On the Interaction between Social Work and Law

Both social work and law shoulder the mission of improving society. With the intervention of social work in more and more cases in China, various social problems are becoming more and more prominent. In the process of solving problems, social workers constantly look for laws as support points, and the formulation and implementation of relevant laws also promote the orderly progress of social work. Only by properly handling the relationship between social work and law can these two fields develop better and faster, and human society can be better improved.

Keywords: social work, law, the improvement of social workers

The definition of social work given by the International Federation of Social Workers and the International Social Work Education Association 200 1 points out that social work advocates transformation, solves interpersonal problems and personal rights and freedoms, so as to improve human welfare. This definition emphasizes the social role that social work should have. This role is more reflected in the transformation of society and the improvement of human welfare. An important feature of the law is that it is promulgated by the national legislature, interpreted by the court and executed by the corresponding punishment institutions, so as to ensure normal social order and safeguard social justice. It also shoulders the mission of improving society. From this point of view, the value orientation of the two is the same in practical work. Social workers will encounter all kinds of legal problems in the process of caring for vulnerable groups or serving the community: they may seek legal support, or the case owner has violated the law, or social workers themselves have conflicts between law and value. In the face of mandatory laws, how should social workers choose professional values; In the face of complex and changeable social problems, the law is powerless. How to solve it? When the two promote each other and carry out activities together, it provides a broader space for solving the problem.

The Influence of Social Work on Law

(1) Promote the legislative process of social work and strengthen the confidence of vulnerable groups in safeguarding rights. The social work process has an important impact on the promotion of legislation and policies. As can be seen from the evolution of the laws on abused children in Hong Kong, the laws were initially adjusted with the social development and the intervention of social work. When child abuse is found, the government issues laws and regulations to protect children and teenagers as punishment. With the professional development and the increasing phenomenon of child abuse in society, social workers groups have become child protection investigation groups, providing professional services, greatly improving the protection of children; Later, with the participation of more judicial and legal professionals, the gap between social work and legal profession was broken, and the advantages of many professions were brought into full play, so the guidelines for dealing with child abuse were revised. With the continuous development of various fields, laws have been enacted to strengthen the diversified process of preventing child abuse, including family education, school education and mass media publicity. Therefore, the formulation of laws has gone through the adjustment from single to multiple corrections to prevention, and gradually changed with the emergence of problems and the development of society. Social work is just a medium to reflect social problems and let the government know, thus affecting the revision and formulation of laws and making them constantly revised and improved. To better serve the society and face specific cases and case owners, social workers are not just a simple server, listener or rescuer based on action research. His/her judgment and reflection will become an extremely important resource in the process of legal construction and have a direct impact on the case owner.

We know that most activities carried out by social workers are non-profit. When they introduce their own findings and ideas into the legal field, the non-profit standard is still unchangeable. However, this practice is extremely important for their target group. Judging from the actual situation in China, people in a weak position (including but not limited to economic weakness) are likely to give up their efforts to safeguard their rights when their rights and interests are infringed under the reality of lack of legal knowledge and high external judicial costs. In the long run, people's confidence in the law will be greatly reduced, and the intervention of social workers will inevitably rekindle people's confidence in the law. Perhaps, such a practice can go beyond a single litigation activity itself and become a sustainable and benign social construction project.

(B) Social workers in the judicial practice to promote the smooth progress of the case.

In judicial practice, the information held by social workers is often an important basis in the judicial process. As expert witnesses, social workers have always played an extremely important role in common law countries. The expert witness system originated in Britain in the 4th century/KLOC-A.D., and has always been a unique legal system in the evidence law of a country ruled by law. Expert witness refers to the knowledge or experience of the problem or related matters. People who express their opinions on this issue or matter can be accepted as evidence in our country. With the continuous development of social work and the continuous improvement of the judicial system, this system can also become useful experience. Before a social worker intervenes in a case, he will make an in-depth understanding and investigation on the relevant issues of the case owner and make a reasonable analysis. In the process of treatment, social workers need to fully grasp the information of the case owner. Take domestic violence cases as an example, the victims of violence are often women. When the case owner asks the social worker for help, he should first consult the case owner for an interview, and the social worker should make a record of the interview, including the specific time and place of the interview, the state of the case owner during the interview, eye movements, etc., because these details can reflect the true inner situation of the parties and help the social worker to make a correct judgment, which is not something that ordinary people can find and record. In order to obtain evidence, the case owner will go to the hospital for examination, and social workers are needed to accompany him at this time. In the whole process of diagnosis and treatment, social workers need to keep close contact with the case owner. A series of actions by the case owner will attract the attention of social workers and be recorded. Whether the case owner goes to the hospital for an injury examination, or goes to court to sue for help from the Women's Federation, or asks people around the case owner for information, they must be accompanied by social workers. The social worker is the person who knows and records the whole process best except the case owner, and the evidence he provides will be favorable objective facts. The article "Matters needing attention related to law during internship in Taiwan Province Provincial University" points out that social workers must be familiar with the operation system of the court and know what appropriate actions should be taken when testifying in court. Social workers and students must assume that their professional service records, case records, case reports or contact letters may become the specific documents required to be reviewed by court summons; It may also be documents collected and reviewed by prosecutors or lawyers; In fact, this also puts higher demands on social workers: in addition to helping people solve practical difficulties, they must also bear higher social responsibilities in policy, especially in the judicial field.

Second, the influence of law on social work.

(A) the impact of law on social work ethics In the practice of social work, law and social ethics often point to the same, but there are often conflicts and oppositions between them.

1. Conflict between law and ethical beliefs in social work

The law must be enforced and those who violate it will be punished. It can be constantly revised and improved, and it is voluntary to abide by ethics, but violating ethics does not mean that he will not be punished. He may be punished by law, or he may be punished within the organization, or he may not. Ethics is always vague in Britain and America. In the social life order in which the traditional ethical order has lasted for thousands of years, social ethical beliefs have penetrated into the minds of social members. Moral beliefs, habits and beliefs reflect the powerful influence of etiquette under the traditional ethical order. When new legal beliefs come, people will face difficult ideological choices. In social work, moral belief has a far-reaching impact on social workers and customers. They often follow the moral tradition and solve problems from a moral perspective. The provisions of the law were ignored by them, and the balance between law and social morality was not found. This strong moral and ethical belief has a great influence on the formation of legal belief, especially the negative moral belief, which gives law.

2. Conflicts between laws and ethical rules of social work

In order to regulate people's social life, organizations often form various rules and regulations and intangible agreements. These rules and regulations and intangible agreements, combined with the unique ethical culture in China, control the behaviors of social workers and clients and become binding ethical rules such as human feelings, customs and habits influenced by China's traditional ethics. Law is not the only and most important way to regulate social work. There are many positive factors for the ethical rules contained in society to become the most important social work behavior norms, but there are also some contradictions with the law. Compared with the implementation of law, the implementation process of ethical rules with considerable vitality is very irregular. This unstable implementation of moral rules violates the concept of clarity, transparency, openness and justice emphasized by national laws. In the field of social work, human rights are most protected by law, and any violation of human rights is immoral. Some of these practices are legal, such as the execution of the death penalty, which is clearly stipulated by law. In these practices, obeying the law violates professional ethics, while in other practices, it advocates humanized treatment of mental patients and the legitimate rights and interests of citizens. Social workers may do some illegal acts and follow professional ethics to break the law.

In view of the conflict and influence between law and social work ethics, the state should fully consider the characteristics of social work, attach importance to the moral beliefs and customs of social workers and clients, and give full play to their positive role in the process of social work. If the social work law conflicts with legal ethics or the actual requirements of society, people are likely to have negative resistance. Only by respecting social ethics can we arouse people's heartfelt respect for the law. To deal with this belief conflict, we should adopt a tolerant attitude and take positive measures to avoid the direct collision of belief conflicts, actively maintain and cultivate those morals and habits that are consistent with legal beliefs and conducive to the formation of legal beliefs, and resolutely abandon outdated feudal thoughts and habits to create a good internal motivation for the correct implementation of the law, thus promoting the good operation of social work.

(B) the impact of the law on social work practice

Law is the basis for social workers to help target groups. Although there is no unified and complete social work law in China, according to the reality of social work in China, the components of social work-related laws can be divided into social assistance legal systems according to the professional qualifications of social service institutions and social workers and the ways to safeguard rights in the service field. Legal system of social special care; Legal system to protect special groups; Educational legal system; Labor legal system; Legal system of social insurance; Legal system of medical care and family planning; Legal system of marriage and family; Community legal system; Employment legal system; Legal system of social organizations and public welfare undertakings; Legal system of community correction and people's mediation; The establishment and perfection of litigation legal system and social work practitioners' legal system have a very important influence on whether social work can better realize its function of improving society, especially the establishment and perfection of social work practitioners' legal system will greatly promote social work practice.

Our country's laws have clear regulations and management methods for social workers, as well as the identification of social workers' occupations and the evaluation of their professional level. It also points out the rights and obligations that social workers have and the professional ethics disciplinary system that they should abide by, so that social workers can have laws to follow in their work process, which is conducive to standardizing the quality of professionals and developing social work majors.

The law authorizes professional social workers to engage in some activities that others are forbidden to engage in, but it also restricts social workers from engaging in other activities that only other professionals can engage in. Social workers should be clear about their job responsibilities and scope. For example, the law requires social workers to report to designated government agencies. Although social work organizations are not for profit, the law still authorizes social workers to charge corresponding fees for certain services, which is conducive to the development of their work. At the same time, the law also stipulates that social services should be provided to all those who need them. For example, if consumers' rights and interests are infringed, they should face all consumers. They have the right to know all the reasons related to their own interests, regardless of other factors such as age and gender, and there should be no restrictions.

In short, if the relevant social work laws can respect and conform to the ethical norms and rules of normal society, and can be gradually revised and improved with the changes of social life and social work practice, then the legal quality of social workers will be gradually improved, social work will participate more in cases, and social work and law will be able to influence and promote each other and form a benign interaction, thus improving human welfare.

refer to

(1) Pi Xianglin-Ethics from the perspective of social work [J].- Social work (second half) 2009, (5)

(2) Fu-On the construction of social work ethics and rule of law order in China.

[J]。 -Social Science Review, 2009, (12)

③ Zhu Xiao. Yang Fei's overseas social work legislation model and its enlightenment to China.

Xiu [J]- Politics and Law.2008, (10)

(4) Yuan-Analysis of the current social work law and social worker law in China.

Law [J]- Social Work (second half) .2008, (2)

(5) Kano-function analysis of social work in building a harmonious society [J]- Ningxia University

Journal of Science (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 2006, (9)

(6) Zhang Cungang Li Ming-Developing Social Work and Building a Harmonious Society [J]- Social Science

Heng 2005, (12)

The second part (other discussion about the relationship between the two, 1000 words)

First, the relationship between social work and law. Social work and law complement each other and are indispensable. They need to operate at the same time.

(1) From the scope of social work, only professional social work methods can save people from danger, and the power to help others solve problems is meager, which cannot completely solve social problems. Bringing social work into the legal category is the best way to solve the problem. In social work, from the formulation and implementation of laws to the internal management of social work institutions, from fighting for the legal rights of recipients to the self-determination of recipients, all contain legal content. It is basically impossible to leave the process of law formulation and implementation.

(2) Generally speaking, the emergence of a large number of social problems is often related to the political system and legal system of a society. The imperfection of political system and legal system leads to social inequality, and the inequality of vulnerable groups in society, especially some societies, is caused by the defects in the implementation of some systems and laws. The solution to this problem must be to amend the law and formulate laws that adapt to the social structure. Therefore, law is the premise and guarantee of social work, and the development and perfection of social work is helpful to the perfection and perfection of law. Their mutual promotion and coordinated development have laid a solid foundation for building a harmonious society.

Second, the difference between social work and law.

(1) The disciplinary status of social work is different from that of law. At present, the disciplinary status of social work is controversial. People generally think that social work is a set of methods and skills to help others, rather than a discipline, because it lacks an independent theoretical system. Another view is that social work should be a discipline, belonging to the applied social science discipline. It has its own unique working principle. It borrows relevant social science knowledge and combines it to form a unique explanation of some phenomena. Law is the research object of law, and law is the general name of various scientific activities and their cognitive achievements with legal phenomena as the research object. Law is an independent discipline with a long history in social science. Therefore, they belong to different disciplines.

(2) The style and structure of social work are different from the law. The style and structure of social work pay attention to both theory and practice. Social work focuses on solving specific problems. Based on in-depth theoretical analysis of the causes of problems, it is a combination of theory and practice. In addition, social work is to study and advocate social progress and help people get out of trouble, which is of great academic value.

Laws form various departmental laws by adjusting different social relations. Generally speaking, the style structure between various departments' laws is divided into two parts: theoretical knowledge and legal interpretation. Law is the behavior rule of people's daily life and has universal binding force. (3) The characteristics of social work and law are different. The characteristics that distinguish social work from other disciplines are: improving the social living environment and improving the quality of social life; Enhance social functions; Action orientation; Facing human differences with diversified services; Wide adaptability. We attribute the general characteristics of law to four aspects, namely, adjusting the norms of behavior relations; Formulated, recognized and interpreted by the special organs of the state; Taking the two-way adjustment of rights and obligations as the adjustment mechanism; Relying on the national coercive force to ensure implementation. It can be seen that social work and law are still very different, and their characteristics are different, which constitutes the difference of adjustment objects.