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Family Health
Family health is one of the most important things to get right. A family unit is not only good for the children but for the adults involved, and thus society as a whole. In the effort to help people experience the best lives they can, it might be tempting for you to consider the best ways of working in this environment.
There are many disciplines you could choose to head down. We’d recommend the following for certain specialisms of health in the industry. Whatever you choose, we hope a long, fruitful, and varied career is yours for the taking.
Careers to Consider
- Clinical Social Worker: Provide mental health therapy and counseling services.
- School Social Worker: Help students overcome obstacles to their academic success.
- Child and Family Social Worker: Protect children and support families in need of assistance.
- Healthcare Social Worker: Aid individuals navigating chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses.
- Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Worker: Support clients coping with mental illnesses or addictions.
- Military and Veterans Social Worker: Assist military personnel, veterans, and their families.
- Palliative and Hospice Social Worker: Provide support to patients with serious or terminal conditions and their families.
- Community Social Worker: Advocate for social change and development in communities.
- Geriatric Social Worker: Help elderly clients and their families navigate the challenges of aging.
- Policy and Planning Social Worker: Influence public policy to improve social conditions and promote social justice.
Emotional & Physical Health
The emotional health of families can take a dive when a new child is born. Many people think that a new child will often lend nothing but love and support to all parties involved, but sometimes that is not the case. Children do not fix issues, they simply make their presence felt even more bluntly. This means that unraveling the strings of issues takes time and patience, and sometimes extreme emotional expressiveness.
However, the therapist or social worker who manages to do this can take credit for bringing family units together with a successful attempt. If this sounds appealing to you, we’d recommend looking into either psychology qualifications, a doctor of nursing practice nurse-midwifery course, or working as a specialist social staff member for either the government or private practice.
Postnatal Health
Postnatal health is important. It’s not always a guarantee, which is why postnatal therapists exist. Working in therapy takes care, but this further specialism requires nerves of steel. Being able to help people through this is equal parts emotional art and practical science, and so requires someone with a truly versatile and willing skillset to get right. We’d recommend becoming a licensed therapist, gaining some true experience in middle-aged and parental care, and then specializing in this direction.
Social Health
Social workers are often exposed to the most trying and difficult of familial circumstances. This often means that they need to report very difficult or painful issues that might be plaguing a family. In some cases, they need to function as those making the judgment call on whether or not a family should be allowed to consider itself a family any longer. This might mean putting the child into government care or reporting on the state of a divorce based on the publicly available information they are allowed to disclose.
“The work of public health professionals is important because public health initiatives affect people every day in every part of the world. It addresses broad issues that can affect the health and well-being of individuals, families, communities, populations, and societies—both now, and for generations to come.” – publichealth.pitt.edu
Social workers need a strong heart to do the work they do, but they can also affect families like no other job role. We’d recommend studying for a bachelor’s degree in social work and then diversifying further, joining a practice or government position, or continuing to study for your master’s degree.
Ready to change lives and make a real difference? Explore rewarding careers in Social Work in my latest blog post. Let's uncover the right path for you! #SocialWork #CareerExploration Click To TweetWith this advice, you will not only find that caring for families becomes a wonderful thing that can repair and sometimes replace difficult situations with positive ones but can lead to positive effects that continue for years after you have conducted your work. These roles all take a strong heart to pursue but can lead to some of the best work ever conducted by those in a caring role.
