The article is devoted to one of the urgent problems of the formation of social initiative among social workers. The article reveals the meaning of the concepts «initiative», «social initiative of the future social worker». We consider the social initiative of the future social worker as an integrative characteristic of the personality of the future specialist in the social sphere, which is manifested in social activity, subjectivity, the ability to make independent choices, socially useful decisions, implement them and take responsibility for the future development of the state. It is noted that in the structure of social initiative it is possible to single out socio-professional, value, operational and activity components. The valuable component involves orientation towards the disclosure and development of the individuality of the future specialist in the activity, its content-resultative and procedural-dynamic characteristics. It was found that the detection of social initiative is determined by the orientation of the system of motives and values of a social work specialist and occurs in direct communication, in the ability to apply various methods of communication, the ability to understand the recipient of social services, predict the results of one's activity, and the ability to forecast it. It is noted that at the stage of professional training, one of the effective means of developing the social initiative of future specialists is the support of their social initiatives related to the possibility of early professional orientation and independent professional activity, self-education. The content of the employee's social initiative consists in determining his essential strengths, interests, values, which are developed and realized in the conditions of professional activity.