[Responsibilities of occupational social counseling in health promotion]

As the modern world of labour changes, so do the areas of activity of the social advisory service in a company change. They are increasingly less concerned with traditional welfare work and are now including broad perspectives of preventive health measures and prophylaxis in general. There is a trend to professionalization and hence to changing the professional image: experts in socio-educational matters and persons who have undergone training in psychology are being increasingly employed. Social services are an effective complement to medical health care and hence also important cooperation partners for company doctors. Depending on the interests and aims of the company concerned abandon its structural employment pattern and long-standing sociopolitical traditions, as well as on new company policy guidelines, the social services differ in respect of their aims from company to company. Three examples are cited to illustrate this.