If you’ve just secured your degree in social work, congratulations: social work is an amazing field to discover, and it offers all sorts of academic challenges. Social work allows you to work closely with people who have distinctive needs, and it also gives you a lot of transferable skills such as empathy and the ability to listen to people.
However, the academic side is most likely to not be the only thing on your mind. Chances are that you’re thinking about which employment path you want to take in order to secure a paid job. It’s possible, of course, to become a social worker. However, there are plenty of alternative options out there – so don’t fall into the trap of thinking that becoming a social worker is your only avenue to paid employment if you have a degree in this area. This blog post will look at some of the traditional routes that people who have a degree in social work might take, and also the more unknown career paths.
Social Worker
Becoming a social worker is, of course, likely to be the first route to consider when you secure your degree. This is an enriching and rewarding career that can give you plenty of chances to feel fulfilled. In short, social workers interact with people who are having problems living their everyday lives. They might work with families who are finding it hard to keep food on the table or relate to each other, for example, or they may work with people who are struggling to interact with and relate to wider society due to health issues, isolation or similar challenges.
Social workers often find that their role can be emotionally challenging, which is understandable given how high the stakes can be in this field. Social workers are dealing with people’s lives, often at a time when they are at their most raw and vulnerable – this can make it particularly demanding. These are skills that you learn during an Online Master of Social Work program at an institution such as FSU. A course that will provide you with the tools you need to manage the tough times. Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work is not required to apply for this online master, which means there is a bigger chance you are eligible for this program.
Your degree in social work may be able to give you a direct route into this career through accreditation. This is often required for some social work positions. However, it may also be the case that your preferred social work job doesn’t require accreditation, so if your degree didn’t offer this, then you may still be able to apply for roles. The knowledge and skills you have picked up are likely to stand you in good stead either way. It’s important that you do research into what sort of jobs you want and what exact path you might need to take to secure them.
Counselor
Social work is not the only job you can do if you have a social work degree. On the contrary, you can get a whole host of jobs in this sector without actually practicing as a social worker. This is because it comes with a whole range of transferable skills, such as the ability to listen to people and the ability to paraphrase what they say in a way that makes them feel heard.
One such job might be working as a counselor. In this role, you won’t be expected to give advice. Instead, you will be asked to help your clients work out why they behave and feel the way that they do. The context is likely to be different from social work. You are more likely to be working with people who have specific mental health conditions, for example, while you’re also likely to be delivering the counseling service in a location such as a school or a hospital.
However, the skills you learn from your social work degree are likely to come in very handy. You’re likely to find, for example, that you need to use empathy to put yourself in other people’s shoes, and to work out what’s troubling them. This is something that a social work degree can also teach. However, depending on where you live, you may need to pursue some other form of training in order to secure the right to practice as a counselor – so it could mean more studying.
Teacher
It might seem like a totally different world, but teachers in today’s education system are often finding that they perform some aspects of social work in their jobs. Often, schools are the only places in which troubled young people have a safe space or are able to get into contact with support systems. Teachers are in many ways on the front line, and in addition to teaching, they have a number of safeguarding obligations that a background in social work – and especially its focus on the human rights and dignity of all people – can really help with.
It’s likely that becoming a teacher would be something that you would need to study further for. However, your background in social work could be used as part of your application for teacher training to demonstrate that you’re an individual who has the skills to operate effectively in the modern education environment.
To conclude, social work is an incredibly versatile degree when it comes to gaining employment. Not only does holding a degree in this sector give you transferable skills and deep academic knowledge, but it can also help you get a job in a whole array of other professions.
