Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
Under the title Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers, workers assess and treat individuals with mental, emotional, or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drugs. You may also need to counsel clients in individual or group sessions to assist them in dealing with substance abuse, mental or physical illness, poverty, unemployment, or physical abuse. The strongest interest signal is Social (7.0 of 7), then Investigative (4.1) and Conventional, which gives it the code SIC. Plan on graduate school and often five years or more of related experience; O*NET labels this extensive preparation. Strength in social perceptiveness, speaking, and active listening helps most here. If you want helping, teaching or caring for people, keep it on your list. If you need hands-on work with tools, machines or the physical world, it may feel thin.
What they do
Assess and treat individuals with mental, emotional, or substance abuse problems, including abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and/or other drugs. Activities may include individual and group therapy, crisis intervention, case management, client advocacy, prevention, and education.
Main tasks
- Counsel clients in individual or group sessions to assist them in dealing with substance abuse, mental or physical illness, poverty, unemployment, or physical abuse.
- Collaborate with counselors, physicians, or nurses to plan or coordinate treatment, drawing on social work experience and patient needs.
- Monitor, evaluate, and record client progress with respect to treatment goals.
- Interview clients, review records, conduct assessments, or confer with other professionals to evaluate the mental or physical condition of clients or patients.
- Supervise or direct other workers who provide services to clients or patients.
- Modify treatment plans according to changes in client status.
Skills
- Social Perceptiveness
- Speaking
- Active Listening
- Reading Comprehension
- Monitoring
- Critical Thinking
Who this career fits
May suit you if
- You get energy from helping other people move forward.
- You enjoy working out why something happens, not just what happened.
- You are prepared for graduate-level study and a long training path.
- You are comfortable relying on social perceptiveness and speaking.
May not suit you if
- You find a full day of dealing with people draining.
- You want to work with your hands for most of the day. Realistic rates 1.7 out of 7 here.
- You want to be working in the field within the next few years.
Interest profile
O*NET rates each occupation from 1 to 7 on six interest types. The code SIC takes the three highest, and Social comes first here.
Preparation
Extensive preparation. Many jobs here need graduate study, and people often spend five years or more building specialist experience.
Most-reported requirement in the O*NET survey: Master's Degree. This reflects what workers reported most often and is not a legal minimum. Licensing rules can differ by state or industry, so confirm what applies where you plan to work.
Also called
- Case Manager
- Clinical Social Worker
- Clinical Therapist
- Clinician
- Counselor
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This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.