What makes social work different than other helping professions?
All of the helping professions seek to assist persons using a knowledge base of expertise developed by researchers. In social work, we use the “generalist” perspective which means use whatever information, technology or resource that is ethical, effective and available to help the client. Social work utilizes a “person in environment” or “ecosystems” approach which maintains that in order to help someone, you must also deal with the situation that they are in that helped to cause their problem.