Essential Theory for Social Work Practice

Chris Beckett, Nigel Horner

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781473911710
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Travail social

Focusing on what students really need to know, this book breaks down all of the key social work theory covered across a students? training, demystifying complex concepts by demonstrating their application to real-life practice. Multiple case studies highlight applied theory in different practice settings and across issues and challenges that students might face, while self-assessment exercises, practice notes, concise chapter summaries and discussion points help to consolidate their understanding.

New chapters bring the book right up to date and include Relationship-based Work, The Importance of Language, Political Perspectives and Environmental Intervention.

Written by two well-established and expert authors, this is the ?must-have? theory text for all social work students.

Part I WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT

1 Introduction and Using this Book

Given the title of this book it may seem an odd thing to say from the outset, but in some ways we wish we did not use the phrase ‘social work theory’. It seems to us to conjure up the idea of social work as a completely distinct activity with its own distinct theoretical framework to guide it. It is more accurate to say that social work consists of a highly diverse range of activities, most of which overlap with activities carried out by members of other professions and occupational groups, and the ideas which are used to guide these activities are likewise diverse and often originate from outside of social work itself.

But there is no doubt that social workers do need to be equipped with ideas about what their job is and how to do it. Never has this been more true as the profession is periodically – and increasingly frequently – required to justify itself in terms of its value and function. What remains true is that social work can have such far reaching implications for people’s lives that it is essential that it is done on a clearly thought-out basis for which decisions can be justified and substantiated by reference to theoretical knowledge and evidence.

Using this Book

Primarily, this book has been written for social work students, at qualifying and post-qualifying levels, for practice educators and practice supervisors and for members of the wider social work practice community. We also hope social work educators and those delivering programmes in related disciplines – in nursing, in health-related subjects, in health and social care – will find the book to be equally suitable and helpful as a key text for modules on the theory of working with people in need. As we move ever more purposefully along the path towards health and social care integration, so will increase the need for greater understanding of others’ roles and functions, their ways of working and their frames of reference, of which theory is an essential part.

Throughout the duration of their social work courses, students are asked to refer to theory and to demonstrate their ability to analyse, reflect and think critically, and so we hope a book like this proves to be one that students find useful during their studies and beyond.

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This edition offers a text interspersed with a number of ‘exercises’. These invite the reader to apply the ideas as discussed to various problems, usually based on case scenarios. They are followed by some comments from the authors, which anyone working on these exercises would be advised not to look at until they have gathered their own thoughts on the problem in question. These exercises could be used in various ways. They could be extracted and used for teaching purposes, for instance. Those readers (probably the majority) who do not want to pause and work on them as tasks should simply read through the exercises and our comments, as we refer to them in the subsequent text.

Finally, two brief notes on terminology.

He or she: We find it cumbersome to use ‘he or she’ all the time, so we have tended to say one or the other. In referring to social workers we have tended to use ‘she’ simply because the majority of social workers are women.

Service users: As well as the term ‘service user’, we also use the more old-fashioned term ‘client’ for brevity and variety. We do not subscribe to the view that there is anything derogatory or demeaning about the word ‘client’, which is used without any negative connotations by lawyers, accountants, architects, business people and members of other professions. We have consciously avoided the truncated form of ‘user’ as in common parlance it refers to a manipulative person who selfishly uses other people – which is a decidedly negative and pejorative connotation. The principles of values-based practice invite us to constantly reflect upon our use of language and hence our critical stance here.

The Structure of the Book: A Brief Overview of the Constituent Parts

In this first Part, we will explore what we mean by theory and why it matters to social work and to social workers. We have also looked at its values and its limitations through examining the use and abuse of theory.

In Part II, we will consider the roles social workers undertake in the UK welfare landscape whilst recognising this is constantly changing as health and social care relationships shift and transform.

In Part III, we will explain key sets of theories of explanation and theories of intervention, illustrated by reference to examples of practice models.

In Part IV, we will reflect upon the wider contexts within which social workers engage in practice, which will also introduce us to broader intervention realms.

Finally, in Part V, we step back from specific theories and models to look at some of the issues and dilemmas that surround the idea of ‘theory’ in the context of social work.

2 What Do We Mean by Social Work Theory?

• •Blue Pills 6
• •Defining Social Work: Working the Social 7
• •The Social Work ‘Toolkit’ 11
• •Thinking Theoretically 13
• •Thinking about Intervention 15
• •Eclecticisim 18

Many social work students understandably struggle with just what is meant by ‘theory’ in a social work context. This chapter will demonstrate in a very simple way that we always use theories when we are making decisions or trying to understand things, whether in social work or everyday life. The point of studying theory is to enrich the range of theories we use, and to develop a more critical and rigorous approach to them. There will be some discussion (and again a practical demonstration) of the difference between a theory and a practice approach or method, but it will be pointed out that behind every approach or method is a theory, implicit or explicit.

Let us begin an exploration of the importance of theory by way of a consideration of a medical consultation.

Blue Pills

You have been having dizzy spells. You go to a doctor and she writes you out a prescription with the words ‘I really have no idea why, but today I just feel like prescribing blue pills!’ You would probably not feel very confident in the doctor’s prescription. On the other hand suppose the doctor, after asking you some questions about your symptoms, said something like:

I believe that the reason you are getting dizzy spells is that your body is short of iron. I think that what we need to do now is to build up the levels of iron in your blood. I suggest I give you a prescription now for some iron tablets to see if that will help and then you come back again in two weeks’ time.

In this case, we think you would feel more reassured, for the doctor is not simply offering a response to your problem, but indicating that she has a thought-out basis for doing so. After all, the reason why you went to your doctor in the first place was that you thought she might know something about why people have dizzy spells and what can be done about them.

The premise of this book is that social workers too should have a ‘thought-out basis’ for what they do. Social work is a very different kind of activity from medicine and we really do not wish to suggest by the above example that we should see social workers as being ‘like doctors’ (they are no more like doctors than they are, say, like teachers or police officers or housing officials) but one thing that social workers do have in common with doctors is that their actions may have enormous consequences for other people. If you are an elderly person who needs help with her care, or a child whose parents are mistreating her, or a person with schizophrenia who has violent delusions and may be a danger to others, then the decisions that social workers make could change the whole course of your life. Like a doctor’s patients, those people who receive social work and social care services are entitled to expect that those services are offered on as sound and solid a basis as is feasible. A social worker should know what her job is and how to carry it out.

It has recently been suggested from the Munro review of child protection (2011) that, in relation to decision-making about children at risk, social workers should be able to ‘show their workings out’. This language is deliberately childlike. It suggests that if your conclusion is that a child is safe in their home environment, or conversely is not safe, then your reasoning, or your ‘workings out’, should be clear, transparent and understandable to all parties involved. If your decisions are to be justified beyond your own whim, hunch, gut feeling, prejudice or random fancy, then the chances are that you will have used a theoretical framework to justify not only your understanding of the situation but also your consequent actions.

This book will not offer you detailed prescriptions as to how to deal with particular situations such as these, but it will invite you to explore the nature of the social worker’s role and invite you to consider what kind of thinking is – or ought to be – entailed in it.

To think about this we need first to consider what we mean by ‘social work’.

Defining Social Work: Working the Social

The problem with our definition of a social worker is that, even though it is already longer than the definitions of dentists and plumbers, it is still not specific enough. This definition – which equates to broad ideas about People Services – could still include health visitors, mental health nurses, counsellors, advice workers, special needs teachers and probably a good many other groups too. That said, essentially the same problem exists with the definition of social work as adopted by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) in 2014:

Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing.

We think you will agree that, if you did not know already what social workers did, then the above definition would not help you very much. Imagine someone asking you at a party what you did for a living and you replying: ‘I promote social change, problem-solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing’. Would this enlighten them? (And wouldn’t it sound rather pious?) Actually the above is only the beginning of the IFSW definition, which continues:

Social work in its various forms addresses the multiple, complex transactions between people and their environments. Its mission is to enable all people to develop their full potential, enrich their lives, and prevent dysfunction. Professional social work is focused on problem solving and change. As such, social workers are change agents in society and in the lives of the individuals, families and communities they serve. Social work is an interrelated system of values, theory and practice.

And the IFSW definition then goes on to discuss values, theory and practice, giving the following account of ‘practice’:

Social work interventions range from primarily person-focused psychosocial processes to involvement in social policy, planning and development. These include counselling, clinical social work, group work, social pedagogical work, and family treatment and therapy as well as efforts to help people obtain services and resources in the community. Interventions also include agency administration, community organisation and engaging in social and political action to impact social policy and economic development.

This is a long list of different kinds of interven...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• About the Authors
• About the Second Edition of this Book
• Acknowledgements
• Part I WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT
• 1 Introduction and Using this Book
• 2 What Do We Mean by Social Work Theory?
• 3 The Uses and Abuses of Theory
• PART II SOCIAL WORK ROLES
• 4 The Roles We Play
• 5 Relationship-based Work
• 6 Use of Authority and Power
• 7 Advocacy and Empowerment
• 8 Working with Others: Working as a Team
• 9 Environmental Intervention
• Part III Past, Present And Future: Language And Change
• 10 Which Way to Look?
• 11 The Power of the Past
• 12 Searching the Present
• 13 Exploring the Future
• 14 The Importance of Language
• 15 Working with People towards Becoming Unstuck
• Part IV THE WIDER CONTEXT
• 16 Systems and System Levels
• 17 Family Systems
• 18 Groups and Communities
• 19 Political Perspectives
• Part V IT’S ALL VERY WELL IN THEORY
• 20 A Question of Evidence and the Problem of Uncertainty
• 21 Talk and Substance
• 22 The Limits of Theory
• 23 Current Contexts and Contemporary Models of Social Work Practice
• References
• Index