SOCIAL WORK: MAJOR CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Social Workers in Private Practice: Counseling and Psychotherapy
Opportunities for social workers in private practice will expand because of the anticipated availability of funding from health insurance and public sector contracts. Also,with increasing affluence, people will be better able to pay for professional help to deal with personal problems. The growing popularity of employee assistance programs is also expected to spur demand for private practitioners, some of whom provide social work services to corporations on a contractual basis. Also, social workers are highly represented in the growing field of telecounseling

Medical Social Work
Projected employment growth among social workers in hospitals reflects greater emphasis on discharge planning, which facilitates early discharge of patients by assuring that the necessary medical services and social supports are in place when individuals leave the hospital.

School Social Work
Employment of school workers is expected to grow, due to expanded efforts to respond to the adjustment problems of immigrants, children from single parent families, and rising rates of teen pregnancy. Moreover, continued emphasis on integrating disabled children into the general school population - a requirement under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act--will lead to more jobs.

Child Welfare / Adoption and Foster Care
There is always a demand for skilled social workers in the area of child welfare, adoptions and fostering. Children and adolescent residential treatment opportunities are plentiful.

Adult and Juvenile Corrections / Probation and Parole
need to provide services due to rising juvenile delinquency and mandatory sentencing laws, particularly for drug offenses

Gerontology
The number of older people, who are more likely to need social services, is growing rapidly. This is a field of specialty that is new and very much in demand, particularly in working with the families of the elderly.

Assessment and Intake of Behavioral Health needs
At the state and national level, grassroots advocacy to increase funding and support -and decrease prejudice- for the mentally ill is gaining momentum.. The Surgeon General's office issued its first ever Report on Mental Health (there have been 22 on smoking) in 1999, and the White House conducted its first ever conference on mental health

Family interventions
Due to the high divorce rate, domestic violence, substance abuse etc., there are many services needed for individuals and families in crisis

Home Health Care
Social worker employment in home health care services is growing, not only because hospitals are releasing patients more quickly, but because a large and growing number of people have impairments or disabilities that make it difficult to live at home without some form of assistance

Advocacy and political lobbying (for example, Arizona's Children's Action Alliance) Community organizing, especially for elected officials & labor unions

Headings taken from the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook: 1996-1997 Edition (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1996), p.133