What Are the Most Essential Social Work Skills?

Social work is dynamic and complex, requiring interactions with a diverse range of communities, organizations and people. To properly assess and meet their clients’ needs, social workers must amass a portfolio of skills, ranging from communication to cultural competency. 

These essential social work skills can be developed both through on-the-job experience and classroom learning. The right level of training can equip any social worker with the skills to make a positive and long-lasting impact on their community, and potentially to assume positions of higher authority and career advancement. 

Why Develop Social Work Skills?

The very nature of social work demands a broad set of capabilities. That’s partly because social work itself is such a broad field. Many social workers provide counseling or therapy services for their clients. They also assist individuals or families, seeking to help them overcome daily challenges or connect with the right social support services. Other social workers may pursue improved outcomes for entire communities, focusing their advocacy in social work on issues such as racial justice, environmental justice or educational inequity.

Not only are social work careers diverse, but social workers themselves deal with a varied clientele. A social worker may have any number of active cases at one time, and those cases can each entail an entirely unique set of challenges. For example, a social worker may seek better outcomes for clients faced with physical disability, with family dysfunction or with simple lack of access to necessary resources. Identifying and addressing such a broad range of problems require skillfulness and knowledge.

What Are the Top Social Work Skills?

The skills required to be a successful social worker are largely interpersonal in nature, but also touch on areas such as critical and analytic thinking. In addition to these capabilities, it is important for social workers to have a thorough knowledge of the social support resources available in their area. Some examples of essential social work skills include the following competencies

1. Active Listening

Being able to truly listen to the needs of a client is foundational. Doing so helps establish a relationship built on trust, while also conveying to the client that their needs are being taken seriously. Additionally, active listening is crucial to developing the right plan of action, ensuring client challenges are handled with precision and care.

2. Communication Skills

The best social workers are adept at both written and oral communication. They can clearly explain to clients what their concerns are, or what their plan of action is. And, they can facilitate relationships with other personnel, such as mental health professionals, as needed.

3. Critical Thinking

One of the most challenging aspects of being a social worker is evaluating the best way to handle a client’s needs, often choosing between options that may be imperfect or limited in some way. Additionally, not all clients are fully forthcoming, making it incumbent upon social workers to observe closely and then use their critical thinking skills to discern information that has been left unsaid.

4. Cultural Competence

Another crucial skill in social work is the ability to sensitively and appropriately connect with clients of different cultural backgrounds. Social workers support clients with a wide range of intersectional backgrounds and identities, and it’s essential that social workers understand and respect cultural nuances when providing services to clients. They should have knowledge of the clients’ cultures and continuously educate themselves on historical and current biases, oppression and barriers that specific communities face to facilitate appropriate support and resources. Culturally competent social workers can also serve as effective advocates for their clients when engaging with governmental agencies and bodies, insurance carriers and other relevant entities and organizations.

5. Organization

The typical social worker will have several open cases at once. It is important to keep track of the needs of each client, as well as the documentation required for each case. This makes organizational skills invaluable, along with related attributes such as time management.

6. Interdisciplinary Flexibility

Social workers may collaborate with professionals across disciplines, such as psychiatry, law, health care and community services. As such, it’s important that social workers be able to work across disciplines to bridge the gap between different team members. Culturally competent social workers can also facilitate sensitive and effective communication between team members of different backgrounds or advocate on behalf of their patients’ cultural values. 

How to Develop Social Work Skills

Aspiring social workers do not develop their skills overnight. Instead, they embark on an extended process of professional development. This process usually encompasses several steps.

• An undergraduate degree in social work or a related field can be essential for developing foundational skills.
• Experience via an internship or entry-level role can provide the opportunity to put some of these formative skills into practice.
• Earning a postgraduate degree, such as a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.), can allow for more advanced skill formation, including a focus on leadership skills. As such, social workers with this high-level degree typically command higher salary ranges. Additionally, obtaining an M.S.W. degree is required to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).

Start Developing the Skills for Success

Social work is a demanding yet highly rewarding profession, requiring a varied set of competencies. One way to develop social work skills is to pursue a path to earning an advanced degree, such as an M.S.W. 

The M.S.W. online program format from Virginia Commonwealth University is designed with skills formation in mind, providing a broad range of opportunities to hone both interpersonal and critical thinking expertise. The program is rooted in concepts of cultural competence and enables students to flesh out their counseling skills, while choosing from part-time and full-time curriculum tracks.

Discover more about the program today. Start cultivating a wider skill set, and prepare for long-term success and lasting impact in the field of social work.

Credit

Reviewed by Amy Kemter, D.S.W., LCSW.*

*Amy Kemter, D.S.W., LCSW, is a clinical social worker and professor of social work. She has a practice in San Antonio, Texas, specializing in the treatment of trauma and addiction disorders.