The subject of this article is the theoretical and practical aspects of application of the experience of other countries of the modern world (from the perspective of the concept) in the process of raising the effectiveness of social welfare system of the Russian Federation as a whole, and the system of training social workers in particular. Since the late XX century, key difference of the current stage of global development, and namely of international law is the gradual shift of legal norms and political practice away from the traditional concepts of economic, social and humanistic policy, which for a long time formed the fundamental discourses of the domestic and international social life. The author states the fact on the need accelerate inclusion of the Russian Federation into the global social cont1ext on both, theoretical and practical levels. Reception of the norms of international law, especially of humanistic nature, historically contributed to the improvement of legal systems of the so-called counties of “catch-up development”; in a certain way, the Russian Federation can also be attributed to this group. On the one hand, Russia has a rich tradition of creating the norms of perfect social legislation (including a fairly effective system of training social workers), whole on the other hand, in recent years we can observe the processes of “erosion” of social rights of the citizens.