Social Work’s Impact On Mental Health

Millions of people are negatively affected by mental health issues across the country. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, 1 in 5 adults in the US experience mental health illness every year, with 1 in 20 US adults experiencing serious mental health issues.

These often influence other aspects of an individual’s life. For example, according to The Lancet, people with depression have a 40% higher risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases than the population as a whole, and some studies have found that high school students with significant symptoms of depression are more than twice as likely to drop out in comparison to their peers.

Poor mental health can negatively influence people’s relationships with their spouses, children, friends and co-workers and could lead to problems such as social isolation, conflicts, relationship difficulties, poverty and homelessness. All this can often cause financial and emotional strains on families, and children with family members experiencing mental health problems can then have issues of their own as a result.

Thus, support, intervention, treatment, guidance and prevention are all absolutely vital in order to help people navigate their way to managing their health or recovering from the effects of a mental health problem, and social work is a crucial part of making this work.

The profession of social work aims to promote social change, cohesion and the empowerment of both people and their communities. It involves understanding human behavior and development and the social, cultural and economic factors and interactions that influence our everyday lives. Social work professionals have helped to make a positive difference within, for example, disability pay, civil rights, unemployment insurance and reduced stigma around mental health itself.

Social workers may assist with one to-one family and small-group services, or they may work with individuals dealing with a range of issues including housing support, mental health therapy and substance abuse. They may also work with groups, such as in a prison, hospital or a school, and deal with policy making, research and community-based initiatives involving subjects such as homelessness.

As a social worker, you will interact with people from all sectors of community life, whether they are in private practices, large corporations, mental health clinics or senior centers. You could be helping clients who are dealing with the effects of issues such as disability or a life-limiting illness, families facing domestic conflicts, or you could be involved in advocating for improved services within their locality.

Some sectors that social workers are involved in include:

Administration – These social workers are leaders in public and private agencies providing services to clients. Their work requires knowledge of social policy, the delivery of social services and a vision for future planning.

Advocacy and community organizing – Social workers within this field will be involved in championing the rights of individuals and communities in order to achieve social justice both in the short and long-term.

Aging – This type of social work includes linking older adults with services that could help them to live independently and focuses on the physical, psychological, social and economic aspects of their daily life.

Child welfare – Working within this field will involve helping some of the most vulnerable children, young people and their families.

Healthcare – Working within direct services, social workers within the healthcare sector will assist individuals and families with personal and social factors that affect health and wellness.

Mental health and clinical social work – Clinical social workers will provide mental health services in a range of settings.

Mental health and substance abuse social work – This type of social work will involve helping people, families and communities find ways to recover from substance abuse. This work will involve case management, group and individual therapy, advocacy for jobs and assisting with housing and education.

Mental health social workers play a vital role in improving the overall wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole through their work in a wide range of settings. The issues their clients could be dealing with may include depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. Social workers can provide direct assistance through therapy in both individual, group and family settings.

As a mental health professional, social workers take the time to address their clients’ needs based on their history and current situation. From there, they provide clients with mental health strategies to help them cope with their challenges. The professional offers psychotherapy services and referrals to other resources that may be beneficial. They also focus on addressing physical issues that could be caused by mental health challenges, such as poor sleep, poor diet and nutrition, pain, drug abuse and self-harm.

Additionally, mental health professional works with clients to help them cope with stress and mitigate issues such as apathy, anger, and sadness. They strive to help their clients achieve their goals and make positive, meaningful contributions to their own lives and society as a whole. Ultimately, the mental health professional seeks to increase their clients’ desire to live full and impactful lives.

Social work is a combination of theories, models, approaches, interventions and methods, and there will be different modes of practice and direction depending on the social worker themselves, what they have studied and the specialization or client group they are working with.

As social workers are found in a lot of different locations and have a diverse clientele, they will follow social work practice models that allow them to help individuals and advocate for inclusion, fairness and equality.

Studying and understanding a variety of strategies, practices and theories is vital for those working within mental health.

For example, ecological systems theory emphasizes the importance of observing people in multiple environments in order to understand their behavior. Contingency theory believes that individual outcomes are dependent of a variety of specific situational factors, so social workers will try to understand clients by considering all of the internal and external influences contributing to their problems.

Psychosocial theory is the main principle of social work and works on the premise that an individual will develop their personality in stages based on their environment and relationships with their family and community. Attachment theory holds that babies have innate behaviors with the purpose of ensuring caregivers meet their needs such as crying, making eye contact and smiling – if the development is healthy, then the child can be secure and confident as it grows, but if the attachment is inconsistent or broken, they may develop other behaviors that impact development.

Narrative methods recognize that people tell stories about themselves and others. They are used in social work to help clients define their own stories and identities and focuses on then helping clients change behaviors that have caused them problems in the past.

Motivational theory seeks to find the answer to what pushes a person to act as they do, with one of the most famous being Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which states that it is only when the most important needs – food, shelter and safety – are met that people can seek higher goals such as love, learning an art.

Behaviorism and social learning theory consider what drives human behavior, giving social workers a useful framework for understanding clients and learning how past experiences influence their present-day behavior.

Practices within social work include advocacy as social workers often will deal with those who are disempowered and disenfranchised, so a big aspect of their work is understanding people’s needs. They will work with and on their client’s behalf to help achieve these needs. Advocacy means taking action to help people communicate what they want, secure their rights and represent their interests.

Anti-oppressive practice in social work is an interdisciplinary approach incorporating a range of factors including racism, feminism and disability justice and intentionally recognizes, acknowledges and subverts the social divisions that result in oppression. Learn more about AOP and how you can advocate for social justice with Spalding University’s online Master of Social Work degree program.

The practice sees and acknowledges the presence of oppression in society in general or a shared space, such as a classroom or workplace. As oppression is the restriction of one group over the rights or access of another group, anti-oppressive practice prioritizes the unburdening of people who have been unfairly controlled.

By understanding the fact that different forms of oppression are intertwined, the use of anti-oppressive practice looks to balance power in places where it has historically become imbalanced whether personally, culturally or structurally.

The three main types of oppression are:

Personal and individual oppression, which occurs within everyday interactions, such as racially aggravated microaggression.

Cultural oppression, which includes the ways that people speak and categorize, thus shaping societal norms such as grouping people together as neurotypical neurodivergent.

Structural or institutional oppression, which looks at the organizations and entities that are in control of resources and power, including legislative bodies.

Understanding that various forms of oppression are all intertwined is key to the meaning of AOP. Anti-oppressive practice emphasizes balancing power in places where it has been unbalanced – personally, culturally and structurally – so that all people can thrive within a given society or space. Social workers who apply the anti-oppressive practice social work practice model may think about this effort in terms of micro, mezzo, and macro social work.

As well as gaining the right qualifications, social workers need to have excellent interpersonal skills. Good communication is vital as building rapport with clients to create trust is one of the keys to moving forward. As a result, clients will begin to understand what help and guidance is available to them and take it on board.

Active listening is a key element within this and includes well-known techniques such as paraphrasing and summarizing to engage clients. Cultural competence is also vital. Social workers will be working with people from diverse backgrounds, and it is important to develop understanding of different perspectives and experiences in order to work effectively with as many different people as possible.

Exhibiting empathy and compassion within professional relationships is also important in order to help social workers understand what their clients are experiencing within often very stressful situations. In addition, professional commitment to social work values and ethics is very important, with a requirement to engage in lifelong learning throughout a social work career. This involves keeping on top of new developments, training and societal changes in order to work to the best of their ability for the people they are helping.

As well as this, a strong interest in problem solving will help mental health social workers devise and recommend solutions for each of their client’s unique needs. They must be organized to plan their workload to encompass all of the duties expected of them, from interviews, case work, form filling, dealing with other agencies and formulating strategies to help their clients.

Social workers must earn a bachelor’s degree in social work or a related field such as psychology, then study for a Master of Social Work program. They must complete a social work internship, during which they will work with clients experiencing mental health issues – requirements for this vary between states – and then they will be able to apply licensure in the state in which they want to practice.

Candidates with a master’s in social work will have a demanding but rewarding career making a vital and positive difference to individuals and society. There are a wide range of career paths available including youth service advocate, family social worker, substance abuse therapist and clinical social worker.

There is a growing demand for mental health social workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall employment of social workers is expected to grow by approximately 9% between 2021 and 2031, which is faster than the average for all occupations, with around 74,700 openings projected each year on average over those 10 years.