The Willingness to Seek Help: Its Role in Social Workers' Professional Commitment

Abstract

Providing help to persons in need is the central theme of the social work profession. The three elements essential to this process are the person offering the assistance, the assistance itself, and the person receiving it. The focus here is on the person offering the help and to what degree that person is willing to request help when he or she needs it. Social workers differ with regard to their willingness to seek help, and this study employs a variety of research tools to explore the relevance of these differences to their commitment to the profession and to their professional advancement. The research, carried out in Israel with a sample of 180 professional social workers, found greater willingness to seek help to be directly associated with greater professional commitment and indirectly associated with enhanced upward career mobility.