Reviewer in Individuals and Families

• The Generalist Practice


  The use of a range of skills as needed to intervene in a variety of client life situations
• The Purpose of Social Work


  • Enhance problem solving and coping capacities of people
  • Link people with systems that provide them with resources, services and opportunities
  • Promote effective and humane operation of these systems
  • Contribute to the development and improvement of social policy
• Social Workers do not pick and choose which problems and issues they would like to address. They see a problem and try to help people solve it.
• Social workers do to help people with problems in virtually any setting
• Definitions from different authors

  • Broader view of problem
  • Looking beyond the problem
  • Ethical and professional behaviour
  • Intervention on the different target system
  • Broad scope but learning on the basic levels intervention
  • Focus on Multiple level of intervention
  • Intervene system of the various
• Generalist Practice


  The use of a range of skills as needed to intervene in a variety of client life situations. The generalist practitioner's function is to have as wide skill repertoire as possible in order to facilitate the interactions between people and the social institutions and situations in which they live
• Three dimensions of definition


  • should focus on the importance of multiple level interventions. (Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, communities)
  • Should involve a knowledge base carefully chosen from a range of theories
  • Should maintain a focus "both on private issues and social justice concerns"
• The Generalist


  • Knowledge
  • Values
  • Skills
• Application


  • Emphasising empowerment
  • Assuming a wide range of professional roles
  • Using Critical Thinking
  • Following a planned change process
• Target System


  • Macro System
  • Mezzo System
  • Micro System
• Generalist Practice


  • An Eclectic Knowledge Base
  • Emphasis on Client Empowerment
  • Application of a Wide Range of Skills to Target Systems of Any Size
  • Working in an Organisational Structure
  • A Wide Range of Roles
  • Critical Thinking Skills
  • Planned Change
• An Eclectic Knowledge Base


  Social work integrates information from a variety of disciplines in order to make evidence-based decisions
• Fields of Practice


  • Occupational social work
  • Rural SW
  • Forensic
  • Families and children
  • Mental health schools etc.
• Systems Concept


  Provides social workers with a conceptual perspective that can guide how they view the world. It is especially important because GP targets systems of virtually any size of change. You will determine whether change is best pursued by individual, family, group, organizational or community avenues.
• Systems Model Major Concepts


  • System
  • Dynamic
  • Interact
  • Input
  • Output
  • Homeostasis
  • equifinality
• Ecological Concept


  • Social Environment (home, work, laws, social rules etc.)
  • Person-in-environment (their interaction with various systems - family, friends and work education etc.)
  • Energy - the time and effort
  • Interface - exact point at which the interaction between an individual and an individual moment
  • Adaptation - capacity to adjust to surrounding
  • Coping - adaptation and implies struggle to overcome problem
  • Interdependence - mutual reliance of each person on each person
• Empowerment


  The process of increasing personal,. interpersonal or political power so that individuals can take actions to improve their life situation
• Principles of Strengths Perspective


  • Every individual, group, family and community has strengths
  • Trauma and abuse, illness and struggle may be injurious but they may also be sources of challenge and opportunity
  • Assume that you do know the upper limits of the capacity to grow and change and take individual, group and community aspirations seriously.
  • We best serve clients by collaborating with them
  • Every environment is full of resources.
• Resiliency


  The ability of an individual, family, group, community or organisation to recover from adversity and resume functioning even when suffering from serious trouble, confusion, or hardship
• Two Dimensions


  • Risk Factors
  • Protective Factors
• Social Work LEVELS OF PRACTICE


  • Micro Level (Casework)
  • Mezzo level (Group Work)
  • Macro level Community Organization
• Working in an Organisational Structure

  Organisational structure is the formal and informal manner in which tasks and responsibilities, lines of authority, channels of communication and dimensions of power are established and coordinated within an organisation.
• Roles


  • Counsellor
  • Educator
  • Broker
  • Case Manager
  • Mobilizer
  • Mediator
  • Facilitator
  • Advocate
• Critical Thinking Skills


  Useful scrutiny of what is stated is true and the resulting expression of an opinion or conclusion based on that scrutiny and creative formulation of an opinion or conclusion when presented with question, problem or issue
• 2 Dimensions


  • Means-SW must be able to critique arguments, statements and experience for inconsistencies
  • Must also be able to distinguish between assertion and fact, observation and impression.
• Planned Change


  The development and implementation of a strategy for improving or altering "some specified condition, pattern of behaviour, or set of circumstances that affects social functioning
• Generalist Intervention Model Major Features


  • Assumes that workers acquire an eclectic knowledge base, a wide range of skills to target any size system and a professional values base.
  • Its core seven step of planned change process
  • Virtually any problem may be analysed and addressed from multiple levels of intervention.
• Foundation for Generalist Practice


  • Knowledge
  • Value
  • Skills
• Generalist Intervention Model


  • Engagement
  • Assessment
  • Planning
  • Implementation
  • Evaluation
  • Termination
  • Follow-up
• In early 1967, Filipino educators and practitioners had recommended that "a deliberate force for change, the schools should teach methods based on the wholistic approach so that the individual, the group and the community are used as functional points of entry and develop skills based on the generic aspects of the methods used by social workers
• The premise was simply that the separate practice of the three traditional methods by different social workers is not relevant to local realities like there is usually one social worker responding to the needs and problems presented by the client system
• Reasons for Pursuing Generalist Approach to Social Work Practice


  • Larger number of multi-problem clients who need generalists that can assist with their varied problems.
  • Problems affecting large masses of people call for mass-oriented solutions.
  • Available Social work jobs/positions do not call for specialists in any one method, but a social worker
  • Economical/practical reasons (e.g. DSWD hires only one social worker to take care of many communities
• Social Casework


  A primary method of social work concerned with the adjustment and development of the individuals towards more satisfying human relations. A method of social work which intervenes in the psychosocial aspects of a person's life to improve, restore, maintain or develop his social functioning by proving his/her performance.
• Objectives of Social Casework


  • To restore the client's social functioning.
  • To maintain the client's functioning.
  • To enhance the client's social functioning.
• Nature of Social Casework


  It is an art in which knowledge of the science of human relations and skills in relationships are used to mobilise capacities in the individual and resources in the community appropriate for better adjustment between the client and all of any part of his/her environment. It is characterised by the objective to administer practical services and offer counselling in such a way as to arouse and conserve the psychological energies of the client actively involved in him/her in the use of the service toward the solution of his/her dilemma.
• What kind of situation can be addressed by Social Casework

  • Role Performances - when a person who occupies a specific position is not able to demonstrate the expected behaviour is having a problem in role performance.
• Nature of Social Casework

  • It is an art in which knowledge of the science of human relations and skills in relationships are used to mobilise capacities in the individual and resources in the community appropriate for better adjustment between the client and all of any part of his/her environment
  • It is characterised by the objective to administer practical services and offer counselling in such a way as to arouse and conserve the psychological energies of the client actively involved in him/her in the use of the service toward the solution of his/her dilemma
• Situations that can be addressed by Social Casework


  • Role Performances
  • Mode of Adaptation
  • Inner Dynamics
• Role Performances


  When a person who occupies a specific position is not able to demonstrate the expected behaviour is having a problem in role performance
• Mode of Adaptation


  When a person who becomes unfamiliar with his/her new environment may have difficulty in performing his/her role. The person may resort withdrawal, to dependency, aggression, or apathy