14 Key Attributes Medical And Public Health Social Workers Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Alex Garcia

Friday, August 21, 2015

Medical and public health social workers provide individuals, families, and groups with the psychosocial support needed to cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses. Services include advising family care givers, providing patient education and counseling, and making referrals for other services. They may also also provide care and case management or interventions designed to promote health, prevent disease, and address barriers to access to healthcare. In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that medical and public health social workers would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for social work environments. Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 97%

Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 97%

Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 87.6%

Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 86.6%

Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 85.4%

The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 83.8%

Talking to others to convey information effectively.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 82.4%

The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%