The Foundation for Generalist Practice in
Social Work
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand the meaning of holism
2. Understand the basic elements constituting the
foundation of the profession
3. Begin to understand the seven essential
elements of generalist social work practice
4. Perceive the foundation values and ethics,
knowledge, and skills of social work practice
from the person-in-environment perspective
5. Begin to understand the process of the General
Method
As a Social Worker Practice is a
function of Your…
HOLISM
Social Work is based on a holistic conceptual framework
that takes into account the many interrelationships
among different components of the discipline
In this holistic framework the focus is on:
 Total person
 Interdependence of body, spirit, mind, and feelings
 The person in their environment
 Person’s transactional processes
 The environmental context forces
 Person’s bio-psycho-social functioning
The Biopsychosocial Model
Underlying theoretical framework for Social Work
Biological
Factors
Psychological
Factors
Human
Needs/Emotion/
Behavior
Social
Factors
Needs
• In social work we
are concerned with
meeting the
NEEDS of
individuals within
the context of their
biological,
psychological and
social
environments
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Higher Order Needs
Basic Needs
Basic Needs Must
be Satisfied
before Higher
Order Needs
Class Activity
• The following 2 scenarios illustrate
situations where particular needs in the
hierarchy are motivating people’s
behavior
• Identify in each which need:
– is taking precedence
– is being satifsfied
An uneducated, very unhappy
mother and wife stays married to her
abusive husband because she was
an orphan
Which need is taking PRECEDENCE
(the current focus of attention)?
Which need is being SACRIFICED?
Woman in Abusive Marriage
• Motivating Need
• Love and belonging.
• She loves her
children and doesn’t
want to split their
family nor take them
from home, shaking
up their sense of
security.
• Sacrificed Need
• Physiological.
• She will no doubt
continue to be
abused.
A man recently diagnosed with
diabetes is making several dietary
changes and is short-tempered and
irritable with his family
What need is taking PRECEDENCE
(the current focus of attention)?
What need is being SACRIFICED?
Diabetic Man on a Diet
• Precedence Need
• Physiological
• The man is hungry
• Sacrificed Need
• Love and belonging
• He’s so miserable
he can’t get his mind
off of his physical
need for food and is
taking it out on
others
Needs
• Being a student and
aspiring social worker
entails meeting both
your needs as a
student and the needs
of those you will be
serving both now and
in the future as social
workers
Meeting Needs
• In terms of students needs being met
– Student self-actualization reflects the
achievement of individual student goals , in
the School of Social Work environment (i.e.
Social Work Education).
• In terms of the needs of those you serve
– Work to identify and see that the needs of your
clients are being met.
Meeting Needs:
Person-Person Work!
•
Working together requires 4 essential
dimensions of the generalist practice
1. Holistic and transferable professional
knowledge, value and skill base
2. Multi-dimensional framework
3. Versatile Assessment
4. Intervention Roles and Strategies
From where did these
dimensions arise?
Let’s take a look back at the
historical development of social
work
• Social work grew out of humanitarian
and democratic ideals, and its values
are based on respect for the equality,
worth, and dignity of all people...
• Human rights and social justice
serve as the motivation and
justification for social work action.
– In solidarity with those who are
disadvantaged, the profession strives to
alleviate poverty and to liberate vulnerable
and oppressed people in order to promote
social inclusion…
Foundations of Social Work
Context for natural development
1600’s poor lawsfamily responsibility in
rural America
Growth (pop & econ),
social stratification,
business cycle
Settlement
Houses
Charity Organizations
Broader
social reform
Micropractice- origins
of social casework
Basic Foundation Elements of
the Social Work Profession
1. Purpose
2. Sanctions
3. Values and Ethics
4. Knowledge
5. Methods
6. Skills
1. PURPOSE
 Enhance
the social
functioning of individuals,
families, and groups
 Modify environmental
conditions
 Work to improve
environmental conditions
 Enable individuals, families,
groups, organizations, and
communities to function
more effectively
Broker of
Services
Case
Manager
Counselor
Administrato
r
Consultant
Enabler
Advocate
Team
Member
Levels of Purpose
• Individual
– Caseworker
– Therapist
– Micropractice
specialist
• Structural
– Comm.
OrganizerPlanner
– Policy advocate
– Macropractice
specialist
Generalist Practice
2. SANCTIONS
 Social Work is a SOCIETALLY SANCTIONED
Profession
 It receives its sanctions from public and private
and voluntary auspices
 Perform designated tasks and activities in
carrying out the profession’s purpose:
1. Create social program and social work role
positions in multidisciplinary programs
2. Allocate funding for social work programs, role
positions, and practice activities
3. Legally incorporate and license agencies,
organizations, and institutions
4. Regulate or license individual social work
professionals
Class Activity
• List 3 things you
value most
• List 3 things the
social work
profession values
• Ask Yourself
Values: Definition
 Preferred ways of thinking
about persons and society
 Preferred instrumentalities
for dealing with people
 Preferred goals and
outcomes
3. Core Professional Values and Ethics
 Service
 Help people in need; address social problems
 Social Justice
 Challenge injustice
 Dignity and Worth of the Person
 Respect dignity and worth of the person
 Importance of Human Relationships
 Recognize central importance of human relationships
 Integrity
 Behave in trustworthy manner
 Competence
 Practice within their areas of competence and advance
professional expertise
Professional Values are at the heart of
social work practice
Examples of Social Work
Professional Value Decrees
…of the kinds of social work values stated by
scholars and professional associations in western
countries since 1958. The changing face of values
can be seen throughout the years.
Translated to general practice
• Commitment to a set of values.
• Awareness that the values are inter-related
and form a coherent whole.
• Capacity to make sense of professional values
and their relationship to our own personallyheld values.
• Ability to give a coherent account of beliefs
and actions.
• Strength of purpose and ability to act on the
values.
When personal and professional
values clash!
So I'm beginning to think I really don't like it any more.
Knocking on people's doors and saying I need to talk to
you because a report's been made that you're not looking
after your child. You know, it's not worthwhile any more.
It's not the right way to be doing it. There's other ways.
And I'm just there by myself and it's not very pleasant.
So I'm beginning to think I'm doing it out of a very
routine way. But I'm getting the sense back that it's not
the right way and it’s punishing people. And it's social
work that's really cut down to the bone, about as stark as
it gets. (Emergency duty social worker)
Social Work Code of Ethics
• Students are expected to maintain
professional behaviour consistent with the
current Code of Ethics of the Canadian
Association of Social Workers.
• The Code of Ethics is used to help guide
social workers in the course of their work
• The Code encompasses the values and
principles of human worth, dignity, selfdetermination and justice upon which
social work is based
(Hick, 2002, p. 59)
Guiding Principles and Standards
• The NASW Code of Ethics does not
provide a set of rules that prescribe how
social workers should act.
• Ethical dilemmas describe situations in
which the social worker has two or more
ethical obligations but cannot adhere to one
principle without violating the other (protect
from imminent harm vs right to privacy).
Guiding Principles Continued
• Ethics are not a cookbook or recipe of
“dos” and don’ts” Ethical conduct
requires continual self monitoring,
reflection, careful thought, and constant
review of the Code of Ethics.
• As a professional, one must not only
know the letter of the code – but the
spirit, the rationale, and the practical
implications.
NASW Code of Ethics – Basic Tenants
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Principle Number 1 – Protection of Life
Principle Number 2 – Equality and Inequality
Principle Number 3 – Autonomy and Freedom
Principle Number 4 – Least Harm
Principle Number 5 – Quality of Life
Principle Number 6 – Privacy and Confidentiality
Principle Number 7 – Truthfulness and Disclosure
Ethical Decision Making Framework
• Identify the ethical principles that apply to the
situation
• Collect as much information as possible to examine
the ethical dilemma fully
• Identify relevant ethical values and rules that apply
to this ethical dilemma
• Identify any possible conflicts of interest
• Identify any possible problems or benefits to people
• Identify appropriate ethical rules and rank them in
terms of importance
• Identify the consequences of applying different
ethical rules
What would you do…
• Clients who put themselves at risk pose a
dilemma for social workers
• These clients may refuse medical treatment or
services or reject common-sense advice.
“Clients have a right to refuse treatment or
services, but there are risks associated with doing
so"
• If the client is supposed to use a walker and won't
• If the client refuses to eat the home-delivered
meal
• If the client can't remember to take medication
• …Then the social worker has to decide what is
the appropriate action…What would you do in the
situations noted above
4. KNOWLEDGE

Empirically grounded knowledge




Substantive matter
Subjected to systematic inquiry
Discover or check facts
Theoretically framed knowledge


Coherent group of abstract propositions
Explain particular practice phenomena and intervention
methods
Social Work Knowledge Building
• The current state of social work knowledge
building is characterized by two realities.
1. Traditional research, both qualitative and quantitative
being carried out, primarily by university-based
researchers, but also in different fields, by
researchers based in institutes, foundations, or social
service agencies; and,
2. The majority of social work practitioners who continue
to look elsewhere for knowledge.
• One reason for the practice-research gap is
that practitioners deal with situations that
are unique and idiosyncratic, while research
deals with regularities and aggregates.
Popular Sources of Social Work
Knowledge
• Practice wisdom transmitted from instructors to
students and from supervisors to supervisees
• Theory developed from case data
• Findings from research in other fields that are
integrated into social work theories (e.g., research
about child development or racial discrimination)
• What additional sources of social work
knowledge might there be?
5. METHODS AND SKILLS
The Uniqueness of Social Work
• Social work is unique
among the helping
professionals due to
its focus on both the
person and the
environment.
Person-in-Environment
Person-In-Environment
aka: Person-In-Situation
• Florence Hollis (1964)
• Stresses a person's physical, social,
and psychological realities as well as
the social realities that both define and
limit that person.
• Examines both the personal, and the
social aspects of all 'Problems' be they
social problems, or personal ones.
Person-In-Environment
PERSON
The big circles represent
enviromental factors.
PIE Example
Person-In-Environment Perspective
 Physical domain
 Bodily needs
 Intellectual domain
 Cognitive needs
 Socio-affective domain
 Social-emotional needs
 Spiritual domain
 Aesthetic needs
 Living contexts:
 Family, culture, physical
surroundings, community, society
Person-In-Environment Skills
 Person - related skills
interviewing, empathic responding,
relationship building, empowering
client systems, uncovering and
enhancing client strengths………….
 IN – transaction related skills
client-system-centered method, case
management, crisis intervention,
social work-centered skills, ethical
decision making, professional skills
for time management, team work,
documentation, research……….
 Environment –related
skills
 advocacy, social
action, giving
testimony, locality
building, educating,
brokering,
facilitating, social
planning, technology
usage, fact
gathering,
analysis…….
Case Studies
Use the Person-in-Environment
Perspective to identify the factors
contributing to the problem the individual
is having in functioning
How would you, as a social worker
address the problem using person-inenvironment skills
Case Study 1
• Melanie Johnson is a 32-year-old accountant who
moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, two years ago from
her hometown of Sarasota, Florida.
• Beginning this past November, for the first time in
her life, Melanie began experiencing periods of
depression, lethargy, and excessive sleeping. In
addition, she noticed that she was eating more than
she had previously, and as a result, had gained 10
pounds.
• Melanie’s physician, who after ruling out all potential
medical causes of her symptom, or other mental
illnesses diagnosed her as having seasonal affective
disorder (SAD).
Case Study 2
• It was 4:36 a.m. She was in a cold sweat and having
difficulty breathing. She felt as though she had run a
marathon. Fear swept through her—something
terrible was going to happen. Panic-stricken, she
woke her husband, Jeremy.
• “Denise, what is it? Is it a nightmare?”
• “No, it’s like I’m having an asthma attack. I feel
lightheaded and I can’t catch my breath. My heart
feels like it’s beating a thousand times a minute.”
• Afraid to upset her husband further, Denise didn’t tell
him that an immense feeling of apprehension
suddenly overcame her. She got up to drink some
water and waited for the anxiety to subside.
Case Study 2
• Her mind was racing. Jeremy had a family history of
heart disease. This couldn’t be happening to her. It
was his problem.
• A few months earlier Jeremy was diagnosed with
coronary artery disease. He was only 48 years old,
the same age as Denise. The scare had
encouraged him to gradually end years of chain
smoking and adopt a healthier lifestyle. He was
currently working on giving up the occasional
cigarette for good.
• “No,” Denise thought to herself. “There’s no way this
was a sign of heart troubles. I didn’t have a pain in
my chest, I’m physically fit, and I have no family
history. There’s just no way.”
• After assuring herself of this, Denise was somehow
able to fall back asleep.
Essential Elements
of Generalist Social Work Practice
Ecological system perspective
 Problem / strengths focus
 Strengths / needs orientation
 Multilevel approach
 Open selection of theories and
interventions
 Strengths-based problem-solving
process
 Practice and program evaluation
• Completed Sept. 18, 2007 Tues.