Licensed social worker skills for your resume and career

There have been profound changes in mental health counseling services since the onset of COVID-19. Many clients prefer the convenience and the privacy afforded by telehealth sessions. Therefore, Zoom, FaceTime, and encryption will also help put applicants at the top of the resume pile. I don't know if this falls under technical skills, but I know of counselors whose primary job involves dealing with Medicaid reviewers and managed care reviewers to justify continued treatment. Unfortunately, the "tail is wagging the dog," and rather than continued treatment decisions being made by mental health counselors, insurance carriers are often making continued treatment decisions based on treatment plans and treatment progress. Counselors who can communicate effectively with these gatekeepers become invaluable for many treatment programs.

The "change theory" used in social work practice follows several steps, including engaging, assessing, planning, intervening, evaluating, terminating, and following up. Soft skills are most likely to occur in engagement, intervention, and termination. Social workers are trained to "start wherever the client is," understanding that clients can be individuals, families, groups, communities, or organizations. Social workers are trained to respect the client as the expert in their needs, honor self-determination, use a strengths-based approach, and respect difference while using inclusion. The training turns into soft skills such as being empathetic, warm, genuine, and respectful. Social workers also develop skills in knowing when to listen and when to nudge the client toward action. Social workers are trained to intervene and, when change is completed, to terminate. Helping clients know when to end services also requires soft skills of talking about hard topics, seeing a brighter future and setting goals, recognizing when change is happening, and saying goodbye respectfully.

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

The core skills of social work do not change over time. These skills include empathy, active listening, critical thinking, assessment, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, policy analysis, and adaptability. Social workers also need to evaluate the organizations they work in to assess for oppressive practices and policies. One of the profession's core values is social justice, which directs social workers to "pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). As a profession, social workers aim to dismantle racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, and religiously biased systems and structures.

The ability to write clearly and think critically. The deep sense that other people in other cultures, and other positions in our own culture, see the world differently, enabling students to respond to a broad range of people appropriately.