Glossary
Social Worker Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential social worker terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key social worker vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in social worker training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Burnout
- Exhaustion from chronic stress.
- Case plan
- Goals and services for a client.
- Caseload
- Number of cases a worker carries.
- Court report
- Written update for a judge.
- CPS
- Child Protective Services.
- Foster care
- Temporary care for children.
- Home visit
- Meeting clients at home.
- Kinship care
- Care by relatives.
- Mandated reporter
- Required by law to report suspected abuse.
- Permanency
- A stable, lasting home.
- Reunification
- Returning children to families.
- Safety plan
- Steps to keep a child safe.
- Self-determination
- Clients’ right to make choices.
- Strengths-based
- Building on client strengths.
- Trauma-informed
- Recognizing the effects of trauma.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Social Worker practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Social Worker training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.