Days in the Lives of Social Workers

Spend a day with social workers in 62 different settings, and learn about the many career paths available to you. Did you ever wish you could tag along with a professional in your chosen field, just for a day? DAYS IN THE LIVES OF SOCIAL WORKERS allows you to take a firsthand, close-up look at the real-life days of 62 professional social workers as they share their stories. Join them on their journeys, and learn about the rewards and challenges they face.



This book is an essential guide for anyone who wants an inside look at the social work profession. Whether you are a social work graduate student or undergraduate student, an experienced professional wishing to make a change in career direction, or just thinking about going into the field, you will learn valuable lessons from the experiences described in DAYS IN THE LIVES OF SOCIAL WORKERS.

The 5th edition includes updates throughout, as well as new chapters on police social work, library social work, suicide prevention/intervention, anti-trafficking, social work and the opioid crisis, legislative social work, adoption social work, social work education, and arts-based social work.

From the Foreword:

The more I thought about the book and what it contributes, I realized that it paints a “word picture” of what social work is as a profession.  This is not an easy thing to do, given how multifaceted social work is and given the many settings in which it is practiced.  This book presents the mosaic that is social work—a mosaic of multiple “tiles” held together with the core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence, all applied “within the context and the complexity of the human experience,” as stated in the NASW Code of Ethics. -Kathryn Conley Wehrmann, Ph.D., LCSW, President, NASW

From the Introduction:

My hope is that you will use this book as a starting point—an introduction to the variety of roles social workers play every day. Use it as you would the opportunity to literally follow and observe 62 different social workers for a day. Soak up as much as you can from each experience, decide what you would like to explore further, and then take it from there!  -Linda May Grobman, MSW, LSW, ACSW