Advanced Generalist Social Work Practice

David S. Derezotes

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9781452235707
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Travail social

This book describes an advanced generalist approach to direct social work practice with individuals, couples, families, and groups. Intervention paradigms that include psychodynamic, cognitive/behavioral/communications, experiential/humanistic, existential and transpersonal are presented as the four sources of social work.

PART I

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Assessment

Effective assessment in social work practice is an inclusive process that is (a) ecological (considers all of the interrelated aspects of the developing client system and its evolving environment); (b) both scientific and artistic (uses all ways of knowing in the data collection process); (c) sensitive to client/system diversity (identifies the unique characteristics of every client/system); and (d) an ongoing source of feedback (uses data in formulating goals to appraise risk and potential, guiding interventions, and measuring the impact of interventions throughout all of the phases of a case). Therefore, the term assessment is used to describe the process of evaluation throughout the beginning, middle, and ending phases of each case. In this section, these four characteristics of both/and assessment are defined and developed.

CHAPTER 1

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Ecological Assessment

Ecological assessment is an inclusive approach to the collection of data in practice. Simply said, the ecological model is a systematic framework that helps the social worker make the most complete investigation possible into the many interrelated factors associated with any particular case. As Carol Germain has stated: “The ecological approach to people-environment transactions is probably the most encompassing metaphor ... an easier way of grasping the reciprocal influences of people and environments in human development and functioning” (p. 407).¹

Social workers traditionally have applied the ecological, “person-in-environment” perspective to assessment.² In social work practice, assessment has essentially been a “social diagnosis” in which the client system and its environment are studied and used to develop a plan of intervention.³ In ecological assessment, social workers can emphasize the importance of both the strengths and weaknesses (limitations or vulnerabilities) of the client system and its environment.⁴

Although “concern for persons in environment is the distinguishing feature and unifying characteristic of social work,” the ecological perspective has generally “been given short shrift” (p. 407).⁵ Instead, the social work literature has tended to hold a more limited perspective, emphasizing only particular aspects of the ecology of cases (e.g., measurable behaviors, cognitions, levels of social skills, knowledge). This limited perspective is consistent with this era’s emphasis upon reductionistic thinking that has prevailed in modern science and philosophy.⁶

Developmental research and theory provide a useful framework for the ecological assessment model. The process of professional helping can be understood as applied developmental theory, and assessment of client development is a key element in that process.⁷ Human development is well understood as a lifelong process⁸ that is affected by the social environment⁹ and that occurs at both the individual and group (e.g., marital, familial, community) levels.¹⁰

There is also evidence that human development is linked not only with the social environment, but also with other environmental factors, such as pollution and destruction of resources.¹¹ The assessment of the interrelationship of the client system and the environment can be understood from the standpoint of human development. In this book, the dimensions of human development are used as the framework of ecological assessment.

The Structural/Behavioral model of development assumes that observable development results from a complex structural relationship between factors on all ecological levels:

Human behavioral development is probably, in its totality, the most complex phenomenon on this planet. The models proposed to account for the phenomenon must approximate that complexity. . . . An integrative model is needed that recognizes the multiplicity of processes and characterizations that will be needed to fully account for behavioral development, (pp. 196-197)¹²

The Structural/Behavioral model suggests that optimal developmental outcomes are directly related to the degree to which the organism is invulnerable (relatively protected from environmental trauma) and its environment is facilitative (supportive of the individual’s development).

Thus, in ecological assessment, the worker assumes that individual, couple, family, and small group-level problems and challenges reflect factors in the larger environment. Similarly, the worker also assumes that local and global community-level problems and challenges are also reflected in issues that appear on the individual, couple, family, and small group levels.

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Ecological Levels

Table 1.1 outlines the seven ecological levels associated with the five dimensions of human development (physical, affective, cognitive, spiritual, and social). Thus, each of the dimensions of development can be assessed at each of seven ecological levels. These levels include the “configuration of factors” that affect human development.¹³ Although these levels are used here for the purpose of describing ecological assessment, it is important to note that the boundaries between them are artificial. In reality, as Ecological theory suggests, each of these levels is interrelated with all of the others.

Although the worker would ideally assess each of the developmental dimensions of the client at each of the ecological levels, in reality, workers do not have access to data in all of these 35 assessment cells. There is usually insufficient data to inform the selection of social work interventions. The ecological levels include the following:

1. Biogenetic factors include inherited and other physical characteristics of the individual. The family history often provides evidence of possible genetic factors and predispositions.
2. Familial factors include characteristics of the individual’s immediate and extended family. The term family is defined here to include the most significant members of the client’s informal support system. The immediate family may or may not include biological and other partners in living.
3. Cultural factors are attributes of the individual’s psychosocial environment. The psychosocial environment includes the characteristics of all extra-familial individuals and groups with whom the individual has been in relationship. These may include members of the primary group (lovers, friends, and other relationships); the secondary group (those professionals who work with the individual); as well as other formal and informal support networks.
4. Environmental conditions are attributes of the individual’s life space that affect quality of life. These attributes may be related to the natural environment as well as to man-made environments in the local and global communities.
5. Resources and opportunities include the safety, freedom, acceptance, wealth, power, services, and commodities available to the individual. These resources and opportunities are often associated with the tolerance, stability, policies, efficiency, and conflict resolution methodology of the local and national leadership.
6. Patterns of self-care are the individual’s ongoing efforts to foster and nurture personal development. These patterns are associated with such internal factors as the individual’s internal motivation, energy level, and level of consciousness.
7. Current indicators of development and health include measurable signs of developmental growth and well-being in the individual, couple, family, and community.

These ecological levels are compatible with but more inclusive than the basic PIE structure¹⁴ used by many social workers today. Instead of considering only problems (e.g., social functioning or environmental problems), the worker also considers areas of strength at each ecological level (e.g., marital or family development). In addition, instead of considering only social, mental health, and physical health functioning, the worker considers all five interrelated dimensions of development (cognitive, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual).

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Time as a Factor

Because there are always past, present, and future factors associated with any case, effective assessment requires a systematic consideration of factors across all of the dimensions of time. All factors described at each level in Table 1.1 can be predisposing, precipitating, system maintaining, and potentially influencing.

1. Predisposing factors include all past, long-term elements associated with the current conditions. For example, genetic characteristics are often associated with a client’s level of functioning.
2. Precipitating factors helped to stimulate or trigger the current conditions. For example, a divorce can help precipitate various symptoms in children.
3. System-maintaining factors are those that have continued to help support the current conditions since the time that the condition began. For example, an aging woman, alcoholic all of her adult life, now finds that she gets more attention from her family by drinking than by being sober.
4. Potentially influencing factors are likely to be associated with future changes in current conditions. For example, a young couple who have poor communication skills and considerable stress in their marriage will probably be challenged further when their first child is born.
5. In addition, all cases also exist within a larger historic time period, during which certain political, social, and economic factors influence social definitions of health and illness.¹⁵ For example, the many prejudices that gay and lesbian people typically have to deal with in the United States today reflect in part the extreme homophobia that characterizes the age in which we live.

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Identification of Developmental Strengths and Limitations

In ecological assessment, the social worker helps each client identify which dimension(s) of development are strengths (more dominant or developed) and which are limitations (more dormant or underdeveloped). Each client will present with a unique set of developmental strengths and limitations.¹⁶ Developmental strengths are those more dominant dimensions in which the client feels the most confidence and enjoyment. In contrast, developmental limitations are commonly those in which the client experiences minimal success and enjoyment.

TABLE 1.1: Checklist of Selected Guidelines for Ecological Assessment of Dimensions of Human Development

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1.	Physical development
	a.	Biogenetic factors: race, sex, age, geneti...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface and Introduction
• PART I Assessment
• PART II Advanced Generalist Approach Interventions With Individuals, Couples, Families, and Groups
• PART III Intervention Paradigms: The Four Forces of Social Work
• PART IV Intervention Paradigms: Paradigms of Integration
• PART V Professional Self Development
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• About the Author