 Dear students, now we will discuss about the distinctive characteristics and qualities that must be acquired by the social workers while performing their professional roles in providing the welfare services to the deserving segments of the society in the field. So, a very important quality which should be present in the personality of a social worker is love of people. As we know, their social workers have to work for the welfare of the humanity, for the welfare of the people. So, they must have the sincerity and love for their clients and for the people for whom they are rendering the welfare services. Love of people is usually the greatest motivation for social work students and social work practitioners to become involved in interventions. A prerequisite is therefore that a social worker must like and be entrusted in people. Another important quality which should be present on the part of the professional social worker is of emotional maturity. Emotional maturity suggests a complete developmental state but is something that each social worker can strive towards. It implies amongst others that a worker must have a super image of reality and be able to work independently, cope with frustration, control impulsive behavior, recognize related factors and take definite actions to solve the problems. An emotionally mature person is able to realize and acknowledge his or her human feelings and the feelings of the client. Such a worker can work through hurt feelings, through disturbed circumstances and imbalanced conditions and can identify, examine, acknowledge and crack their own faults as well. Another important quality which should be present in the role of a professional social worker is the quality of self-awareness. Self-awareness implies that the social worker is striving towards self-acknowledge by being in touch with his or her own needs, motives and values of his or her profession. The worker attempts to be in control of his or her feelings and behavior and is not easily threatened by others and is not easily to be hopeless and helpless by the unfavorable social circumstances. And the worker is comfortable with him or herself in every kind of circumstances. The worker is also aware of personal unresolved conflicts and makes every attempt not to allow this or harm others because of having the quality of self-awareness on his or her part. Then the social worker practitioner must have a strong interpersonal communication abilities and this communication must constantly be maintained at all levels. This implies there for that communication must be both tactful and acceptable. The ability to listen should be equally good as the ability to talk and the social worker must be aware of the effect that his or her conversation is going to make on the part of the client. And simultaneously the worker's verbal and nonverbal communication, the impact of verbal and nonverbal communication should also be known by the workers that the impact that conversation is going to make on the part of others. Then the workers, the social workers must have a strong empathetic understanding and why because not all people can enter into another person's world of experiences with the same ease. Empathetic understanding involves being able to think with someone by separating yourself from your own frame of reference. This must however be an objective action so that you do not take on others' problems. The social workers should have the quality to learn in an eager manner and the social workers must be eager to learn. No social worker can ever be truly competent if he or she is not eager to learn. This involves an ambition to know more so as to deliver a better service with a comprehensive understanding of all the social phenomena he or she is going to tackle. This is achieved through self development and this can be attained through having the eagerness to learn. Although basic intelligence is necessary, no doubt it is influenced by the workers openness towards learning. The social workers must be open and must be ready to worse learning in all the circumstances and social workers, social practitioners must avoid these kind of statements such as I am very experienced, I work from experience, I have an intuitive touch and my intuition is telling me what is going to happen in the next moment and what will happen in the future and I do not like studying because I know enough. This usually indicates a learning block that can seriously hamper the competency level of a social worker. Then another important quality is assertiveness. It is becoming all the more important for the social worker to act assertively with systems. This involves the manner in which the worker handles, expresses and asserts himself or herself in the face of others. This involves the capacity of the worker to convey for example knowledge, values and skills in such a manner that the rights of all participants are respected. All the rights of other are respected by the worker including the rights of the worker as well. And this doesn't imply a passivity or aggressiveness from the worker's side. Another significant quality which is necessity to be attained by the professional social worker is preservance. Preservants, there is the tendency both nationally, internationally to expect social workers to provide more assistance with less resources. Fortunately or unfortunately this kind of expectation exists in every corner of the society. For this reason the social worker must be tenacious because progress, development and change is sometimes laborious and slow. So the social workers must be realistic and challenges must be accepted no doubt without any hesitation and should have a motivating effect upon the worker. Social worker must be a responsible person and as a social worker, as a professional social worker, work to a large extent autonomously and as a member of the team in any social welfare setting. And there's a great responsibility is owed to the clients and the community. In order to comply with these said responsibilities, the worker must be self-disciplined and primarily responsible towards his or her profession, towards his or her client, even towards himself or herself as well. The responsibility of the social worker is comprised specifically of professional responsibilities such as maintaining confidentiality and general ethics. If the worker doesn't take basic responsibilities seriously, his or her professional position will be seriously compromised and can be regarded as equal to that of the client system, the part of the problem.