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OaSIS 2025 Version 1.0
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42201.00 – Social and community service workers

Social and community service workers administer and implement a variety of social assistance programs and community services, and assist clients to deal with personal and social problems.

Overview

Example job titles

  • Aboriginal outreach worker
  • Addictions worker
  • Child and youth worker
  • Community development worker
  • Community service worker
  • Crisis intervention worker
  • Developmental service worker
  • Drop-in centre worker
  • Family service worker
  • Group home worker
  • Income maintenance officer - social services
  • Life skills instructor
  • Mental health worker
  • Rehabilitation worker - social services
  • Social services worker
  • Veteran services officer
  • Welfare and compensation officer
  • Women's shelter supervisor
  • Youth worker

Core competencies

  • Oral Communication: Active Listening to ensure clients feel heard and valued in order to build trust and provide relevant support
  • Social Perceptiveness to recognize clients’ unspoken needs, assess their situations accurately and provide appropriate support and interventions
  • Multitasking to manage multiple clients simultaneously with diverse needs, ensuring case management, administrative tasks and coordination with other services
  • Verbal Ability and Speech Clarity to effectively and clearly communicate with clients, colleagues and community partners to provide guidance or support
  • Collaboration to coordinate services with other professionals, agencies and community organizations and ensure clients receive the full range of assistance needed
  • Knowledge in Humanities to understand human behaviour, social structures and cultural context, approach clients with empathy, and design and implement programs that are socially relevant

Main duties

This group performs some or all of the following duties:

  • Review client background information, interview clients to obtain case history and prepare intake reports
  • Assess clients' relevant skill strengths and needs
  • Assist clients to sort out options and develop plans of action while providing necessary support and assistance
  • Assess and investigate eligibility for social benefits
  • Refer clients to other social services or assist clients in locating and utilizing community resources including legal, medical and financial assistance, housing, employment, transportation, day care and other services
  • Counsel clients living in group homes and halfway houses, supervise their activities and assist in pre-release and release planning
  • Participate in the selection and admission of clients to appropriate programs
  • Implement life skills workshops, substance abuse treatment programs, behaviour management programs, youth services programs and other community and social service programs under the supervision of social services or health care professionals
  • Meet with clients to assess their progress, give support and discuss any difficulties or problems
  • Assist in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment programs by tracking clients' behavioural changes and responses to interventions
  • Advise and aid recipients of social assistance and pensions
  • Provide crisis intervention and emergency shelter services
  • Implement and organize the delivery of specific services within the community
  • Maintain contact with other social service agencies and health care providers involved with clients to provide information and obtain feedback on clients' overall progress
  • Mobilise and coordinate volunteer resources and activities for a range of organizations such as human service agencies, health care facilities, arts and sports, etc.
  • May maintain program statistics for purposes of evaluation and research
  • May supervise social service support workers and volunteers.

Additional information

  • Progression to professional occupations in social services, such as family and marriage counsellors, social workers, and probation and parole officers, is possible with additional training and experience.

Similar occupations classified elsewhere

Exclusions:

NOC hierarchy breakdown

NOC version

NOC 2021 Version 1.0

Broad occupational category

4 – Occupations in education, law and social, community and government services

TEER

2 – Occupations usually require a college diploma or apprenticeship training of two or more years; or supervisory occupations

Major group

42 – Front-line public protection services and paraprofessional occupations in legal, social, community, education services

Sub-major group

422 – Paraprofessional occupations in legal, social, community and education services

Minor group

4220 – Paraprofessional occupations in legal, social, community and education services

Unit group

42201 – Social and community service workers

Occupational profile

42201.00 – Social and community service workers

O*NET in-it

This page includes information from the O*NET 27.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. Employment and Social Development Canada has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.