Core
Competencies
1&2
Competency 1
Identify as a professional social worker and
conduct oneself accordingly.
Practice Behavior 1.1
Advocate for client access to the services of
social work:
Clients/Participants are supported by the case
managers to encourage them to utilize the
resources provided by agencies.
Ex: encourage clients/participants to attend
and participant in classes, workshop, events and
activities provided to see that social workers
are there to assist and support.
Practice Behavior 1.2
Practice personal reflection and self- correction to assure
continual professional development:
Acknowledging strong and weak professional points learned
during class, field placement and volunteering allows social
workers to work on skills that they have been accustomed to
that affects professionalism, as well as professional
development. Reflecting upon the strong and weak
components as a social worker allows growth for corrects.
Ex: A social worker could be biased against the judgment of
clients, but learns to practice and reflect upon the NASW and
previous experiences and remember that social workers should
not be bias against clients no matter their actions.
Practice Behavior 1.3
Attend to professional roles and boundaries:
Letting clients/participants be aware that there are
certain boundaries that has to be established to
produce a healthy, safe and productive
environment.
Ex: When clients/participants ask personal
questions or for favors outside of the duties of a
social worker, boundaries must be set. Asking for
money, food or rides on or off duties thats not
authorized by the agency. However inform clients
that as a social worker certain boundaries can not
be crossed.
Practice Behavior 1.4
Demonstrate professional demeanor in behavior,
appearance and communication:
Conducting oneself in a professional manner entails
working with client by talking and communicating in a
way that they understand and dressing professionally.
When dealing with client and one must behave
professionally so that clients can see that and take the
job of a social worker serious.
Ex: Communicating with clients in a professional
manner instead of yelling, cursing or not talking to them
as needed, also teaches them to be professional as
clients.
Competency 2
Apply social work ethical principles to guide professional
practice:
Practice Behavior 2.1
Apply and communicate understanding of the
importance of diversity and difference in shaping
life experiences in practice at the micro, mezzo,
and macro levels.
Working with different clients require different level
of understanding, such a working with Macro Micro
and Mezzo environments. It is imperative that to
remember that each diverse group require
different attention.
Practice Behavior 2.1
Cont.
Macro wants to see changes being made that will help
including all diverse groups. Ex: Providing transportation and
in house assistance from facilities to clients allow them to
receive different types of help regardless of their age, race or
social class.
Mezzo- deals with small-to-medium-sized groups, such as
neighborhoods and other local organizations. Ex: involving
other organizations in the area allows clients to be linked with
other useful resources ( Grace Court, Lumberton Health Care,
Mart Start )that allows clients to become empowered by
involving them in a systematic change.
Micro- engage with individuals and families in assisting
solving problems. Ex: Different participants and their families
needs are not the same they an range form being
Practice Behavior 2.2
Present themselves as learners and engage client and
constituencies as expert of their own experience:
Attending meetings and acknowledge that they are
learning new things that presented by the agency. Also
encouraging participants/clients to uplift other women
in the program or even in the community based off their
own experience since they are the exerts of their own
experiences.
EX: Client/ Participants throughout the area share their
experience both good and bad through out their
pregnancy before and after to present change and
growth to help others.
Practice Behavior 2.3
Apply self-awareness and self-regulation to manage the
influence of personal biases and values in working with
diverse clients and constituencies.
Abiding by the NASW code of ethics and applying it to
social problems an ethical dilemmas reminds social
workers how to avoid and mange personal values and
biases when working with any clients or diverse groups.
Ex: A client/participant makes refers that she lives
family and can pay rent so she ask if paying them in the
form of food stamps would be a good idea. The social
worker can not suggest any of her personal thoughts
when asking the question.
Competency 3
Advance Human Rights and Social,
Economic, and Environmental Justice
Practice Behavior 3.1
Use practice experience and theory to inform
scientific inquiry and research:
Read relevant professional journal articles
related to the agency.
When reading different journal articles apply
the research to different cases by utilizing
different theories to inform scientific inquiry.
Practice Behavior 3.2
Apply critical thinking to engage in analysis of
quantitative and qualitative research methods and
research findings:
Attend workshops an evidence-based or best
practices relevant to agency population.
Incorporate information learned during evidence
based practices such as parenting and nurturing
classes to teach the agency population and the
community that there have been research
conducted to enhance the way parents nurture
children.
Practice Behavior 3.3
Use and translate research evidence to inform
and improve, practice, policy and service
delivery:
Find research related to agencys target
population.
Offer information from scholarly journals and
other resources that pertains to population of
the agency. However, some of the population
being served are not aware of research that
available to help them nor do they understand
it, so a social worker it important to translate
research to participants
