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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences

MODULE 09
Clienteles and Audiences in Social Work

Welcome!
This module introduces you the roles, functions, and competencies of social
work. Furthermore, this module presents the areas of specialization and career
opportunities of social workers.

Objectives:
At the end of this module you will be able to:
1. Describe the clienteles and audiences in social work
2. Distinguished the needs of various types of clienteles and audiences in
social work

Please be reminded that at the end of this module you should comply the following:
1. Activities
2. Answer the quiz.

Preliminary Activity

Analyze the picture above.

Process Question:

What comes to your mind upon looking on the painting of Jose Abad – “Hapag ng Pag-
asa”?
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Development of the Lesson

To understand fully the coverage of this lesson, read silently the material.

Clienteles and Audiences in Social Work

Typology of Clients:
 voluntary clients;
 Involuntary clients;
 those being assisted by another person or agency.

Voluntary clients (walk-in clients) – those who opted to voluntarily seek the assistance
of the worker or services of the agency due to problems or difficulty which they think
they cannot do it on their own.
Ex. Solo parent seeking material assistance, displaced person asking core
shelter assistance, physically challenged person seeking medical attention.

Involuntary clients (reach-out clients) – those individuals in need who may not even
consider asking help because they think that they are doing fine and will survive
somehow or they are unaware of the agencies that can provide them help/assistance.
Ex. Street children, working children, children/youth in indigenous communities,
out-of-school youth.

Clients being assisted by another person (other family members, relative, friend,
neighbor), group/organizations, or community leaders/workers who are concerned
about client’s situation (referred clients).

The Individual as Client of Social Work

• the individual level is generally work on an individual who has to be assisted to fit
in a larger environment .
• or someone has been deprived space by the larger environment calling for
change or improving one’s ability to cope with it.

The Group & Organization as Client of Social Work

• groups are people existing with similar or common identity.
• gay men and lesbians, migrants, women, abused or neglected children, elderly,
pensioners, veterans, military service men & women, people in conflict with the
law, unemployed, people with substance abuse and addiction.
The Community as Client of Social Work
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• community has the largest share in the clientele and audience of social work
because individuals and families are essentially members of the community.
• a community may exist as a marginalized sector.
• social work may focus on community transformation to cause environmental
change so as to make it possible for individuals and groups to achieve social
well-being or social justice and respect for the rights.

Characteristics of Clienteles and Audiences in Social Work

• experiencing being left out
• having some personal social problems like loss of job, getting sick especially
becoming terminally ill
• homeless –elderly and street children
• divorced woman
• neglected child
• sexually, physically, or mentally abused child
• suffering discrimination

Needs of Clienteles and Audiences in Social Work

• wanting to be empowered.
• to be socially included by way of insuring that one receives what is legally due
him/her and that one receives the necessary care he/she deserves.
• some people need their right respected
• some need justice
• some need social welfare help to put them on their feet.

Working with Individuals

In case work, INDIVIDUAL is the principal client;

- Efforts of helping are focused on client;

According to De Guzman (1992) – person’s inability to manage stress (result of a

distressful situation or problem) caused him or her or those concerned with him or her
seek professional help.

The social worker needs to acquire:

- basic knowledge of human behavior;

- Of the nature of stress;

- Human beings responses to it;

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in order to understand the situation of the client and eventually help them.

In case work process, the aim of the intervention:

- To facilitate the individual’s social adaptation, to restore, reshape, or reinforce his/her

functioning as a social being.

The social worker must understand:

• The person is a “biopsychosocial being” wherein he/she is made up of at least

three (3) parts or subsystem:

- the physical

- the psychological

- the social

Each affects and is being affected by others and it is their totality as a system that
determines the person’s functioning rather than the individualized operation of each
subsystem

Social worker needs to know whether the client can be helped and how he or she can
be helped.

Social casework is more “client or person-centered” rather than problem focused – it is

the person’s mode of adaptation that will determine whether problem can be resolved or
alleviated or the difficulty removed or reduced.

Worker needs to understand whether the person’s present behavior is a manifestation

of his/her own mode of adaptation to his/her current condition – that caused him/her
stress.

Each person makes his/her own adaptation depending on his/her capacities and
motivation to do so – to gain satisfaction, avoid or dissolved frustration, and to maintain
his/her balance in movement.

When faces a threatening situation – tendency to use his/her accustomed modes of

adaptation, and if these fail, revert to modes he/she previously used.

Modes of Adaptation:

FIGHT – means physical or verbal projection of angry feelings on others especially

when encountering difficult circumstances, frustration, disappointment, or even anxiety.
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Ex. Wife quarrels with husband because of jealousy or person under stress finds
himself/herself shouting.

FLIGHT – manifested when a person physically moves away from the problem.

- resort to drugs, alcohol or substance – makes one forget the stressful situation.

Ex. Fathers abandoned their families for they can no longer provide economic support.

PAIRING – entails entry into a relationship with another person who is perceived to be
stronger, stable, or who has the capacity to provide help over his/her problem.

Ex. - Solo parents forming support group;

- barkada system;

For the caseworker

- Assessment of person’s ego strengths and defenses are essential;

- It provide insights on how the client can be helped;

- It ensure effective and satisfying adaptation to a stressful situation.

Examples of clients who need social worker’s help:

 Children who are either abandoned, neglected, orphaned, abused, or exploited;

 Children in conflict with the law, street children, children living with or affected by
HIV;

 Out-of-school youth;

Factors that may affect or influence the helping relationship between client and worker:

1. Transference – client’s reactions and displacement on the worker of the particular

feelings and attitudes he/she may have experienced earlier in life in relationship with the
members of his/her family.

- she responds to and relates to the worker unconsciously in a manner that

he/she reacts to that familiar figure;

- client is unaware that he/she is already re-enacting some of his/her early

behavior.

2. Counter-transference – worker’s relationship reactions that he/she project on the

client and usually it is the worker who transfers previously experienced feelings on the
client.
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- Reaction is unconscious and not reality based

Ex. Worker reacts to a male client (as the worker reacted in the past with hostility and
anger towards his/her own father) who abandoned his wife and son only to set up
another family.

3. Reality – is the realistic and objective perception of existing condition or situation.

- It is the state of what is actual, what is, and what is true.

Ethical considerations that govern client-worker relationships:

1. Acceptance

2. Nonjudgmental attitude

3. Individualization

4. Purposeful expression of feelings

5. Controlled emotional involvement

6. Confidentiality

7. Self-determination

Working with Groups and Organizations

Social group work:

- (as a process and method) is rooted on the sociological concept that a person is
a social being who has the inclination and need to associate with other human
beings;

- Group can be utilized as a target for change, as a medium for change, and as
agent for change.

- As a Target for Change – members in a group are clients of an agency who have
common problems, needs, and concerns that match the agency’s or worker’s
group service orientation.

- As a Medium for Change – the group is used to facilitate the growth and
development needs of some members of the group as the need for self-
expression, communication, relationship, developing self-confidence and
modifying negative attitudes, behavior, and values.
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- As an Agent of Change – the group is used to effect the desired change needed
outside the group.

Philosophy of Social Group Work

“The need for group experience is basic and universal. That group of individuals can be
helped to grow and change in personality, attitudes, and values through group
experiences…that persons no only develop in groups but also through groups. And that
groups are dynamic, ever changing and must be accepted by the social worker at its
level of development.”

Purposes of Social Group Work:

1. To enhance the social adjustment of the individual and developing the social
consciousness;

2. To provide opportunities for planned group experiences that are needed by all
people;

3. To provide experiences that are relaxing and that give individuals a chance to
create, to share and express themselves; and

4. To help individuals in groups to take responsibility for their own behavior, relate
with others and how to become participating members of society.

Working with Communities

The philosophy of community organizations:

- is acceptance of the right of the community to decide what it wants;

- belief on the capacity of the people to find richer and more satisfying ways of living if
they are helped to use the resources within themselves and their environment which are
and could be made available for them.

Focus of Community Organization:

i. Removal of blocks to growth;

ii. Release of potentials in the individual, group and communities as a whole;

iii. Development of the capacity of indigenous leaders to lead, to manage, and

function in their social roles;

iv. Developing the ability of different sectors in the community to function as an

integrated whole;
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v. Strengthening people’s capacity to problem-solving, decision-making, and
cooperation;

vi. Full use of inner/indigenous resources before tapping external resources.

Purposes of Community Organization:

i. To solve certain problems and meet needs;

ii. To achieve selected social goals;

iii. To strengthen people’s capacity in dealing with problems, needs, and

aspirations.

Analysis, Application and Exploration

Based on what you have read about accomplish the following activity
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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences

Name:_________________________________________Date:_________________
Grade & Section: ________________________________Score:_________________

Activity 1.1

Across
3. is rooted on the sociological concept that a person is a social being who has the
inclination and need to associate w/ others
5. client’s reactions and displacement on the worker of the particular feelings and
attitudes he/she may have experienced earlie 6. those individuals in need who may not
even consider asking help because they think that they are doing fine and will survive
7. manifested when a person physically moves away from the problem 9. those who
opted to voluntarily seek the assistance of the worker or services of the agency due to
problems or difficulty whic 10. is more “client or person-centered” rather than problem
focused
Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net
Down
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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences
1. means physical or verbal projection of angry feelings on others especially when
encountering difficult circumstances, frustra 2. worker’s relationship reactions that
he/she project on the client and usually it is the worker who transfers previously exper
4. entails entry into a relationship with another person who is perceived to be stronger,
stable, or who has the capacity to pro
8. is the realistic and objective perception of existing condition or situation.

Generalization
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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences
There different types of clienteles and audiences in social work: individual, group and
the community. These clienteles and audiences have different characteristics and
needs.

Assignment

For your assignment, research the following:

Name:_________________________________________Date:_________________

Grade & Section: ________________________________Score:_________________

Identify at least 5 settings in which social workers are found.

Congratulatory Note
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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences

CONGRATULATIONS on reaching the end of this module!!

Keep up the good work!!!

Reminder:
All exercises and activities done should be submitted before start of the succeeding lesson/s. You may now
proceed to the EVALUATION of the lesson covered in this module!

References

Dela Cruz et al. Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences. Phoenix
Publishing House. Quezon City: 2016
https://ehs.siu.edu/socialwork/undergraduate/careers.php

Name:_________________________________________Date:_________________
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Disciplines and Ideas in the Applied Social Sciences
Grade & Section: ________________________________Score:_________________

Quiz No. 8
Identification
Identify what is being asked.

1. Is the realistic and objective perception of existing condition or situation.

2. Worker’s relationship reactions that he/she project on the client and
usually it is the worker who transfers previously experienced feelings on
the client.
3. Client’s reactions and displacement on the worker of the particular
feelings and attitudes he/she may have experienced earlier in life in
relationship with the members of his/her family.
4. Those individuals in need who may not even consider asking help
because they think that they are doing fine and will survive somehow or
they are unaware of the agencies that can provide them help/assistance.
5. Those who opted to voluntarily seek the assistance of the worker or
services of the agency due to problems or difficulty which they think they
cannot do it on their own.
6. Entails entry into a relationship with another person who is perceived to
be stronger, stable, or who has the capacity to provide help over his/her
problem.
7. Manifested when a person physically moves away from the problem.
8. Means physical or verbal projection of angry feelings on others
especially when encountering difficult circumstances, frustration,
disappointment, or even anxiety
9. Is more “client or person-centered” rather than problem focused – it is
the person’s mode of adaptation that will determine whether problem
can be resolved or alleviated or the difficulty removed or reduced.
10. Is rooted on the sociological concept that a person is a social being who
has the inclination and need to associate with other human beings