Introduction to Social Work Practice

Social Work
• an academic and professional discipline that seeks to facilitate the
welfare of communities, individuals, families and groups.
• It promote social change, development, cohesion and empowerment.
• Engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance
well-being.
• Organized work intended to advance the social conditions of a comm
unity, and especially of the disadvantaged, by
providing psychological counseling, guidance, and assistance, especial
ly in the form of social services.
Seven Core Functions of Social Work:
(by Popple and Leighninger)

1. Engagement- the social worker must first engage the client in early meetings to promote a
collaborative relationship.
2. Assessment – data must be gathered that will guide and direct a plan of action to help the client.
3. Planning – negotiate and formulate an action plan.
4. Implementation- promote resource acquisition and enhance role performance.
5. Monitoring/Evaluation- on-going documentation through short term goal attainment of extent to
which client is following through,
6. Supportive Counseling- affirming, challenging, encouraging, informing, and exploring options
7. Graduated Disengagement- seeking to replace the social worker with a naturally occurring
resource.
Standard approach to Service Delivery:
Casework
-social work directly concerned with individuals, especially that involving
a study of a person's family history and personal circumstances.
Group work
-a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative
learning, that enhances the total output of the activity than when done
individually. It aims to cater for individual differences, develop skills
(e.g. communication, skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking skills),
generic knowledge and socially acceptable attitudes or to generate
conforming standards of behavior and judgment, a group mind.
Community organization
•  covers a series of activities at the community level aimed at bringing
about desired improvement in the social well being of individuals,
groups and neighborhoods. It is being often used synonymous to
community work, community development and community
mobilization. It can represent both community-based organizations,
operating as civil society non-profits, and also as a function of
organizing within communities defined by geographical location,
shared work space, and/or shared experience or concerns.
Community organizing is a democratic instrument to create sustained
social change.
The Essential Elements in Social Work
Practice
• Client
• Worker
• Problem and Process
( Lippit, Watson and Westley ( The Dynamics of Planned Change) )

Planned Change- change originating from a decision to make a

deliberate effort to improve the system and do obtain the help of an
outside agent in making this improvement.
Client System
a) The personality system which consists of related sub-parts: the
conscious, unconscious, the mind and the body;
b) The group: families, committee, staffs, clubs, and other smaller
social units;
c) The organization: any of the larger social system which comprise the
community: business organizations, welfare agencies, educational
institutions, religious associations, government bureaus, political
parties;
d) The community made up of a variety of interacting sub-parts, e.g.,
individual citizens, informal interest groups, organized occupational
or political subgroups, economic and social strata, geographical
units, etc.
Two concepts of Planned Change
Change Force
• an aspect of the situation which increases the willingness of the client
system to make a proposed change.

Resistance Force
• An aspect of the situation which reduces the willingness of the client
system to change.
Education for Cross-Cultural Social Work

Cross- Cultural (or intercultural) social work

-refers to working across national boundaries, as well as working across
cultural boundaries within nations.
-an umbrella term that would encompass programs and courses that
address issues of working across cultural boundaries, leaving it to our
respondents to define what those boundaries might be.