Industrial social work aims to help individuals and groups adapt to their work situation. It started in Europe in the 1960s as personnel social work to address social problems arising from mismatches between employees and their work. Industrial social work has two levels - preventive/developmental and curative. The preventive level includes education programs on work-related topics and health programs for workers. Social work approaches like case work, group work, community organization, social action and research can be applied. Social workers need specialized training in human problems, knowledge of work conditions, workers' lives, and community resources, as well as skills like professional secrecy and cooperation.

1. Industrial Social Work
Dr. Anand K. Rai
IWP, Bareilly
anandrai@iwpkatha.co.in

2. Meaning of Industrial Social Work
This was started in 1960’s in Europe.
The advancement of behavioural sciences, growth of
democratic values and the increasing emphasis on
the concept of justice have contributed to the
philosophy of professional social work
(Sharma,1985).
The milestone step of European Seminar on
Personnel Social Work held in Brussels in Sep.
1960. as started personnel social work.
PSW is a systematic way of helping individuals and
groups towards a better adaptation to the working
situation. SocialProblems is an enterprise arise
whenever an individual employee or a group and
the work situation cannot adapt to each other.

3. • Industrial social work has come to be defined as
a systematic way of helping individuals and
group towards better adaptation to work
situation.
Dortmund Report says- i) to
help any individual or group to adapt to the work
situation and to meet the work requirements; it
may here be pointed out that the problems
arising for these individuals or group may-
a) be caused by, or occur in the work
environment; b)
have unfavourable effects on the work situation,
although not arising the reform.

4. b) to stimulate management to adapt the work situation to the
social needs of the employees.
c) to assist the work “community” as a whole to function in a
better way.
Scope of Social Work in Industries:
According to M.M.Desai, the two types of levels ~
preventive and development; and curative.
Preventive and Development:
1) Informal educational programmes aimed
at enlightenment the workers on issues
pertaining to work life like industrial safety,
functional literacy, saving habits, social security,
etc.
2) Promoting the use health and medical programmes
for workers and their families - health check-ups,
inoculation campaigns, family planning, informative

6. Applicability of Social Work:
Social Case Work
Social Group Work
Community Organisation
Social Action
Social Work Research

7. Requirements of social workers: As per a study group of
Netherlands Govt.~
1) their specialised
training in the
understanding of human
Problems , ability to
consider the human
personality as a whole;
2) their knowledge of the conditions
of work;
3) their knowledge of the worker’s life;
4) their knowledge of the resources of the
comunity;
5) their professional secrecy; and
6) their capacity for co-operation.