the analysing of family policies, family counseling and social work relations in the context of human rights

Discussions on human rights usually pace on the two elements, namely the “rights” owner on one side and the “duty” owner which is the state/official organizations on the other. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasize on the right among many other, which enables all people to create a family and this has been seen as the fundamental unit of the society. However, due to a variety of reasons families may lose their healthy functioning and therefore need assistance. States are expected to develop policies in order to create solutions for the troubles which the families are facing, offer family counseling services and making regulations on the foundation of human rights to accomplish these. Yet there are discussions on the approaches towards family counseling and family policies in regards to human rights, for human rights seems to represent the first generation human rights which are the political and civil rights, rather than the others. In order to change this understanding, social workers who are considered to be also as human rights workers can play an important role for the creating of family policies based on human rights. Among the groups which social work is functioning, families have the largest interest and their focus is human rights. Within this scope, the social workers can be prominent in the family counseling practices under the framework of empowerment approach and can closely cooperate with the family physicians that are in the first layer of the public health system.