Social Workers are responsible for supporting people who need help related to different problems. They team up with different other professionals such as police officers, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. These workers help various types of people including people with mental health problems, entire families, older people, children, people suffering drug addiction, homeless people, among others. They can work in hospitals, private organizations, charities, criminal justice services, local authority social services, etc.

A Social Worker usually performs many of the following tasks:

• Discussing people´s needs with other professionals. - Creating reports about cases. - Organising support needed by people. - Helping families to solve their problems. - Offering counseling services.

Expertise in the following areas is an asset: - Being able to work alone or with a team. - Having IT skills. - Being proactive and flexible. - Having organizational skills. - Having excellent interpersonal abilities. - Being able to work on different tasks at the same time. - Being a good negotiator. - Being trustworthy. - Having good written and spoken communication skills. - Being able to work with people from different backgrounds.

Social Worker jobs require an honours degree or postgraduate degree in social work. Candidates for this area also need to be registered with the General Social Care Council in England, The Northern Ireland Social Care Council, the Scottish Social Services Council, or the Care Council for Wales. Courses for this sector require five GCSE’s/S grades (A-C/1-3) and two A levels/four H grades, including Math and English as a minimum.

Among other academic qualifications for this area are BTEC national, BTEC/SQA higher nationals, the International Baccalaureate NVQ/SVQ Level 3 in health and social care, AS levels, Scottish Group Awards, ant the CACHE Level 3 Diploma in child care and education.