Hi, my name is Gabrielle. I am 24 years old, and I have been studying Social Service at Sherbrooke's College for a year and a half. I have created this glossary to help anyone interested in this field of study. It contains words that are often use by social workers or are the baseline of social work. You will notice that some words can be use in a way you're not used to. I also included some short sentences that you might hear if you hear us talk haha! Enjoy!
caseload
noun
The amount of work (in terms of number of cases) with which a doctor, lawyer, or social worker is concerned at one time.
Example: A qualified social worker worked with two schools averaging 960 pupils unlike the standard ESW potential CASELOAD of 4000 pupils.
en: nombre de dossiers/charge de travail
client
noun
A person or organization using the services of a lawyer or other professional person or company.
Example: There are also a range of approaches which offer more personalized forms of help to people in difficulties without the stigma of becoming a CLIENT.
en: Usager
community-based organization
phrase
A community-based organization (CBO) is a non-profit, non-governmental, or public group rooted in a local community that works to meet specific needs, improve local health, and enhance well-being.
Example: COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS collaborate with employers to facilitate workforce development, address labor market needs, and enhance employment opportunities.
en: organisme communautaire
confidentiality
noun
The state of keeping or being kept secret or private.
Example: To ensure CONFIDENTIALITY all participants will be allocated a number and all data will be stored under those numbers.
en: confidentialité
crisis
noun
A time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.
Example: For individuals with phobic anxiety and long standing anxiety problems, this is often not a problem, however for those in a state of CRISIS, immediate individual sessions may be more appropriate.
en: crise
empathy
noun
Empathy is the ability or practice of imagining or trying to deeply understand what someone else is feeling or what it's like to be in their situation.
Example: I don't think that I or any of the nurses told Mary off, acted particularly negatively towards her or made her wait unduly but she may not have received the same attention or EMPATHY as patients that were not considered inappropriate attenders.
en: empathie
empowerment
noun
Increasing clients' capacity for self-help and autonomy.
Example: In this way, merely the use of international human rights law in a domestic setting can become an instrument for EMPOWERMENT and a long-term strategy to compel policy-makers to take housing rights more seriously.
en: autonomisation
homelessness
noun
The state of having no settled home.
Example: It opened the floodgates to a deluge of referrals, altered the whole balance of its work and confronted it with the enormity of "need" in terms of family poverty and HOMELESSNESS.
en: itinérance
intersectionality
noun
The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Example: The BWS incorporates the idea of 'INTERSECTIONALITY' and pays equal attention to all those factors which render women susceptible to abuse and violence including poverty, lack of welfare and support services, non-access to legal remedies, etc and focus on the entrenched structural disabilities of the patriarchal social order instead of highlighting the psychological condition of survivors.
en: intersectionnalité
intervention
noun
Action taken to improve a situation, especially a medical disorder.
Example: The underlying assumption (or, more accurately, hypothesis) of this paper is that client participation makes for a better social work INTERVENTION, and thus the higher the degree of client participation the more effective the INTERVENTION will be.
en: intervention
lifestyle habit
phrase
A lifestyle habit is a consistent, often automatic, daily behavior or routine that impacts an individual's overall physical, mental, or social well-being.
Example: For example, with obesity identified as a health risk factor, medical discourse enters educational policy in terms of creating the need for health education and causes all of our LIFESTYLE HABITS, such as diet and exercise, to become medicalised.
en: habitude de vie
mental health
noun
Mental health is a state of psychological, emotional, and social well-being that enables individuals to realize their abilities, cope with normal life stresses, work productively, and contribute to their community. It is a fundamental component of overall health—not merely the absence of mental illness—and exists on a complex, shifting spectrum.
Example: The pattern of social and MENTAL HEALTH problems indicates GPs were more sensitized to MENTAL HEALTH and illness, and that this played a significant part in choice of referral.
en: santé mentale
need
noun
A thing that is wanted or required.
Example: In our attempt to understand a group of complex phenomena we pick on some "simple" starting - point such as A NEED, and proceed to treat it as though it were completely transparent.
en: besoin
observation
noun
A remark, statement, or comment based on something one has seen, heard, or noticed.
Example: His theories are based on clinical OBSERVATIONS, and not on carefully controlled experimentation or systematic statistical comparison of groups and control groups.
en: observation
self-determination
noun
The process by which a person controls their own life.
Example: Services for the mentally ill should aim to promote individuals' capacity for self-determination.
en: autodétermination
social constructs
noun
Conceptions of things based on common perceptions by members of a society, not objective reality.
Example: Second, while the word "time" and "space" usually evoke the impression of the abstract, absolute dimensions of the physical world, here, apparently, they are discussed as SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS, referring to our conceptions and experiences of them.
en: constructions sociales
social justice
phrase
Social justice is the fair and equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, power, and rights within a society, aiming to eliminate systemic disparities based on race, gender, ability, or economic status.
Example: Increasingly the most strident political voices are raised in the name of free enterprise and law and order, not for equity and SOCIAL JUSTICE.
en: justice sociale
social work assessment report
phrase
A social work assessment report is a comprehensive, written document analyzing a client's social, emotional, physical, and environmental needs, strengths, and challenges. It synthesizes data from interviews, observations, and background records to identify risks, evaluate support needs, and recommend specific interventions or services aimed at improving the client's well-being.
Example: As social workers, one of the most critical parts of your job is to conduct SOCIAL WORK ASSESSMENTS on a regular basis using a social worker toolbox and standardized processes.
en: évaluation du fonctionnement social
stereotype
noun
Believing that people of a certain group, race or religion all have the same characteristics when they don't.
Example: Sometimes women are depicted almost as a caricature of a male STEREOTYPE of themselves - they are servile, weak, powerless etc.
en: stéréotype
to internalize
verb
Make (attitudes or behavior) part of one's nature by learning or unconscious assimilation.
Example: People learn gender stereotypes and INTERNALIZE them".
