Usage of human rights practice by Romanian social workers

Abstract

The role of the social work professional in the 21st century is to recognize human rights in their daily practice. They should focus on challenging the structural societal conditions that diminish their clients’ rights and at the same time on initiating interventions that resist oppressive structures that deny basic political and economic rights. This quantitative study aimed at exploring the level of engagement in different rights-based practices for a small sample of Romanian social workers. Results showed that practitioners are highly involved in a ‘strengths perspective’, but scored lower on ‘activism’ dimension. Further implications for social work education are discussed.