Master these key skills to enable you to perform your social work duties effectively.
Social work is among some of the most demanding professions that will require you to attend to many issues all in a day's work. You can perform various roles all at once like being a therapist, adviser, caretaker, clinician, and administrator among others. To have a good background as a social worker, you will need to have mastered and perfected several key skills. Some of these skills should be at your fingertips. They include active listening, organizational abilities, social perceptiveness, coordination skill and communication skill.
Active listening
You will be working and meeting different people from all walks of life who will present their problems for you to handle or solve them. To do this, you will have to be master of great listening abilities. With proper listening skill, you will be in a better position to connect with what people will be sharing to you at any given time. With that, you can offer great solutions for the people you will meet or organizations you will work for.
Organizational abilities
A social worker deals will a lot of work from paperwork to attending meetings and what have you. This will require you to organize yourself well so that you can attend to all issues within the required timeframe without fail. You will have busy schedules, and this requires proper planning and organization. Good prioritization of work will help you to avoid delays in getting various jobs done. Therefore, it is essential for you to deal with the urgent issues first then the less urgent ones later.
Social perceptiveness
A social worker works with many of people who are from different backgrounds. Some will be open and willing to share and solve the problems afflicting them, while others will just be difficult to handle. Therefore, you should be very alert to facial expressions, gestures, social cues and cultural patterns of behavior that you will observe or you will put across.
Coordination skill
You will be required to juggle through many activities and events when working as a social worker. Therefore, you need to have excellent coordination skills. This will go a long way in helping you meet all your goals and objectives.
Communication skills
You should know how to express yourself well before people since in most cases you will be working with them. You need to be audible, clear and very confident when engaging people in any form of conversation. People should not struggle to understand what you are trying to put across.