recent years, various new services have been identified (for

example, family preservation programs and services for
people with AIDS).
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Public Speaker role continued…

 Social workers who have public speaking skills are

better able to explain services to groups of potential
clients and funding sources, and are apt to be
rewarded (including financially) by their employers for
these skills.
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Communicator/Interpreter

 The group worker is a specialist in the “how” of

communication between people.

 The group worker has to act as a communicator or

interpreter, where interpersonal relationships have to be
dealt with.

 The role of communicators is different from facilitating the

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communication in the group.

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Communicator/Interpreter role continued…

 In this role he/she actually helps the group or

members to understand what is being
communicated.
 At times she has to interpret or reword the
phrases to explain to the members.
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Communicator/Interpreter role continued…

 For example where a group is starting from scratch, a

group may be puzzled about, and even suspicious of
its purpose and the role the worker, at this stage the
group worker has to perform as a communicator and
interpreter.

 Similarly, when the group members are not able to

see the actual gains of being in the group, then the
worker actually makes things clear and simple .
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References

Charles Zastrow, The Practice of Social Work, 9th ed. (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 2010).

Gerald L. Euster, “Group Work,” in Contemporary Social Work, 2nd ed., ed. Donald Brieland et

al. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980).

J. Anderson, Social Work Methods and Processes (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1981).
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 Thank you
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