Social Work Theories in Action

Kieran O\''Donoghue, Robyn Munford, Kieran O'Donoghue, Mary Nash

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781849854054
• eBook ISBN: 9781846421006
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This wide-ranging collection of essays offers valuable insights into the cultural issues involved in the practical application of social work theories. Leading contributors explore the challenges faced by indigenous populations and ethnic minority groups, examining how they can gain control over their position as minority populations, and offering valuable guidance on cross-cultural work.

The direct implementation of four established theoretical approaches - ecological systems, community development, strengths-based approaches and attachment theories - is shown in a variety of contexts, including mental health care, trauma counselling and child protection. Using community development work in Australia and New Zealand as a case study, the contributors also advocate using these approaches in work with migrants and refugees.

Social Work Theories in Action recognizes the importance of drawing on the strengths of families, individuals and communities and offers theoretical perspectives that can be applied in everyday work situations. It is essential reading for social and community workers, mental health professionals and social work students.

Part I

People in their
Environments

Introduction

The focus upon the interrelationship between people and their environments has been a distinctive feature of social work since it emerged in the late nineteenth century (Kemp, Whittaker and Tracy 1997). The ecological systems theoretical tradition has, over the past 30 years, become the main theoretical metaphor for understanding context and the relationship between people and their situation. It is the perspectival theory in the integrated practice framework. This part contains four chapters that present an overview to ecological systems theories in action.

It begins with a chapter by Kieran O’Donoghue and Jane Maidment that critically reviews ecological systems theory. This review traces the evolution and development of the ecological systems tradition, outlines the key theoretical concepts, and discusses the strengths and limitations of ecological systems theories in social work in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.

The three chapters that follow apply ecological systems theories to specific practice settings, namely HIV practice, trauma and an acute inpatient mental health ward. Christa Fouché’s chapter applies ecological systems theory as an analytical framework for conceptualizing HIV practice within the South African context. The argument presented by her multi-level analysis is that an ecological assessment of the HIV situation in South Africa reveals that changes in the South African situation will occur only by altering the environments in which the virus, and the human carriers of this virus, live. The next chapter, written by Carole Adamson, applies an ecological perspective to trauma theory and practice and emphasizes the significance of context in both social workers’ and supervisors’ responses to traumatic events. The last chapter in this part is presented in the form of a conversation between Mathew Keen and Kieran O’Donoghue on the topic of integrated practice in mental health social work. The areas covered include the authors’ views concerning integrated practice and its place in the ecological systems tradition, its application in the inpatient mental health setting and with the indigenous and settler populations living in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Reference

Kemp, S., Whittaker, J. and Tracy, E. (1997) Person-Environment Practice: The Social Ecology of Interpersonal Helping. New York: Adeline de Gruyter.

Chapter 1

The Ecological Systems Metaphor in Australasia

Kieran O’Donoghue and Jane Maidment

This chapter provides a critical review of the ecological systems metaphor as understood and utilized in Australasia. This will be achieved through an overview of the evolution and development of the ecological systems tradition, and consideration of its location as a metatheory within social work thought. The guiding concepts of ecological systems theory will also be outlined, together with a critique that pays particular attention to the Aotearoa New Zealand and Australian contexts. This chapter concludes with a summary, which reviews the main points and directs the reader’s attention towards the subsequent chapters that demonstrate ecological systems theory in practice.

Introduction

Throughout its history, social work has maintained a dual focus upon both people and their environments (Mattaini and Meyer 2002; O’Donoghue 2003). Ecological systems theory is widely accepted as a metaphor that assists social workers to maintain this dual focus (Greif 1986; Rothery 2001; Wakefield 1996a). It has developed into a theoretical tradition that is predominately described as a perspective or metatheory (Mattaini and Meyer 2002; Rothery 2001). Coady (2001, p.29) describes a metatheory as an abstract theory that is highly explanatory and minimally prescriptive. As a metatheory, ecological systems theory is considered to provide a foundational big picture perspective used in combination with other more specific mid-range theories that give a more specific understanding of human behaviour, as well as techniques that facilitate change (Mattaini and Meyer 2002).

Evolution and development

The evolution of both systems theory and ecological theory in social work has resulted in the development of a significant tradition within the general social work theory and practice literature (Andreae 1996; Mattaini and Meyer 2002; Reid 2002; Rothery 2001; Wakefield 1996b). This tradition includes theories ranging from those which are systems focused, to those that are ecologically based. In between are the theories that unify both ecological and systems theories. This review of the evolution and development of the ecological systems tradition will discuss the development of systems theory first, then ecological theory and will conclude with the ecological systems perspectives, which combine both theories.

Systems theory

The emergence of systems and ecological theory occurred in the 1970s (Gitterman and Germain 1976; Pincus and Minahan 1973; Siporin 1975; Vickery 1974). Social work theoreticians from North America and Great Britain were developing new ways to explain the connections between the personal and environmental aspects of practice, as well as finding a unifying framework of practice for the social work profession (Reid 2002).

Systems theory was promoted as a foundational framework for social work practice. Pincus and Minahan’s book (1973), described by Payne (1997, pp.139–141) as being widely used and influential, was one of the early attempts at applying ideas and concepts from systems theory to general social work practice. Their approach included:

1.the recognition of the influence of systems in the life of people

2.the identification of three kinds of systems that contribute to people’s wellbeing, namely informal or natural systems (family, friends, neighbours colleagues), formal systems (community organizations, unions, professional associations) and societal systems (government departments, hospitals and schools)

3.the conceptualization of the four basic systems in social work practice (change agent, client, target and action systems)

4.clearly identified stages and methods of systemic practice.

Vickery (1974), in the first British article that applied systems theory to social work practice, developed the application of systems theory with individuals and families by examining the interactions between client-system and environmental-system and the role of input, feedback, transformation and output with regards to change in both systems.

Early conceptualizations of systemic practice were criticized due to the ‘level of abstraction, the range of competing perspectives within systems theory and the mechanistic, nonhuman nature of much of its language’ (Kemp et al. 1997, p.41). A further limitation levelled at general systems theory was its lack of prescription of interventive strategies for the social worker.

Another influence in the development of systems theory was family systems theory, through the family therapy movement (Agass and Preston-Shoot 1990; Andreae 1996; Reid 2002; Wood 1997, 2001). Family theorists adapted systems theory to develop family systems theory, which uses concepts such as circular causality, homeostasis, subsystems, triangulation, structures, and boundaries to explain family functioning (Dallos and Draper 2000; Reid 2002).

Turning to current systems thinking, one finds that the theory continues to evolve and develop. Key areas of development have emerged from the study of cybernetics as well biotechnology. Mattaini and Meyer (2002, p.7) argue that the following ideas reflect the latest developments in systems thinking:

•a shift to viewing networks of transactional relationships, rather than objects, as the basic elements of reality

•the central importance of self-organization in those networks, and

•the crucial place of diversity in those self-organizing systems.

Ecological theory

There are three phases of development in the social work ecological literature. The first identifies concepts from ecology as a metaphor that assists social workers to conceptualize the transactions between the person and their environment (Gitterman 1996a, 1996b; Gitterman and Germain 1976). The second involves the combination of the ecological perspective with systems theory to create a comprehensive, unifying framework or paradigm for social work practice. The third involves the development of a social ecological theory and signals a divergence from systems theory (Ungar 2002). This section will focus on the first and third phases. The second phase will be discussed in the ecological systems section.

When the ecological perspective emerged in the 1970s, it was described as a form of general systems theory that was less abstract and was based upon an ‘evolutionary adaptive view of human beings (and all organisms) in continuous transactions with the environment’ (Germain 1979, p.7). The perspective used the ecological metaphor as the lens for viewing and conceptualizing the exchanges between people and their environments (Gitterman 1996b). The purpose of the ecological perspective was to help the social worker customize their intervention to the person, the environment or the interaction between the two. In doing this, the aim was to facilitate the restoration of the adaptive balance between persons and environment by reducing stress, enhancing coping mechanisms or establishing stability (Germain and Gitterman 1980; Gitterman 1996b; Gitterman and Germain 1976). Central to the development of the ecological perspective in social work has been the ‘Life Model’.

The Life Model aims to improve the ‘level of fit between people’s perceived needs, capacities, and aspirations and their environmental supports and resources’ (Gitterman 1996b, p.395). It utilizes a mutual assessment process involving both practitioner and client and aims to: improve the client’s ability to manage life stresses; influence the responsiveness of the social and physical environment to the client; and improve the quality of person and environment interactions and relationships.

The interventive methods and modalities of the Life Model, according to Gitterman (1996b, p.403), emphasize an ‘integrated perspective on practice’, that is modelled on life, with three phases: initial, ongoing and ending. Gitterman (1996b, p.404) also makes the point that it is ‘not prescriptive’ and relies on an integration of professional skills with the humanity of the practitioner. Or, in other words, it also depends upon an adaptive balance and level of fit between the person of the practitioner, their professional role as social worker and the environment of social work practice in the society in which they are located.

Before discussing approaches that combine both ecological and systems theory, three recent developments in the field of social ecological theory will be overviewed. The first is that of Kemp et al. (1997, pp.2–3), whose person– envinonment practice (PEP) is an emergent social ecological model of interpersonal helping that is time limited and aims to achieve the following:

1.an improvement in the client’s sense of mastery in managing stressful life situations, environmental challenges, and utilization of environmental resources

2.an active multidimensional (involving the perceived, physical, social/interactional, institutional/organizational, social/political/cultural dimensions) assessment, engagement and intervention in the environment, with particular emphasis on the mobilization of the personal social network

3.the linking of individual concerns in ways that promote social empowerment though collective action.

The second development is Besthorn’s (2001) ‘Deep-Ecological Social Work’, which challenges social workers to recover the elements of spirituality and the natural environment and incorporate them into a deep-ecological social work practice that that is attuned to both spirituality and nature. There are two main dimensions to Besthorn’s (2001) deep-ecology: the first is ecological awareness, the second, political ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Of Related Interest
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedications and Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Jim Ife
• Introduction: Integrating Theory and Practice
• Part I: People in their Environments
• Part II: Developing Communities
• Part III: Working with Strengths
• Part IV: Attachment: Reworking Relationships
• Conclusion: Integrated Theory in Action
• Glossary of Maori and Pacificwords
• Contributors
• Subject Index
• Author Index