social work chpt 2

• Social work


  A new profession that has been growing to maturity, taking remedial action on problems in several areas of society
• Social work


  • Once thought of as basket-on-the-arm assistance to the poor, now a discipline scientific in method and artful in manner
  • Ministers to families in economic or emotional difficulty
  • Helps communities to bring their welfare and related services into good balance
  • Works in medical, group, and school situations
  • Seeks to correct the causes underlying delinquency and adult criminality
• Focus of social workers

  • Help improve or enhance social functioning and interaction in society
  • Help individuals solve personal problems
  • Work with clients at a conscious level, help clients receive reality and try to solve the problem
• Underlying principles of social work field

  • One of the helping professions
  • Social work practice is based on scientific theories, values and principles
  • Required and constantly growing profession
  • Establish social work values professionally into society
• Knowledge in social work practice

  • Tested knowledge
  • Hypothetical knowledge
  • Assumptive knowledge & practice wisdom
• Needed knowledge in social work is based on goals, functions and nature of problem
• Value and knowledge are a key feature of social work profession
• Professional skills is highly emphasized in social work activities
• Distinguishing characteristics of social work

  • Focus is on "the wholeness and totality of the person"
  • Emphasis on the importance of the family in molding and influencing individual behaviour
  • Utilization of community resources in helping people to solve problem
  • Use the supervisory process to provide guidance and direction of inexperienced workers
  • Unique educational program involving classwork and practical field work experience
• Three basic processes of social work practice (generalist practice)


  • Casework
  • Group work
  • Community organization
• Social work has distinctive professional bodies such as NASW, CSWE, APASWE and MASW
• Relationships is the key in the social work process
• Social work has orientation in psychiatric concept and consider about stress
• Social concept in social work emphasize on stress in social interaction and social functioning and malfunctioning
• Social workers recognize that social problems and human behavior is related to the social institutions
• Social workers work with agency, help clients to help themselves, and are employed in agencies with fixed salaries and fees
• Traditionally social workers provide services to individuals and families, using the team approach and coordination of service and activities
• Two traditions in the historical development of social work

  The first, pioneered by Mary Richmond, showing concern for individual problems

  The second, advocated by Jane Addams, developed and promoted the Settlement House Movement in the nineteenth century
• The two traditions, the first emphasizing personal needs and individual treatment and the second aspiring for social reform and social justice, become the major goals of social work which are generally included and explicitly stated in many different definitions of social work
• There should be a dual focus on these two important goals in social work practice
• Toynbee Hall


  Jane Addams assembled a group of very committed young women who became the female face of the democratic movement in the Progressive Era. From 1900 onwards the United States saw a wave of interest in women's emancipation, new social laws and attention paid to social and racial tensions. The Hull House group professionalized the contribution of women in social work. With their neighborhood work, they contributed to a more structural political focus.
• Mary Ellen Richmond (1861-1928)


  In modern social work, about everybody agrees there is a need for diagnosis and research before care provision. It was Richmond who systematically developed the content and methodology of diagnosis in the period around 1910. Her first principle was that care had to focus on the person within her or his situation. She developed what she labelled as 'social diagnosis'. Her famous circle diagram visualized the correspondence of client and environment. Through her research, Richmond gave social work clients a voice for the first time. With her broad instructions on how to gather information, interview methodologies, establishing contact and conducting conversations, Richmond gave social casework a strong professional status.
• Influence of sociology and psychology in social work history

  History of social work development in America was initially more towards "environmental reform"

  Emphasize on environmental influences in analyzing, identifying and treating social issues that occur on individuals, families and communities

  Performed by poverty supervisors, philanthropists, friendly visitors, friends, neighbors and church members
• Reverend Thomas Chalmers expressed dissatisfaction with the wasteful and ineffective approaches that were carried out at that time, and noted that society needs a more effective and using humane system in providing services and support


  1814
• Charity Organization Society (COS)

  Established in the late 19th century
• Settlement house movement


  Pioneered by Jane Addams in 1889 with the establishment of Hull House
• Mary Richmond


  Founder of the professional social work movement, developed the concept of 'social casework' in 1922
• Psychological approach in social work


  Developed after the war, emphasizing 'one to one basis' practice

  Pioneered by scholars like Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank with psychological theories around the 1920's

  Freudian psychology - 'diagnostic' schools

  Rankian theory - 'functional' schools

  Psychological theories and scientific knowledge as the basis of social work practice
• Social group work


  Began to practice by the end of the 1920s, as social development can be enhanced by structured group interaction
• Social reform approach in social work

  Began around 1960, emphasizing the macro level of a society and involving a change of political and administrative policy

  Developed in response to rising social problems such as poverty and abandoned children after the 2nd World War
• Role of psychiatrists in social work

  Increased understanding of life, dynamic family development and human personality

  Helped individuals solve their own problems and emotional disturbances
• History of social welfare systems in Europe

  • 1536 - English Poor Law System

  1572 - Elizabethan Poor Laws

  1601 - Elizabethan Poor Law with more systematic plan, e.g. classifying poverty to Able bodied poor, Impotent poor, Dependent children

  1834 - Poor Law, Centralized administration
• History of social welfare development in America

  • 1662 - Develop the First settlement house

  1685 - Divide into two groups of poverty

  1727 - The first home for children in New Orland

  1790 - The orphanage in South Carolina

  1817 - School for deaf and dumb school in Connecticut

  1841 - The story of Dorothea Lynde Dix - a humanitarian warrior

  1873 - Economic recession after "civil war"

  1886 - The concept of home settlement
• History of social work in Malaysia

  • 1905 - Officially registered

  1921 - Establish a special department for social welfare in the colonial administration

  1930 - The welfare department was dissolved due to financial problems

  1937 - Establish back (WD) in colonial office

  1946 - Establishment of Department of Social Welfare

  1952 - The Ministry of Health start introduced medical social work

  1964 - The first medical social work department was established

  1964 - Department of social welfare change to a ministry (Ministry of Social Welfare)

  1990 - Known as JKM under the Ministry of National Unity and Community Development

  2001 - Start the history of KPWKM (Ministry Of Women, Family And Community Development)
• History of KPWKM (Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development)

  January 17, 2001 - Named as Ministry of Women's Affairs by PM Tun Mahathir Mohamad

  February 15, 2001 - The functions of the Ministry were expanded and renamed to the Ministry of Women and Family Development (KPWK)

  March 27, 2004 - The function of Community Development in the Ministry of National Unity and Community Development was dissolved, and was transferred to KPWK. KPWK was renamed as Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (KPWKM).

  KPWKM led by various ministers from 2001 to present, with a focus on raising public awareness on the importance of women and family institutions roles, and promoting gender equality.