Abstract

Occupation Social Work - OSW - is settled as a professional action field that can be recognized since the early beginning of social work. And at the same time, as a current space to exercise the social work profession, even though there is not a clear definition and it has a imitated academic development (Cheeran et al., 2015). This study proposed to inquire about essential knowledge and abilities to the OSW professional exercise, from social workers, managers and union representatives perspectives. Through qualitative methodology, it has been possible to identify abilities and knowledge demands that are specific to this researched area at Chilean case recognizing their similarities and differences with other contexts. Based on these results, challenges and future lines of research are presented.