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Question: What are the main challenges faced by social work today when working with individuals and families in our Australian context. Consider the political, cultural and social diversity that social workers face in their work and how the professions values, ethics and theoretical perspectives provide direction for practice. Answer: Social work can be considered as a practice-oriented profession as well as an academic discipline that results in the promotion of social change and growth. It is considered as a regulated career where social workers have been inducted in a unique manner to serve and support individuals, communities, families in order to accomplish some of the biggest challenges and risks of life (Lawrence, 2016). However, social workers play a vital role in protecting the liberty and rights to enhance and empower children, grown-ups and families. Social workers implement a distinctive array of legal and social work awareness and knowledge to assist citizens to bring alterations in their lives. This essay aims to understand the challenges and risks experienced by social workers while interacting and working with individuals and communities situated in the Australia. The paper will also elaborate certain political, cultural and social diversities that social agents experience during their course of wo rk by shedding light on the way these factors are influencing the Australian families. In addition to this, it will also focus on the means in which these issues will give impact on the social policies and social work practices. Lastly, this essay will be providing certain theoretical as well as ethical frameworks that will support social workers to manage and navigate risks and challenges during their everyday work. Social workers have always represented areas of concern regarding their public representation from the foundation of their professionalism. However, traditionally social agents have continued to accomplish the role of protectors and guardians of the helpless and vulnerable members of the society. However, confusions and hostility pertaining to this type of work might create hindrance to accomplish the aims of the profession to assist and navigate public in need. During the mid nineteenth century, the role of social work in Australia had been moderately vulnerable in authority (Dominelli, 2017). Several limited training opportunities and a sharp decline in trained employee workforce created obstacles in the process of expansion and expertise of social work in various areas related to its production and service. Therefore, the establishment of training institutions for social work occurred in three states namely Victoria, New South Wales as well as South Australia. Social agents had been experiencing issues of work practices, womens rights in the early as well as later decades. The idea of ethics, morals and principles of practice is a difficult process to work within limited space. It becomes immensely complex to envision the reaching global agreed state of fundamental values and ethics of practice for dealing with youth, children, parents as well as other members of the family. In all significant respects, childhood is a phase, which remains attached to the marginalized section as a temporary and intermediary status (Adams, 2011). The outcome of children being debarred from engaging into the vital positions of the society. Older children and adolescents are also often considered as unruly and wearisome who fail to be engaged with the practice of social work and further facilitate to the society (McMahon Camberis, 2017). Social workers perceive the situation of children as a matter of concern while taking their positions within the social str ucture into consideration. However, it must be noted that the focal area of social workers deal with the areas of inclination of children that has a considerable increase in the past decades. An intense and collaborative relationship of AASW with the government, educational institutes, customer associations and community has been witnessed the immense significance of Aboriginal and Torres State Islanders (Alma Iran, 2015). The practice of social service with the Aboriginal communities is Australia is notified by understanding. Social workers acknowledge the historical shortcomings of the community and further implications related to the act of social service. They honour and identify the ethnicity and cultural diversity of the Australian society with the existence of diversity among the people, communities and groups belonging to indigenous and other cultures. The varied references and information of indigenous groups, the AASW code has been revised which added general statement related to cultural diversity (Coombs, Nicholas, Parkas, 2013). A case of serious concern lies regarding the analysis of social work ethics. Several social service practitioners who worked on im migrants, refugees and non-English speaking communities have stated that the AASW code failed to address several areas of concern such as sexuality, culture, race, ethnicity and alike. Modernist theorise often create obstacles for social workers to deal with the participants responses. Social work practitioners must consider the significant economic implications while dealing with mental health services. Several factors, which have relation to socioeconomic status, may situate the poverty-stricken victims who are often denied assistance by social workers. Although social workers often make frequent visits to the places of socially and economically deprived families, many have expressed fear and apathetic towards the families. Many have stated to continue their practice within the places of their comfort with clients paying visit to them. However, the times when assistance towards mental health are situated at a distance from the communities which they have claimed to serve certain level of biasness becomes evident from the position of the social workers. The notions of services to mental health and wellbeing remain indistinct and blurred to many communities with varied cultural aspects. For instance, the concepts comprehended in English and Spanish language fail to demonstrate similar connotations. There is a great need and demand for bilingual social practitioners who can effectively illustrate the purpose of the work while catering various sections of linguistic minorities. A sudden unemployment surge in recent times has caused an immense effect on the industrial growth of the country. The anticipation of over sixty five thousand job cuts raised an issue of concern amongst the Australian families (Carvalho, 2015). However, it must be taken into account that this type of unemployment stress has given rise to mental illness among the workers in the labour force. The rate of labour retrenchment has severely hit the Australian youth that has increased from twelve to fifteen percent with less than a decade. A nongovernmental organization in this country has characterized this kind of a disgraceful economic state as a scandalous situation for the countrys youths. In recent times, Australian families are experiencing several social risks and challenges. An overbearing past of colonization has led the countrys political situation be troubled with various conservative liberalism, privatization as well as market philosophy. Subjects related to the issues of respecting and giving privileges to other cultures has predominantly existed in this country. Australia has been assigned to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that further states the equality and respect for all humans in terms of rights, freedoms and authorities with the exclusion of any kind of racism (Fozdar, Hartley, 2013). An amount of over five million families in Australia was living in the country during 1990s (Robinson, 2013). A vast population of immigrants of the Aboriginal as well as Torres Strait Islanders backgrounds has been witnessed in comparison to the communities who did not belong to the indigenous families. However, it was noted that the former resided in multifam ily households whereas the later were mainly single households. One of the causes related to this disparity lied on the increasing rates of unemployment and economic scarcity among the Indigenous families (Bennett, 2015). The cause of the difference also occurred due to the reasonably higher percentage of deaths and male imprisonment. Socio economic dissimilarity has been considered as another cause of family diversity where the availability of jobs and adequate earnings were not distributed equally among the families in Australia. The early twenty first century had witnessed about twenty percent of families without a bread earner, a percentage of almost fifty consisting of sole earners who were primarily women (Markus, 2014). There is a need of social as well as public policies to be implemented in order to protect and respond to the divergence of individualistic and family assemblage occurring in the Australian society. These policies further needs to focus on the social, ethnic a nd economic factors related to the society. Public policies are significant, as the growing rates of unemployment, single parent families and deprivation have caused major impacts on the living conditions of the youth and children of the country. Employee engagement and availability of jobs along with labour market policies, health facilities can either lead to the advancement and promotion of equality and reduce exclusion. The process of migration has been a critical factor for the growth of the Australias social capital. Millions of migrants have chosen this country as a place for occupation, production as well as fill up the gaps of labour scarcity. It must be taken into account that a countrys cultural and economic development is highly dependent on the migrant population, who not only upsurges the human investment stocks but also leads to the increase in social and recreational activities of the Australians. The major portion of social revenue that is related to migration is characterized as short term and is developed from the process of settlement. The immigrant families experience several dilemmas associated with difficulties with English language, cultural assimilation, and lack of infrastructure facilities as well along with spiritual and religious fundamentalism (Bennett, 2015). Several other concerns raised by the indigenous communities were mostly related to the temporary association or cul tural struggle between the migrants and the members associated with the host culture. The Federal Government of Australia for past several years has been actively working on the fund distribution to ethno specific groups through the means of the immigration department. The main purpose of this financial support was to provide services to the refugees as well as humanitarian entrants (Kilpatrick et al., 2015). This funding system has proved to be greatly beneficial to the Australian communities in reaching out to the settlement development in the country. These funding have not played a vital role in the establishment of members of diverse communities but has also contributed to an effective settlement for thousands of refugees. However, it must be noted that this process of settlement can be interrupted and hindered by few external factors which might led an individual to lose his own refugee area. Communities, which are based particularly on ethnicity, have huge reliance and dependence on the SGP funded position in order to improve the sustainability level (Ballantyn e Burke, 2017). However, a loss of such an organization has caused immense impact of the ethnic organizations because of their high-level dependency. Several ethno specific organizations were left with no capitals and incomes to provide further contributions to the wider community via these services, which are created to meet communitarian needs and desires. The practice of social work involves several stages of evaluation, observation, and intervention with an involvement of supporting and promoting human development and social justice. In order to have a smooth social work practice and initiate these strategies, social practitioners must observe and evaluate the way to proceed with each phase within a given circumstances. The concept of social policy along with social welfare is often identified as similar concepts although they have varied approaches. These practice of social policy and justice results in different explanations and even contradictory views that is dependent on the position of the affected ones both as a recipient and contributor. The idea of social justice relies on the welfare of human beings that can be recognized worldwide. The Chinese civilization argues about the concepts of social guiding principles and social welfare which can be found in the traditional ways of teaching of the ancient philosophers who has stil l immense contribution in various Chinese educational institutions (Scerra, 2012). The implementation of social justice to the mankind has its origin in the Global Declaration of Human Rights Charter of the United Nations that spoke how human rights has strong association with dignity and value of individuals who seek to ensure freedom and sovereignty from all types of fear and anxiety. The core responsibility in social work practice remains in accomplishing obligations in order to look after human rights for achieves justice. The role of governments is confronted by differing and conflicting human demands and desires from varied sections of the society. The concept of risk tolerance plays a vital role in the act of practice for a social worker. This concept of risk tolerance is referred as a level of comfort social workers take, both for oneself as well as for the client (resources, priorities and alike) during their social service in order to accomplish the purpose (Ritchie et al., 2013). Another component related to social work is the model for ethical decision-making. However, it must be taken into account that maintaining ethical strategies is not considered, as an effortless job as even with the most accurate purpose and objectives social workers might still be ineffective. Social work practitioners must incorporate proper strategies while making ethical decisions. An effective observation and understanding of the participants through constructing disagreements and arguments would help in the justification of the actions of the social workers. Practitioners must determine the aims and purposes, which participants will accomplis h. Ethical social workers are confident in the usage of decision making that further supports to critical thinking as well as reflection. It is required for the social workers to use specialized and proficient decision-making equipments during the interaction and consultation with students or supervisors. This ethical framework is considered as a primary component in order to conduct a professional social service practice. Social practitioners experience several dilemmas during their practice and further require resolving those effectively. Certain issues social workers face during their practice can be self-disclosure, confidentiality, personal and qualified boundaries and lastly difference of interest. Regardless to the expertise and skills professional social work, practitioners possess, yet they would be bombarded with several issues and dilemma because of certain challenging societal or behavioural reinforcement. The issues, which social workers face while conducting their practices in a school context include issues related to abuse, harassment, school attendance, aggression and other psychological concerns that negatively influence student socialization. However, through the process of social learning theory, practitioners can observe and work on these issues. The concept of general system theoretical practice puts prominence to the reciprocity of relationships among the elements of the system (Blaikie et al., 2014). This theory helps in enhancing the attention of the social worker to diverse organizations within which an individual functions. Conflict theory is considered as a significant foundation for social work related to the association of communities for macro level wor k. The interests and aims of various leaders, organizers remain unnoticed and disregarded because of their lack of alignment to dominant thoughts and perceptions (Congress, 2017). Thus, there lies a requirement of identifying the interests and desires of these organizer and directors. The duty of community organizers is to bridge the gaps found within communities and neighbourhood resulted because of the conflicts among members of the communities. Thus, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the fundamental purpose of social work is to provide guidance and assistance to their clients and members of the society to accomplish their respective needs as well as desires to further enhance and encourage the humanitarian wellbeing. Social work practitioners work in a productive manner to act in response to the demands and obligations of the members of the society. The essay highlights certain challenges social workers experience while conducting their work with the Australian Aboriginals and Torrent Islander Communities. The paper further focuses on the factors influencing the migrants and refugee population in the country. Lastly, the paper will elaborate certain ethical and theoretical frameworks, which would assist the social workers to navigate challenges during their course of work. References Adams, R. (Ed.). (2011).Working with children and families: knowledge and contexts for practice. Palgrave Macmillan. Ballantyne, G., Burke, L. (2017). People live in their heads a lot: Polymedia, life course, and meanings of home among Melbournes older Irish community.Transnational Social Review,7(1), 10-24. Bennett, B. (2015). Stop deploying your white privilege on me! 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