Empowerment Practice with Families in Distress

Judith Bula Wise

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9780231529471
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Marriage & Family Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

For more than 150 years, empowering practices have been used by social workers in their work with families, but the techniques of today differ significantly from those of the pioneers or even from those of a few years ago. Today's practitioners recognize that empowering others is impossible; social workers can, however, assist others as they empower themselves. This book integrates time-honored approaches with today's more modest goals, mindful of what empowerment can and cannot do. Synthesizing several theoretical supports—the strengths perspective, system theory, theories of family well-being, and theories of coping—the author responds to the question "What works?" with today's families in need. Practice illustrations are provided throughout to bring concepts to life and, more important, to present families describing their own experiences with achieving empowerment.

Part I

A Family-Centered Empowerment Framework

1

Empowerment Then and Now

Empowerment Then

For nearly two centuries, social workers have been familiar with empowerment thinking as it relates to work with families in distress. It has been known by different names across that span of time, as noted in the introduction’s historical overview of social work services to families since the early 1800s. The widely used concepts and actions of those times were grounded in the work of Karl Marx, Susan B. Anthony, Emma Goldman, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Paulo Freire (Simon 1990) and shaped the empowerment theories that “give philosophical preference to the views of the oppressed, so that they can be given voice and power in overcoming . . . domination of some groups over others” (Robbins, Chatterjee, and Kanda 1998:115).

Themes of empowerment have also occurred within the research, writings, and practice of social workers for more than a century (Simon 1994). Since those days of the earliest family social workers, empowerment thinking has been found in the human rights movement, political psychology, feminist theory, and community organization principles. Empowerment has been defined as a goal, a strategy, a process, a state of being, a practice approach, an intervention, a program, and a worldview (Jacobs 1992). Claims of what empowerment can do have included reducing the powerlessness inherent in being a member of a stigmatized group (Solomon 1976); increasing power in order to take action to improve personal, interpersonal, and political situations (Gutiérrez 1990); gaining power and resources to shape our worlds and reach full human potential (Shriver 2001); and “convey[ing] the hope of the fullness of life for all people” (Lee 2001:4). According to Shriver, “The purpose of empowerment is in essence the purpose of social work: to preserve and restore human dignity, to benefit from and celebrate the diversities of humans, and to transform ourselves and our society into one that welcomes and supports the voices, the potential, the ways of knowing, the energies of us all” (2001:29).

Empowerment, both concept and action, comes alive as an ongoing, reciprocal process from conceptual understanding to visible action. One cannot assume that understanding theoretical concepts alone automatically leads to helpful choices. Choices of theory are guided by a sense of purpose—that is, a “critical consciousness” (Freire 1998) about where the work is headed—and by what result is anticipated. As the topic of this volume in the Empowering the Powerless series of practice texts for social work, the empowerment perspective is preselected as the framework for thinking about practice. From that starting point, supporting theories must have some level of congruence with empowerment thinking. Parallels between empowerment thinking and the strengths perspective, for example, have been extensively discussed in the social work literature (Compton and Galaway 1999; Saleebey 1997; Weick and Chamberlain 1997). Empowering families by emphasizing strengths (while understanding the stressors) almost seems redundant. Yet because of a historical, culturally embedded, pathology-oriented tendency to emphasize problems, this approach must be stated explicitly.

The strengths perspective does not imply, however, that problems are to be overlooked in our work with families; on the contrary, they are faced directly and thoroughly. It does imply that in the work itself the emphasis is on the strengths and resources that families have available to them to help them address and move beyond the distress. By focusing on strengths, we become our strengths; by focusing on problems, we become our problems. “Putting problems in their place” (Weick and Chamberlain 1997) is essential, and that place is in acknowledging that persons and families are so much more than the problems they face. Acknowledging that having a problem and coping with that problem are no more than two steps in a life process is an essential aspect of empowering practice. Problem-solving skills are seen in this perspective as one of several sets of coping skills. In empowerment thinking one problem solved, even several problems solved, does not an empowered family make. Turning attention to resources and strengths can, at the very least, bring into view choices and possibilities for transforming a challenge into actions for moving on.

Empowering and strengthening families occurs within a complex web of transactions, and theories that can serve as containers for this complexity are needed. Systems theory and the ecological perspective have historically been used for this purpose, both in thinking about families as complex systems and in viewing them as part of the natural and biological social order. The helping process is embedded within this framework.

Empowerment has not stood still as its influence has grown over the years. The uses of empowerment today are not the uses of empowerment fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago. Nor should they be. Refinements, conscientious critique, and gains in knowledge have all resulted in a different, and in some ways more mature, empowerment perspective for today’s work with families.

Empowerment Now

What exactly is empowerment now? First, we must consider what empowerment is from a societal standpoint at this time in history, for it is within this society that today’s families exist and do their best to make it from one day to the next, whether from positions of strength or from points of distress.

At its most basic, empowerment is still simply just a word, and therefore a symbol or metaphor for the reality it attempts to describe. Sociolinguists (Chambers 2003; Gee 1996; Markee 2000) inform us of the vivid internal images created by all words. Indeed, this is an essential step in the way the brain learns language, through visual identification with what the word represents in the world. Empowerment is no exception to this process of image-making and attaching meaning to images. It is a word with power as its base. With that one act of dropping both prefix and suffix momentarily, to understand the root, the inquiry opens to connotations of the contrast between the lighter and the darker sides of power. Therefore, one step taken in this section will be that of understanding power in families: power over, power under, power with; power within, power between, power among. Because of this multifaceted nature of power, the word empowerment has been seen to inspire and to infuriate, to bring hope and to bring skepticism. Its strength comes from the need out of which it arises: to refuse to stand silently by in the face of oppression and abuses of power that exist around the globe, and around the neighborhood, and within our own families. And one of its weaknesses also comes from the need out of which it arises: its use has become so pervasive, in nearly every discipline and walk of life imaginable, that its effectiveness is called into question. “Empowerment is everywhere,” says Weissberg (1999):

Business gurus advise employee empowerment as the assured path toward greater profitability and client satisfaction. Prestigious foundations such as Rockefeller and Ford bestow their blessings with financial generosity. Commerce embraces it—one travel agency offers an “Empowerment Cruise” departing from Miami, Florida, to Cozumel, Mexico, complete with gourmet food and Las Vegas–style gambling. A quick Yahoo website tour reveals some 167 organizations embodying empowerment doctrines: myriad health groups (mental disorders, sickle cell disease, families of children with Down’s syndrome), endless sexual orientation societies (including cross-dressing), business assistance ventures galore, plus clubs for nearly every racial-ethnic segment of society, to mention merely the highlights of the highlights. (1–2)

And for the dog lovers of the world, there is Too Proud to Beg: Self-Empowerment for Today’s Dog (Olson 1997) including chapters titled “Dogs Proclaim Their Independence from Oppressive Masters,” “The Canine Bill of Rights,” and a fifteen-page section titled “Canine Empowerment” (9). Perhaps this has gone far enough in making the point that the use of the word empowerment has indeed reached absurd proportions.

Social work students, scholars, and researchers share this concern as well. Laurie was in her first-year internship at a women’s shelter when Betty, a member of the group she was leading, “let her have it” after she mentioned the word empowerment. Betty, in her early thirties, directed her message right at the student:

What kind of fancy word is that? Is that something out of your books or something? You think I don’t already have plenty of power myself? Well, let me tell you something, honey. Do you have any idea how much power it takes to plan for months to get away from someone who holds a knife to your neck and threatens your kids? When was the last time you had to make ends meet using food stamps? Don’t get me wrong. I want to hear what you have to say. I can use all the help I can get. But just don’t go assuming that you are going to EM-power me before you have asked me what kind of power I already have. Hell, I bet I could EM-power you just as much as you think you could do it to me.

To Laurie’s credit, she heard the message in Betty’s words and brought this quote to class so that others could benefit as well. Laurie phrased her learning in this way: “This is not a word to use casually. It may be that just doing it speaks louder than words, but doing it has to be grounded in an understanding about the framework.”

“If I hear another social worker talk about empowering others, I think I will scream.” These are the words of one seasoned and highly respected social work professor who has been educating social work students for more than thirty years. He places the passion of this statement in the following context:

Your questions about power are interesting. See, the issue for me is not one of having or not having power. The issue is how we live our power. One question is really about warranted power. I do not apologize for those powers earned or achieved. It is the ones that are granted because of my maleness that make me crazy. The real challenge is to embrace only those powers earned and not to internalize or accept those powers granted.

We don’t empower others. We risk being in very intimate relationships in which both we and our clients discover our power. To grant others power seems so condescending to me. Does this make any sense to you? Obviously I am still chewing on the whole business. What I do know for a certainty is that embracing the genuineness of one’s power is not easy in a world that has scripts for us to follow, yet it is in the embracing of the genuine power that we reach a sense of wholeness. (Dailey 1997:1–2)

And, finally: “I am concerned about the current popularity of concepts like resilience and empowerment. In desperate times, the profession’s language is becoming more romantic and flowery” (Gitterman 2001:xviii). These sentiments are mirrored in a similar observation: “Inflated claims about what works are the norm rather than the exception in the helping professions” (Allen-Meares and Garvin 2000:52).

Such cautions, seen through the eyes of the critical thinkers, the skeptics, the realists, serve a function that any user of empowerment thinking cannot ignore. These views hold us accountable and place the ethical considerations of our work constantly before us. They will not allow us to ignore the grinding realities faced by the families with whom we work. This feedback helps avoid the dangers of “group think” (Brookfield 1995) and getting pulled along by the swift current of the popular and the trendy. As social workers, we do live with a long and honorable history in empowerment thinking, a history with solid foundations that welcome refinements offered by the critical eye.

One of today’s most well-researched criticisms of empowerment thinking is by Robert Weissberg (1999), who offers words of caution in three key areas:

1. Stay realistic about what empowerment can do and what it cannot do, and avoid placing our expectations in the realm of its being an answer to all social ills. Stay modest in our definitions and recognize that, for the most part, we are “playing to our own audiences” (236). It is legitimate to raise questions about day-to-day effectiveness when the claims of what empowerment can do are so far-reaching: “The glorification of empowerment as today’s Messiah is but a harmful and totally unnecessary illusion. We can do better. . . . It is not a question of relishing misery as preordained; it is a matter of carefully and honestly attending to what is possible” (236).

2. Hold any “self-designated empowerment experts occupying academic or professional positions” accountable in the sense that their claims must match their outcome (certainly true for a number of social work authors), for the “inescapable conclusion” reached by Weissberg’s perusal of countless documents was that “gaining professional advancement constitutes the endeavor’s primary purpose” and that it is the “researchers, not the homeless family . . . who [secure] empowerment via the building of well-compensated records” (230).

3. Recognize that “empowerment theorizing is still in its infancy stage” (235) and that the term empowerment has been “expropriated well beyond its intended use” (233), but the action associated with empowerment thinking “everyday, no doubt, works wonders and it deserves recommendation for many of our ills. . . . Successes have been noted (Andrus and Ruhlin 1998; Manning 1998; Olasky 1992; Woodson 1987). There are modest efforts everywhere that have commendable records” (Weissberg 1999:233). The action of empowerment has been a part of social work practice since the beginning of social work as a profession. We are not dealing with anything new here. “We should not quickly abandon our historical storehouse of proven remedies. We have lots of admirable solutions waiting to be applied” (236).

We must, however, ask, “Empowerment for what purpose?” Empowerment approaches cannot be all things to all people. Weissberg helps us to stay realistic, prevents us from jumping on the “bandwagon” for the wrong reasons, and provides grounding for differential applications of empowerment practice. We cannot follow these helpful guidelines, however, without a sense of purpose about our use of empowerment thinking in the first place. For the work of this text, I have selected “family well-being” from the NASW Code of Ethics as the answer to the question “Empowerment for what purpose?” Current research on well-being in general with application to family well-being is identified and described. Empowerment, systems, ecological, strengths, and family well-being form a conceptual base, with family well-being serving as the main purpose and direction of the work. Along with the conceptual base, empowerment sustains, enhances, and creates family well-being for families not only during their times of distress but beyond those times as well.

Empowerment Defined

To “carefully and honestly [attend] to what is possible,” to stay realistic and modest, assuring that claims match outcome, to include the “voice” of those who seek empowerment, and to build on historical empowerment practice that has withstood the test of time, the definition of empowerment used here is “the freedom to choose” (Howie the Harp, in Carling 1995:xiv–xvi) and “the ability to make things happen” (Giddens 1994:15), to move on with living enhanced by well-being (from the 1996 social work Code of Ethics). Succinct enough to be usable, general enough to be widely applicable, this definition also intentionally removes the juxtaposition of “power and control” as sometimes used in earlier definitions of empowerment. Additional support for this definition will be discussed in the upcoming section on power as the root of empowerment thinking.

To support a family’s freedom to choose how, when, where, and with whom to make things happen to move on with their lives in a context of well-being, there must be comprehension of empowerment as a concept as well as clarity about how it translates into action. Theory and practice are continuously intertwined in professional practice. We consider one at a time in the written word simply because writing and speaking occur in linear fashion, one word at a time. The reciprocal relationship between concept and action determines how concept continually informs action and action, in turn, continually informs and sharpens concept.

Making Things Happen with Freedom to Choose . . . Toward What Purpose?

The purpose for our practice is clearly identified through the mission of the profession: “the enhancement of individual well-being” and the “attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty” (NASW Code of Ethics...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Epigraph and Dedication
• Contents 
• Editor’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. A Family-Centered Empowerment Framework
• Part II. Three Family Profiles: The Journey from Oppression to Empowerment
• Part III. Helping Families
• Part IV. A Closer Look at Families WITH Their Communities
• Appendix A. Cross-Cultural Counseling Competencies: A Conceptual Framework
• Appendix B. The Family Power Analysis
• Notes
• References
• Index