Functions and Roles of Social Workers as Consultation Assistance Professionals : Insights from the Business Dynamics Survey

More than 30 years have passed since the Social Worker and Care Worker Act was enacted in 1987, which positioned social welfare officers as nationally qualified social workers, and as of the end of December 2022, there were 271,208 registered social workers.
As stipulated in Article 2 of the Social Worker and Care Worker Act, social workers are professionals who, with their specialized knowledge and skills, provide "consultation" to persons eligible for assistance, "advice and guidance,"
"liaison and coordination" with welfare service providers and other professionals and persons concerned, and "other assistance.”
In this study, five social workers from the Council of Social Welfare (in charge of projects to support the selfreliance of the needy) and the Community Comprehensive Support Center were surveyed for four weeks from February 7 to March 4, 2022, to investigate their work dynamics.
The survey results indicate that social workers perform their professional duties as stipulated in the Act according to the functions and roles of their agencies. However, "outreach" and "community and organizational outreach," which are the goals of the "Consultation Assistance" section of the research presentations at the annual conference of the Japan Society of Social Workers, are being practiced but account for only a small percentage of the total work.We believe that further collaboration and information sharing with related organizations is needed to discover those in need of assistance. As for the other objective of "collaboration with various professions", it became clear that the respondents collaborated with health, medical, welfare-related organizations, government administrators, and welfare commissioners, as well as with probation officers and lawyers, etc., as required for the persons are assisted by each organization.
Based on the above, we believe that by accumulating practices related to "outreach" and “community and organizational outreach", social workers will be able to fulfill the roles of responding to cross-system issues and supporting activities of local residents, as it was anticipated by the Special Committee for Securing Welfare Human Resources of the Welfare Subcommittee, Social Security Council of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to work toward the realization of a "community-based society.”