Social Worker

You’ll work with some of these individuals, supporting their relationships with their families, groups and links to their community. You’ll help them to recognise their strengths, develop their skills and work on problems or challenges they may be facing.

Here’s some additional information on some of those people:

• foster children and families - (link to the foster page)
• people with mental health conditions (link to the approved mental health professional role)
• youth offenders (link to case study video of Gareth John)
• people with a sensory impairment. (link to case study video of Tracey Martin-Smith)

As a Social Worker you’ll carry out assessments to understand if people need care and support, work with individuals, carers and families to produce and review care and support plans. You’ll keep records, write reports, attend court, supervise team members, and offer information and advice to individuals and other professionals.

To be successful in this role, you’ll need:

• good communication and interpersonal skills
• flexible approach to work and able to work as part of a team
• the ability to think critically and be creative and solution-focussed
• the ability to build effective relationships and develop rapport
• the ability to adapt to changing circumstances
• tact, empathy and patience
• a non-judgmental attitude
• compassion, resilience and a readiness to deal with difficult situations
• good time management and administrative skills
• computer literacy
• the ability to understand and carry out legal duties
• autonomous decision making.

Degree level. Find out more information on the qualifications with Social Care Wales.

Information on funding for social work degrees is available here.

You will need to be registered with Social Care Wales.

You can study social work at graduate or post graduate levels and will need to learn about law, policy and social work theory when gaining your qualifications. Universities run programmes in partnership with local authority social work services.

Welsh universities offering the undergraduate degree

• Bridgend College (franchised from Cardiff Metropolitan University)
• Cardiff Metropolitan University
• Glyndŵr University
• Swansea University
• University of South Wales
• The Open University - social work - distance learning

Welsh universities offering the Masters degree

• Bangor University - Masters in Social Work
• Cardiff University - Masters in Social Work
• Swansea University - Masters in Social Work