Aging and Family Caregiving Home

NASW Standards and Positions

NASW Standards for Social Work Practice with Family Caregivers of Older Adults
Many individuals face multiple bio-psychosocial challenges as they age: changes in physical and cognitive abilities; barriers to accessing comprehensive, affordable, and high-quality health and mental/behavioral health care; decreased economic security; lack of affordable, accessible housing; increased vulnerability to abuse and exploitation; and loss of meaningful social roles and opportunities to remain engaged in society. These challenges often affect entire families, who struggle to provide physical, emotional, financial, and practical support to their aging members.

NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in Long Term Care
The principal components of social work services in long-term care settings are designed to provide
assessment, treatment, rehabilitation, and supportive care, and to preserve and enhance social functioning. Service provision requires a unique combination of physical, psychological, and social interventions and family support, the goal of which is to promote an optimal level of psychological, physical, and social functioning.

NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in End-of-Life Care
All social workers, regardless of practice settings, will inevitably work with clients facing acute or long-term situations involving life-limiting illness, dying, death, grief, and bereavement. Using their expertise in working with populations from varying cultures, ages, socioeconomic status, and nontraditional families, social workers help families across the life span in coping with trauma, suicide, and death, and must be prepared to assess such needs and intervene appropriately. Social work practice settings addressing palliative and end of life care include health and mental health agencies, hospitals, hospices, home care, nursing homes, day care and senior centers, schools, courts, child welfare and family service agencies, correctional systems, agencies serving immigrants and refugees, substance abuse programs, and employee assistance programs.

NASW Public Policy Statements (2012)
NASW Press

Aging and Wellness
 End-of-Life Care
 Long-Term Care

 


http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/swMonth/2012/toolkit/aging/standards.asp
10/7/2013
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