What Degree You Need to Be a Social Worker

What You Can do With a Law Degree as a Social Worker?

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A social worker is a mental health professional who generally works in private practice as a therapist, as a social service agency caseworker or both. If you are a social worker and you are curious as to what additional employment opportunities that exist if you get a law degree, several paths are open for you. For example, you could work as a mediator, a guardian ad litem or a court-appointed parenting coordinator.

Mediator

A mediator is skilled in dispute resolution. Unlike a trial, which is adversarial and where one party's attorney tries to win over the other party's attorney, a mediator tries to resolve conflicts between the parties. Social work is also based on resolving conflicts. As a therapist, a social worker listens to her patient and helps resolve her patient's conflicts with other people. As a mediator, a social worker is often considered a natural fit for mediation because she is trained to be sensitive to the emotional issues between the parties, such as those in a divorce case.

Guardian ad Litem

A guardian ad litem is a court-appointed legal or mental health professional who looks after the best interests of someone who cannot look after his own interests. The guardian ad litem could represent a minor child, a person with a disability or aged person. During custody, the guardian ad litem looks after the best interests of a child. A social worker with a law degree knows how the court system works and how to evaluate the sensitive issues of custody. In a custody case, the guardian ad litem makes recommendations as to what the child needs to be safe, what treatment plans the court should order for the child and family, and what permanent solution is in the best interest of the child. According to federal law, any child whose parents may have abused or neglected him must have a guardian ad litem, and if a person other than the parents (such as a relative) wants custody, then the court must appoint a guardian ad litem for that child.

Parenting Coordinator

A parenting coordinator is a court-appointed professional who helps resolve custody and other issues in high-conflict divorce cases. High-conflict divorce cases are those that include excessive verbal abuse, threats or actual physical aggression toward family members and difficulty communicating about the children. A parenting coordinator must: a legal professional or mental health practitioner such as a master's level social worker or a psychologist; have a degree in a related subject area; have worked in the field for at least five years; and hold a current license in that field. Additionally, a parenting coordinator must complete at least 24 hours of training in children's developmental stages, the dynamics of high-conflict families, problem-solving techniques, mediation and legal issues, and attend seminars in continuing education. Hiring a parenting coordinator may help the parents resolve issues, and the parenting coordinator may help improve the parents' co-parenting skills.

Considerations

A person who has a social work degree and who wishes to get a law degree should consider the time, effort and money she would need to spend on getting that second degree. Getting a law degree is expensive and time-consuming, but having a law degree can broaden a social worker's employment opportunities. In addition, for jobs like a court-appointed parenting coordinator where a parenting coordinator must have either a legal or a mental health degree, having both degrees could benefit a social worker and the families she serves.

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Writer Bio

Kathryn Esplin, a veteran copy editor, wrote for The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, and copy edited for Addison-Wesley, and several years for IDG. She holds a journalism degree from Medill and a B.A. in English from McGill. A memoir, "Of Things Human, Life, Remarriage, Death" was published in "Blended Families (Social Issues Firsthand)."

What Degree You Need to Be a Social Worker

Source: https://work.chron.com/can-law-degree-social-worker-18845.html

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