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Social Worker
Helps individuals and families navigate challenges — poverty, abuse, mental health, disability.
Did you know?
Social reformer Florence Kelley, working from Chicago's Hull House, helped win an 1893 Illinois law banning factory work for children under 14.
How subjects help
- Psychology: Help a family cope with stress, grief or mental illness during a hard time.
- Sociology: Understand how poverty and housing problems shape a family's daily life.
- Law: Know people's rights to support and when the law steps in to protect a child.
- Communication: Build trust with families who may feel scared or angry about your visit.
A famous name
Jane Addams: Co-founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889 and is seen as a founder of US social work.
Try it yourself: Practise listening the SHUSH way
- Ask your partner to talk for three minutes about something ordinary and happy, like the best day they've had this year.
- Listen the SHUSH way: Show you care (phone away, look at them), Have patience, Use open questions ("Tell me more"), Say it back to check you understood, and Have courage to let a silence happen.
- Don't interrupt or offer a solution: just listen.
- Swap roles. If there is a third person, they watch and say which SHUSH tip they saw each of you use.
Social workers, counsellors and mediators spend much of their day listening carefully like this, so people feel heard before anyone talks about what happens next.
Adapted from Samaritans: DEAL: developing listening skills (SHUSH listening tips).
Also try: Map the helpers near you.
Known for it in
USA, UK, Canada, Sweden, Australia