handout 4

• Micro Social Work


  Meeting with individuals, families, and small groups to assist them in identifying and resolving mental, emotional, social, behavioral, and/or financial issues that are affecting their well-being and standards of living
• Purpose of Micro Social Work


  To provide one-on-one guidance and emotional support to vulnerable people
• Micro Social Worker Tasks


  • Individual and family counseling
  • Resource connection and navigation services
  • Helping clients develop skills to address emotional and social difficulties
  • Intervening in situations in which clients encounter a crisis or severe distress
• Micro Social Worker Interventions


  • How to apply for Medicare or Medicaid and other state aid programs, what resources are available in one's community
  • School violence, domestic abuse, severe substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder
• Mezzo Social Work


  The creation and execution of social service programs on a local and small-community level
• Mezzo Social Work Examples


  • Schools, neighborhoods, and city districts
• Mezzo Social Workers


  • They socialize closely with the people they want to help
  • They provide assistance to groups of people at a time rather than providing individual counseling and support
• Mezzo Social Worker Projects

  • Establishment of a free local clinic to help underserved members of the community
  • County health programs to help disadvantaged families learn about and obtain proper nutrition
  • Local workshops to guide unemployed individuals through the processes of applying for jobs and unemployment benefits
• Macro Social Work


  It aims to assist vulnerable groups in a more indirect and large-scale manner
• Macro Social Worker Tasks

  • Investigation of the origins, persistence, and effects of citywide, state, and/or national social problems
  • Creation and implementation of human service programs to address large scale social problems
  • Advocacy to encourage state and federal governments to change policies to better serve vulnerable populations, and/or to create programs that address social ills
• Macro social workers rarely provide individual counseling or other help to clients, they may conduct interviews with the groups they intend to serve as part of their research on specific social issues
• Before moving on to more macro-level projects, some macro social workers start their careers at the micro level to gain a better understanding of the challenges their target communities face