The definition of social work

The object of social work are both the individuals and social groups (families or more extended communities). Depending on which groups of people require help, social work arouses various requirements which from the point of view of the social workers’ education create the need for specialisation. One can distinguish several specific groups of the clients of social work: children, the old age people (gerontological nursing), ill and disabled individuals and local communities. Special problems and challenges appear when a child is its object. It happens that because in the case of children separating interim help or long-term financial assistance from the pedagogic influence is impossible, and thus from responsibility for charges’ future. Social workers do not bear full responsibility for the state of child’s future, because they share this responsibility with different subjects, it does not mean, however, that they do not bear it at all. One can distinguish two extreme positions among the theoreticians of social work: according to one of them, represented among others by H. Radlińska, social welfare institutions totally take over the responsibility for the child’s future, what is connected with the limitation of freedom, and according to the latter, such a responsibility, in practice, is not possible.