Components of the Problem-

Solving Process
• Nature of agency and resources – PLACE
• Nature of the client – PERSON
• Nature of the PROBLEM
• Nature of the client-worker problem-solving work and helping
relationship –PROCESS
• The helping person
Place …
The agency
• A structure- an organization consists of functions, responsibilities,
tasks governing policies and procedures that stabilizes and
systematizes its operations
• Established as a result of community’s concern to meet certain needs
of people
• Its mission, goals, visions, programs, and services are set up to meet
these needs
• Employs staff to carry out its functions; social worker represents both
the agency and the profession
The Person…..
The Client
• The person comes to a helping situation to seek help as voluntary
client or required to use help as involuntary client
• The term client refers to a person, family, group, or community as the
focus of worker’s helping activity
• He/she comes with concerns, unmet needs, and problems of social
functioning; comes from a societal or cultural milieu (set of life
experiences and set of patterns of transactions with other people)
• A client brings in also his/her total self—biological, psychological,
cultural, spiritual being ( a unique person in a unique situation)
The term “client”
• People who come to an agency are not clients yet rather they may be
initially referred to as applicants
• Applicants become clients only after they reach an agreement with
the social worker to work on one or more identified problems
Who is the client?
• Any individual, group, family, organization, community with whom the
social worker has collaboratively negotiated an explicit agreement
regarding the nature of the problem to address and a corresponding
intervention plan
• There is not client until a clear agreement has been reached regarding
the problem and the steps to resolve it.
Various paths to “clienthood”
• Applicant/potential client – a person, group, organization that
voluntarily seeks social worker/agency’s services
• Prospect – a person, group, organization to which social
worker/agency reach out
• Respondent – a person, group, organization what is required to
interact with the social worker/agency
Types of clients
• Those who ask help for themselves
• Those who ask help for another person or system
• Those who do not ask help but are in some way blocking or
threatening the social functioning of another person
• Those who seek or use help as means to reach their own goals or
ends – court referrals where client receive services to avoid severe
sanctions
• Those who seek help but for inappropriate goals – abortion
Elements of change
• Person’s motivation to change
• His/her capacity to change
• His/her opportunity to change
Client’s motivation (elements of change)
• Influenced by what a person wants and how much the person wants it
• Factors important to motivation
• The push or discomfort
• The pull of hope that something can be done to relieve the problem or
accomplish a task
• Client’s willingness to be involved in the client-worker relationship
and participate in the problem-solving process
• Ability and responsiveness to the therapeutic influence (helping
relationship)
Capacity (elements of change)
• This refers to the qualities of emotional and personality make-up –
intellectual and physical endowment
• Internal resource of the client – physical, emotional, psychological or
• Intellectual fitness
Capacity-relationship
• Relationship (emotional capacity) – the ability to:
• Form relationships with others who might be tapped as resources for
helping
• Relate satisfactorily with self, family, and others
• Communicate with others’ positive feelings, attitudes, and thinking;
perceives and reacts to realistic situations with consideration for others
Capacity – Problem-solving
• Relates to cognitive development
• Social intelligence
• Perceptiveness
• Ability to communicate
• Capacity for attention
• Capacity to think constructively and consistently
• Reality testing
Capacity – cognitive/perceptual
• Intellectual – comprehension of own situation, ability to grasp ideas,
express self, analyze or think logically
• Judgment – examples: failure to consider consequences or actions or
failure to profit from past mistakes
• Reality testing – orientation to time, place, event, and person and cause
and effect of relationships of events, etc.
• Coherence of thought processes
• Cognitive flexibility – example: not thinking in absolute or black or white
terms
• Values, misconceptions, and self-concept
Capacity – biophysical
• One’s biological construction or handicapping conditions
• Physical characteristics
• Health and genetic factors – physical appearance and characteristics
and physical health
Capacity – emotional function
• Ability to relate to others indicated by client’s differentiated reactions
to different relationships
• Emotional control
• Range of emotions- ability to experience and to express a wide range
of emotions that befit the diversity of situations
• Appropriateness of affect – spontaneous experiencing of and express
of emotions
Change requires opportunity( elements of
change)
• Refers to the conditions of the environment that invite and support
change
• The availability of resources and services needed to support change
The Problem
Problem
• An event, condition, or experience that stimulates a sense of
disequilibrium and a corresponding motivation to regain a sense of
equilibrium through thought or action or both thought and action
• Does not necessary convey anything negative about the person, family, group,
organization, community or society that experiences them
• Definition does not suggest/convey a value judgment
Problems for SW intervention
• Troubles in living which stem from difficulties in effectively coping
with specific situations in daily life
• Difficulties in coping may stem from a combination of
• Motivation- an imbalance of hope and discomfort in relation to an imagined
solution to the problem – a goal
• Capacity – the needed knowledge, social skills, rational skills, relationship
with external reality, and interplay of current and past biopsychosocial factors
in development
• Opportunity- access to support systems, needed resources, and helping
relationships
Nature of the Problem
• Social work is concerned with problems in social functioning which rests mainly
• On interpersonal relationships
• In negotiating with systems in the environment
• Role performance
• A deficiency of lack of material means or personal capacity (temporary or
permanent) or of the knowledge or preparation needed to carry out social roles
• Problem may be due to disturbance:
• Between expectations of a person and demands of various segments of the person’s
environment
• Between environment expectations and demands and personal needs
Nature of the problem
• The composite of internal and external factors in social problems
which affect or affected by the person’s social functioning:
• Economic
• Physical
• Psychological
• Social
The Problem
• Has chain reactions
• Has both subjective and objective significance; internal (felt need) and
external (seen)
• Consideration should be given to:
• Client wants and needs (felt)
• Worker’s judgment (real), and agency purpose and services
• It is usually a problem in the current life situation which is hurting and
disturbing (a difficulty in a person to person or person to task relationship)
• All unmet need which hampers or undermines a person’s adequate living
• Usually results to stress (psycho, social, physical) that causes the person to
be ineffective or disturbed in carrying out his/her social roles
Problem Typology
• Problems of livelihood (Within the context of economic circumstances –poverty)
• Difficulty in role performance – inability to perform satisfactorily/adequately social
roles
• Difficulty in interpersonal relationship – arises out of the relationship between
individuals where behavior of one is not acceptable or irritates the other
• Problem of social transition- arises when there is impending or abrupt change in the
individual’s social field such as the sudden death of a spouse
• Dissatisfaction in social relations- this is centered in one person rather than two
persons
• Problems with formal organizations – problem centered on one’s conflict with a
collection of individuals
• Impact of calamities and unrest