theories

• Theories and Perspectives in Casework

  • Ecosystems Perspective
  • Strength-Based
  • Family Systems
  • Anti-Oppressive
  • Anti-Discriminatory
  • Cultural-Sensitivity
• Sources of social work knowledge

  • Practice wisdom transmitted from supervisors to supervisees
  • Theory developed from case data
  • Findings from research in other fields that are integrated into social work theories (e.g., research about child development or racial discrimination)

  
• Theory in social work practice (Francis Turner)

  The hallmark of a good theory is its capacity to: predict the outcome of any given action, provide a guide in understanding what is the same and what is different in a range of similar situations, and serve as a springboard for the development of further theory and explain interconnections between theories

  
• To be an effective practitioner requires to have a sound theoretical base
• Theory


  An attempt to retrospectively explain and to prospectively predict
• Theory (Cottrell)


  A set of ideas that helps explain why something happens or happened in a particular way and predict likely future outcomes
• Theory (Thompson)


  An attempt to explain, a framework for understanding, a set of ideas linked together to help us make sense of a particular issue
• Theory (Beckett)


  A set of ideas or principles used to guide practice which are sufficiently coherent that they could if necessary be made explicit in a form which was open to challenge
• Types of theory (Payne)

  • Theories of what social work is
  • Theories of how to do social work
  • Theories of the client world

  
• 1. level classification of SW theory (Payne & Thompson)

  • Theories of what social work is
  • Theories of how to do social work
  • Theories of the nature of the client world
• 3 Influential Frameworks for Social Work Practice (Perspectives)

  • Ecosystems
  • Cultural Competence
  • Strengths

  
• Ecosystems Perspective


  Focuses on the interplay between the person and his or her environment. Social functioning is best understood in the context of the environment: Individuals exist within families, Families exist within communities and neighborhoods, Individuals, families, and neighborhoods exist in a political, economic, and cultural environment, The environment impacts the actions, beliefs, and choices of the individual
• Strengths


  Builds on the assumption that every individual, family, group, and community has strengths, and focusing on these strengths leads to growth and overcoming difficulties. Views clients as generally the best experts about what types of helping strategies will be effective or ineffective.
• Cultural Competence


  The understanding and approval of cultural distinctions, taking into account the beliefs, values, activities, and customs of distinctive population groups. Consistent with a Family-Centered or Client-Centered approach, which is central to the standards of best practice with persons with disabilities and consistent with social work's central values and framework.
• Opportunities to learn from experience and opportunities to use theory to enhance practice
• Ecosystems (Ecological Perspective and Social Systems Theory)


  The person-in-environment and the continual interactions and transactions between persons, families, groups and/or communities and their environments. The growth, development and potentialities of human beings and with the properties of their environments that support or fail to support the expression of human potential
• Aspects of the environment and how culture impacts the interplay between them

  • Physical Environment
  • Social Environment
  • Culture
• 3 Basic Principles of Ecological Perspective (Gitterman, 2009)


  • Interdependence of networks
  • Cyclical nature of ecological processes
  • Non-linear
• Positive Person: Environment Fit

  Individuals feel a sense of adaptedness, which includes feelings of security and perceptions of themselves and their environment as holding resources necessary to support their human growth and potential.
• Negative Person: Environment Fit


  Result of individuals lacking a sense of security within their environment and experiencing inadequate personal and environmental resources which are needed to maintain and feed their growth and development. It leads to the individual experiencing stress.
• 3 different ways in which individuals attempt to create or maintain an adaptive person:environment fit


  • Change oneself in order to meet the environment's perceived expectations or demands, and take advantage of its opportunities
  • Change the environment so that the social and physical environment are more responsive to one's needs and goals
  • Change the person:environment transactions in order to achieve an improved fit
• Social Systems Theory


  The whole of a system is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Focus of this theory is on the development and transformation of systems and the interaction and relationships between them.

  
• System


  A complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a causal network, such that each component is related to at least some others in a more or less stable way within a particular period of time. A set of elements that are orderly and interrelated to make a functional whole.
• Fundamental Concepts


  • Boundaries
  • Homeostasis
  • Equilibrium
  • Disequilibrium
  • Steady State
  • Equifinality
• Boundaries


  Each system has a boundary that distinguishes it from other systems. Boundaries may be physical or psychological. The extent to which the boundaries are permeable differs by system as some systems allow information to freely enter or cross their boundary and others do not.
• Homeostasis


  When a system is maintaining a constant state of equilibrium or balance where the system is responding to change.
• Equilibrium


  The system is responding to the environment and is maintaining itself in some sort of balance. Positive inner tension is not necessarily present with equilibrium as in a steady state, but equilibrium is more the existence of a balance within the system.
• Disequilibrium


  The system is off balance and the responses to and from the environment are prohibiting positive growth and change.
• Steady State


  The system is responding to the environment, growth and change is taking place and the system is experiencing positive inner tension. A system in a steady state is continually goal directed and once one goal is achieved the system moves forward towards another goal.
• Equifinality


  There are many different routes to reach the same end or goal. A problem can be viewed in different ways and there is more than one way to reach a solution to the problem.
• 4 systems for social workers to consider when determining intervention strategies

  • Change Agent System
  • Action System
  • Target System
  • Client System

  
• Social systems theory hypothesizes that a system's operations include four basic steps: Inputs, Throughputs, Outputs, Feedback

  
• Strengths-Based Perspective


  Emerged in the 1980s when social work practitioners and theorists, such as Dennis Saleebey, Charles Rapp and Ann Weick, criticized the social work profession for focusing on pathologies, deficits and labels often fuelled by the problem-based or medical model. The movement towards a strengths-based perspective.
• Social systems theory - system's operations

  1. Inputs

  2. Throughputs

  3. Outputs

  4. Feedback

  
• Inputs


  What goes into the system in order to make it work
• Throughputs


  How the system processes or uses the input
• Outputs


  What the system produces as a result of receiving and processing an input
• Feedback


  Not only produced once an output has been submitted, but is produced throughout the whole process
• Strengths-based perspective


  Emerged in the 1980s when social work practitioners and theorists criticised the social work profession for focusing on pathologies, deficits and labels

  
• The movement towards a strengths-based practice came from two fronts: 1) The value base of the social work profession, and 2) the diagnostically driven system which places the social worker in a position of power over the client