Social workers are referred to as licensed clinical social workers in cases where they hold appropriate licences mandated by the state and a majority of them are not involved in dealing with the general problems faced in the society at large. They are engaged in handling specific kinds of problems faced by special groups of individuals and within a specific environment.
For example, those social workers concerned with assisting and hence improving the psychological and social functioning of school children and their families are grouped under the child, family and school social workers category. They are basically involved with coordinating various activities in assisting children who face various problems in their families. They do this by looking into the case of both the children and their families and finding appropriate ways of dealing with them. The case of Shanikwa and her two children Keisha and Stacey would be categorized under such circumstances. Other groups of social workers who are involved with the wellbeing of the society include: mental health and substance abuse social workers, medical and public health social workers and they work under the coordination of researchers, social work administrators, planners and policymakers, whose function is to develop and implement programs for them.
Mental illness is one of the major problems that social workers have to deal with in the course of their careers. With the kinds of distress and social disabilities that such disorders are accompanied with, victims of such illnesses have become limited in their ability to function normally and in some adverse cases have even posed danger to themselves and the society at large. This can be proved by the fact that most mentally ill individuals have a tendency of behaving violently and also comprise of a higher percentage of those involved with criminal activities.