Social work

What to expect

If you enjoy helping others to deal with personal and social problems then social work is likely to be a good choice of career for you. Courses in social work teach you to understand and analyse the circumstances of people facing a variety of problems and challenges, and to develop strategies that will help to improve these circumstances or reduce their impact.

Sometimes the problem is short term: helping rural communities cope with a drought, supporting a family where a parent has died or is seriously ill, or settling in newly-arrived migrant families. However, the focus is often on people who are in for a long struggle: the poor, Indigenous communities, the aged, the chronically ill, families who are ‘dysfunctional’, and others.

Other roles in social work are becoming increasingly pro-active in trying to prevent social problems. They might involve projects like helping to establish leisure, recreation or social services
in new suburbs; or building the infrastructure for people to gather, seek help, or develop a
sense of community, when they need it.

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Getting a degree in social work

Visit the University Ratings section for social work course ratings.

Careers for social work degree graduates

Social workers can work in all kinds of organisations, from smaller community centres and residential health facilities to juvenile justice centres or hospitals. The vast majority of social work graduates (85%) work in the public sector.

Apart from being able to choose different organisations to work in, social workers can specialise in different areas. Social workers can choose from family, youth and child welfare services; medical and health services; psychiatric and general mental health services; disability services; juvenile and family law courts; aged care and disabilities; income support and mediation, just to name a few.
Starting salaries were about average for 2005 graduates, at nearly $41,500. Not a bad start, but like others employed mainly in the public and community sectors, social work graduates find that their salary growth is low. The unemployment rate among new social workers has improved in recent years and is now low compared with graduates from other fields of study.

Courses and specialisations

To become a professional social worker you will need to do a Bachelor of Social Work at university. These courses typically involve four years of full-time study. Much of it will involve class attendance, during which you learn a range of things, including:

• background to social work practice (including the relevant organisations and social environments)
• theories about the causes, challenges and cycles of clients’ difficult circumstances
• theories and methods relating to social work practice.

Your course should also involve field placements.
In recent years there has been a move to expand the skills of social work graduates by offering the courses combined with related fields such as psychology, social science, health science and also law.

Getting in

Courses in this field often offer two types of entry — directly from school, or after completion of two years of tertiary study. Bachelor of Social Work courses tend not to be overly difficult to get into, except at a handful of institutions. However, double degrees might be more difficult to enter, depending on the competitiveness of the other fields involved.

Where to study

Social work degrees are offered at nearly 40 campuses around Australia. These courses are usually only available at universities, rather than private providers or TAFE institutes.

What to look for

According to the annual Course Experience Questionnaire surveys, graduates are consistently satisfied with their experience, including the standard of teaching. The vast majority of social work graduates (87 per cent) go to work in the public sector, with a further 11 per cent finding employment in private industry. Starting salaries were average for 2008 graduates, at $46,186. Not a bad start, but like others employed mainly in the public and community sectors, social work graduates find that their salary growth is low. The unemployment rate among new social workers has improved in recent years and is now low compared with graduates from other fields of study. Only around 13 per cent of 2008 graduates were looking for work at the time of the survey.

For more information

For more information about careers in social work, visit the Australian Association of Social Workers
If you are interested in this field, you should also look into courses in education and training , health services and support , humanities and social sciences , law , nursing , paralegal studies , psychology , and sport and leisure studies .

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