Principles of Social Work Practice

A Generic Practice Approach

Molly R Hancock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136460234
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Principles of Social Work Practice is the first textbook to deal exclusively and thoroughly with the significant principles of social work practice and methods that integrate these principles into the common base of practice. You will learn from case examples how to apply crucial ethical, personal, and methodological principles to different practice areas. As you increase your understanding of the nature of professional social work and the essence of its value base and Code of Ethics, you also learn to develop approaches to social work practice that are sensitive to a multicultural clientele. You will leave this book with useful skills and a flexibility that allow you to work not only with individuals but also with families, couples, groups, organizations, and communities. As you read Principles of Social Work Practice, you will heighten your sensitivity to the professional worker-client relationship and its role as a primary instrument of positive change. Using this book as a guide, you can develop your own strategies for facilitating change and growth that will result in the satisfaction of long-term personal and social goals. Simultaneously, you will build a framework for social work practice that has at its foundation a strong sense of individual worth and dignity. A unique combination of theory and practice, readers gain insight into:

• confidentiality
• the nonjudgmental attitude
• controlled emotional involvement
• self-determination
• respect for the individual
• empowermentPrinciples of Social Work Practice illustrates for advanced undergraduates and graduate students how to effectively intervene in the conflicts that evolve between clients' needs for well-being and development and the demands or restrictions of public attitudes or social policy. You will sharpen your skills and construct indispensable methods for helping individuals establish vital links with their communities.

PART I:

THE PRINCIPLES AND THE SOCIAL WORK ENCOUNTER

Chapter 1

The Ingredients of Professional Helping

The encounter between social worker and person(s) requesting or referred for help involves, from the very outset, a complex set of attitudes and feelings that each brings to the situation (Biestek, 1957:13-14.) At the point of first contact, we shall be helpful precisely to the degree that we recognize both our own attitudes toward and feelings about this request or need for help and some of the attitudes and feelings these persons may have in this situation. We shall need to understand that the attitudes and feelings that we all bring into the situation are part of the situation’s reality and that—from both sides—these may either be constructive or constitute blocks to the beginning of the helping relationship. This situation can involve many variations in these attitudes and feelings; the primary difference is whether the person(s) come voluntarily, or are referred by some other agency.

The situation of the clients’ personal need is first manifest within this complex of attitudes and emotions at the point of first encounter. This need immediately demands that we use our practice principles appropriately, as they apply, in the helping situation (Biestek, 1957:14).

THE NEED FOR SELF-AWARENESS

The need for recognition of our own feelings at the point of first contact brings in the principle of responsibility for self-awareness. For example, how do I feel about a woman who punished her six-year-old son for eating the last of the family’s doughnuts by holding the flat of his hand on a heated stove? If I am human I am angry. How could she do that? It is, however, my professional responsibility to recognize that while my anger is real and valid in the immediate moment, if I am to help this woman I must not let it get in our way. The principle will be discussed in detail later, but for now this example indicates an important principle that is called into play by the need of the client for an objective hearing as we begin the work of bringing about change.

CLIENTS’ ATTITUDES AND FEELINGS

The first and most important emotion almost invariably experienced by the client(s) is damaged self-esteem. Their very presence in our office is a painful admission that they have not been able to resolve the problem on their own.

North American culture has traditionally made it very difficult to acknowledge a need for outside help with personal problems. The received wisdom of our culture has indoctrinated us into thinking that if we are really worthwhile people we are able to solve personal problems through our own efforts. This has probably been most difficult for men in our culture, but only somewhat less so for women. This doctrine—I think the word is appropriate—is to some extent being modified at present. There is a beginning acceptance that some life struggles do legitimately require, and respond to, professional intervention. Acceptance or rejection of this trend can vary cross-culturally, but many people still experience to varying degrees the feeling that needing outside help with a personal difficulty is an indication of a “defect of character.”

Damaged self-esteem—the feeling of failure, of being a not-okay person for needing to seek our help—is the first emotion shared by almost all our clients as they first come to us. Low self-esteem is present whether the client, individual, family, or organization has sought help voluntarily, or has been referred by a court order (e.g. child protection or criminal process), or has been urged—perhaps pressured—by a parent, pastor, or close friend. In these latter instances the identification and exposure of their problem by others, especially by authority figures, will compound the low self-esteem factor. It can often carry particular meanings, triggering old feelings of inadequacy in not meeting the high expectations of parents, for example. Alternatively, their present situation may serve to confirm a rejecting parent’s bitter prophecy: “You’ll never amount to anything.”

Although there may be some common inner responses to this perception of “failure,” each person, group, or organization will perceive their situation in terms that are unique to them. This may reflect the relatively strong or weak influence of family, ethnic, religious group, or community attitudes on this person’s or group’s perception of themselves as “having failed.”

THE AUTHORITY COMPONENT

We need to recognize—and must not ignore—that there is an authority and power component, of varying degree, in all areas of social work (Studt, 1959; Hancock, 1986; Hugman, 1991). Once we have explained clearly to a family coming for therapy the rationale for whole-family sessions, they will perceive that it is our authority of expertise that requires this as the condition of giving the service. This authority is often backed up by the power to refuse service if the family do not meet this condition. The patient in a hospital sees us as having information about community services that makes us “experts” in the area of discharge and homecare, and that we have the power to help them hook into those services. Offenders and neglectful parents are well aware that we have decision-making power, based in legal authority, that can immediately affect their lives and relationships; the adoptive applicants know that our expertise and our position give us the authority to accept or refuse their application for a child; the applicant for social assistance knows that our position gives us the power to approve or reject their claim of eligibility, and thus to affect their security.¹

The discomfort we may initially feel in accepting the authority and power components in all areas of practice can be alleviated as we first come to accept them as part of the total reality of the helping situation, for the client and for ourselves. Second, we can begin to see these as very often being constructive tools in the helping process, often a means of helping people find what they need to rebuild their lives (Hancock, 1986:128). It is our own attitude toward authority that will make the difference. We need to learn that, constructively used—as a tool and not a weapon—it can be an expression of what I call “responsible caring.” Our responsibility for self-awareness will be of critical importance here.

Just as we bring our own feelings about and attitudes toward authority to this aspect of our helping role, so will our clients bring feelings and attitudes stemming from previous experiences with authority figures. Depending upon the nature of these previous experiences, some clients may perceive the authority as overriding the helping component. We shall need to respond sensitively to this as we begin with them.

THE REFERRAL SOURCE

Persons in need of help may come to us in a wide range of different circumstances. The most obvious and first difference, as noted above, is between those who seek help voluntarily and those who come under some external pressure and not of their own volition.

The Lennard family have come to your agency voluntarily, identifying eight-year-old Kevin’s behavior problems at home and in school as “the problem.” Kevin is the middle child of three siblings, the first son of the family. Although initially they saw no reason for anyone but Kevin to be involved, with the help of your explanation of its value, they have agreed to come as a family for therapy. Their voluntary request for help does not preclude the loss of self-esteem these parents experience.

Blaming the parents for their children’s behavior difficulties—whether at home, at school, or with the law—is virtually an automatic response in our society at the present time. Ours is a society that fundamentally assumes that biological capacity for parenthood automatically brings the ability to raise psychosocially healthy children. It is a society that takes very little account of what, in the parents’ personal backgrounds, may have warped their sense of themselves and restricted their capacity to meet their children’s emotional needs, or distorted their picture of how a healthy family works. It is, moreover, a society in which there is only minimal, basic consensus about what is, or is not acceptable child behavior. This often deprives parents of any feeling of community support as they try to hold their children to one set of standards while they are daily exposed, through the media and via contact with other children, to a multiplicity of differing values.

The Tenants’ Association in a small city’s public housing complex may request your help with difficulties that have arisen because four young teenagers from the project have been charged with possession of drugs, and there is strong disagreement among the residents—those who are demanding that these teenagers’ families be given immediate notice to vacate, and others who want to have a drug abuse information program offered in the project.

You will need to recognize that in our society the very fact of living in a public housing project labels the residents in a derogatory way as “those Oakland Terrace people.” They are defined by the rest of society as second-class citizens, and these are the feelings that they will initially bring to counseling. Also they have no way of knowing whether or not you share that discriminatory perception—unless, of course, you have worked there for some time.

The damaged self-esteem quality is absolutely critical in another way also, in that it is very often an integral part of the problem; for example, the battered wife, the school dropout, the substance-abusing individual, or the gang of “trouble makers” on the Native Reservation. In all these instances low self-esteem is a significant factor in the dysfunctional behaviors.

CLIENT NEEDS AND WORKER’S RESPONSE

Biestek presents the framework of the helping relationship as consisting of client needs and worker response in dynamic interaction (1957:17). The needs of the client must elicit from the worker an appropriate response, which is then received and responded to by the client in a manner that either shows a beginning confidence that the worker is hearing and responding to the need, or in a way that indicates that the worker has not heard them correctly. It is through this dynamic interaction that the relationship is begun and will continue to be developed.

An adaptation of Biestek’s identified needs of troubled persons, with the relevant principles is set out below. These specific needs are equally relevant where the client system consists of more than one person. While the most appropriate principle is identified with each need, there is some overlap, and this will be addressed more specifically in the following chapters. The principle of responsibility for self-awareness, though related below only to certain needs where this principle is particularly necessary, must permeate the entire activity. It is the key element of effective, truly professional work.

The Client’s Needs and the Relevant Principles

1. To be recognized as a person of worth

• respect for innate worth and dignity of every person

2. To be cared about, attended to in a professionally responsible manner

• the client’s needs are the worker’s first responsibility

3. To be confident that their secrets will be kept secret

• confidentiality

4. To be heard with an empathic understanding of their pain

• controlled emotional involvement

• responsibility for self-awareness

5. To be accepted as who they are

• acceptance

• responsibility for self-awareness

6. Not to be judged

• the nonjudgmental attitude

• responsibility for self-awareness

7. To be treated as an individual, not as a “case” or a number

• individualization

8. To be allowed to express their feelings

• purposeful expression of feelings

• responsibility for self-awareness

9. To be allowed to make their own choices and decisions;

• to retain a measure of control over their own lives

• self-determination, which also requires:

• active involvement of the client in the helping process

10. To be helped to take charge of their own life in more effective ways

• empowerment

• active involvement of the client in the helping process. (adapted from Biestek, 1957:17)

Each of these will be discussed in detail in the following chapters.

While virtually all troubled persons experience all these...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• List of Contributors
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Principles and the Social Work Encounter
• Chapter 1 The Ingredients of Professional Helping
• The Ethical Principles
• Chapter 2 Respect for Human Worth and Dignity: Social Work's Philosophical Base
• Chapter 3 The Client's Well-Being: The Social Worker's Primary Responsibility
• Chapter 4 Confidentiality: The Essential Component of Professional Helping
• Principles Required of the Worker in the Professional Use of self
• Chapter 5 Responsibility for Self-Awareness: The Self as Instrument in Helping
• Chapter 6 Acceptance: Creating the Climate for Change
• Chapter 7 The Nonjudgmental Attitude: Understanding and Evaluating, Not Assigning Blame
• Chapter 8 Controlled Emotional Involvement: The Disciplined Use of Self as Instrument
• Principles of Method
• Chapter 9 Individualization:Who Are These People andWhat Is Their Trouble?
• Chapter 10 Purposeful Expression of Feelings: A Necessary Element in Effective Helping
• Chapter 11 Self-Determination: A Right of All Clients
• Chapter 12 Involvement of the Client in the Helping Process: Sharing the Work of Change
• Chapter 13 Empowerment: Helping People Take Control of Their Lives
• Index