Community organizer vs social worker

[Liar]

Community organizer is a job description that's been in the news recently, for some, um, inexplicable reason.

My Swedish newscasts and papers all consistently translate it into "social worker". Which for me is a rather broad term that can be anything from educator to child services to welfare administration to help with legal matters and buerocracy for the disenfranchised.

Is that what it is with a different name, or is the definition of a social worker more specific in America and different from a community organizer?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think you have to go back to the days of Tammany to get a sense of what a community organizer is. In a nutshell they were the person you went to when you needed a job or help with bureaucrats/cops or city services on your block. The political machine got you the job or relief, and you gave them votes....your's, your spouse's, your neighbor's, co-workers etc.

The community organizer sneaked you around the bureaucrats.

 

[rgraham666]

It's difficult to use the word 'social' in any context here in North America. To many it's a synonym for 'socialism' which is itself a synonym for 'Communism'. Which is yet another synonym for 'unbridled and utter evil'.

At the root of it all is the fact that many people don't really believe in or trust society. To them any form of society is a limitation on their freedom.

 

[Equinoxe]

Is that what it is with a different name, or is the definition of a social worker more specific in America and different from a community organizer?

A social worker is a much more specific term in the US and generally refers to a specific career which involves working individually with people from troubled backgrounds; a community organiser is a much broader term somewhat more akin to what you described. There are university degrees in Social Work, but not in Community Organising.

 

[oggbashan]

Locally, a community organiser helps groups of residents organise themselves to address particular issues e.g. anti-social behaviour; providing facilities for youngsters; help groups for those suffering a particular illness; or even artist and writers' groups.

A Social Worker has to be trained and qualified to deal with assisting individuals and families. They have legal powers to take children into care, to provide emergency care for someone with an acute mental health problem etc. A Social Worker assesses people's needs and arranges Care Packages to meet those needs (if the money and resources are available). A Social Worker is a gatekeeper to the provision of services.

A Social Worker can be a community organiser if that would help the service being provided. A community organiser cannot be a social worker without undertaking the training and becoming qualified as a Social Worker.

There are people who do "social work" who are not social workers. Home Helps who clean old people's houses, provide dressing and undressing services, providers of Meals on Wheels - are doing social work but are not "Social Workers".

Og

 

[Selena_Kitt]

In the U.S. a social worker can be hired to do therapy work with individuals and families. Because the social worker lobby is so huge, they can practice privately with an MSW (masters in social work) without supervision and insurance will pay them as well. Unlike Masters level psychologists in the U.S., who need to work under the supervision of a PH.D level psychologist. But licensure often varies from state to state.

 

[Weird Harold]

Community organizer is a job description that's been in the news recently, for some, um, inexplicable reason.

My Swedish newscasts and papers all consistently translate it into "social worker". Which for me is a rather broad term that can be anything ...

Both are rather nebulous and flexible terms, with a lot of overlap where an individual might be working as both at once.

but the distinction I would make is that a community organizer doesn't accomplish anything directly, but rather encourages communities to direct their united energy to accomplishing a goal.

A social worker directs their effort to directly address specific problems. Builiding community support for their efforts is only a secondary function that comes into play when the specific problem requires community support.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Then we have the term "community activist" which usually pertains to the kind of pain in the neck who makes city council meetings last about twice a long as they ought to.

 

[Liar]

Ok then. Very informative, although almost as confusing as before.

Thanks pornsters.

 

[oggbashan]

Then we have the term "community activist" which usually pertains to the kind of pain in the neck who makes city council meetings last about twice a long as they ought to.

You described me...

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

Ok then. Very informative, although almost as confusing as before.

Thanks pornsters.

One additional thought:

"Social Worker" tends to be associated with the government as in a piad government employee.

"Community organizer" and "community activist" tend to be associated with NGO's and special interest groups.

The exceptions are "church social workers" who tend to be more often both "social worker" and "community organizer."

There is, in the older generations at least, an adverse association of "organizers" with "Union Organizers" and "communist organiser/agitator" both of whom leaned towards the shady side of legality (and were basically synonymous to much of my parent's generation.)

 

[DeeZire]

There's always the quote from the presidential campaign:

Jesus was a community organizer.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

You described me...

Og

As long as you can take pride it in, go get 'em. If nothing else, the sight of your upraised hand might bring pause to some overbearing bit of nonsense that any normal person wouldn't have even discussed.

 

[Edward Teach]

I've always thought of a Social Worker as working mainly with individuals and a Community Organizer as working with groups.

A Social Worker would help an individual with a drug problem get treatment, etc.

A Community Organizer would help a neighborhood with drug problems organize to combat it -- keep the police informed about the dealers, outreach for the addicts, etc.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I've always had the impression that the community organizer element started with Saul Alinsky and his leftist movement in Chicago. If it is something more politically neutral, feel free to correct me.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

At the root of it all is the fact that many people don't really believe in or trust society. To them any form of society is a limitation on their freedom.[/QUOTE]

Believe in society, yes, to some extent. As in it being inevitable and necessary. We can't return to the caves without giving up too much.

Not too keen on social conventions and follies that often trample man's inalienable rights, but provided that society doesn't become an agent of conformity, it's acceptable. I might have reclusive tendencies, but I'm not that much of a hermit.

For instance, some government is necessary. More these days than in the Stone Age or even the Gilded Age. Not as much as some on the far left might prefer, but more than my friends and former comrades in groups like the John Birch Society (an odd name for anti-government conspiracy group, I might add) would think preferable. And, yes, I used the term "comrade" with deliberate irony. As you said, they are revolutionaries in their own way. I should know, having been in their ranks in the recent past.

I am a very much a social reformer in my own way, seeking to change society rather than eradicate it. The overthrow of Victorian morality is a major long-term objective for me, though has only been so since 2001, when I discarded that morality in favor of a mix of Stoicism and Aristotlean realism.

On fiscal issues, I'm applying Aristotle's principle of the "golden mean" much more of late.

Trusting society on everything is a separate issue. As I said, I don't like conformity with the prevailing social mores. But repudiating them will take at least another generation to complete. I hope that I outlive them, at any rate. And I naturally fear the lawlessness of mob rule. I prefer the rule of law, but enlightened laws, not anachronistic ones.

But only so much progress can be expected from a species closely related to chimps.

 

[oggbashan]

As long as you can take pride it in, go get 'em. If nothing else, the sight of your upraised hand might bring pause to some overbearing bit of nonsense that any normal person wouldn't have even discussed.

My latest campaign:

We have a community festival in the summer. Every activity, every performance, every bit of entertainment - is free. It is paid for by our local council and partly sponsored by local businesses. The local businesses don't pay very much because most of them are very small and struggling but they try.

This year, for the first time in 16 years, the council decided to take a 30% cut of all sponsorship "for administration costs". Even the festival organisers didn't know this was happening until the final figures were produced after the festival. The 30% cut meant that the festival had overspent about 1.5%. Without that cut they would have been 0.5% under the budgeted and estimated spend - a considerable achievement for council spending.

The sponsors are now reluctant to pay anything for next year's festival. Why should they when 30% of anything they give is taken away?

I am asking for an explanation of this charge and assurances 1.That it won't be repeated and 2. That the festival organisers will be congratulated on keeping their spend within the budget and 3. That the 30% will be refunded to the festival's accounts.

Next year, even without the 30% charge on sponsorship, getting any money from the local business community will be very difficult. With a 30% deduction it would be almost impossible.

Og - Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce (after all, someone has to organise the Vice in our town!); Chairman of the Residents' Association; Vice-Chairman of the Police/Community Liaison (more Vice!); etc...