Person-in-Social Environment: A Core Social Work Concept

One of the things a successful student discovers when they study any academic discipline is that it is important to master the basics and the core concepts of that discipline before moving on to more complex matters. There is a reciprocal relationship between the two; mastering the basics makes more complex concepts even more comprehensible, and complex and specialized concepts provide one's understanding of basic and core concepts with greater depth, nuance and meaning.

There are a number of core concepts that beginning social workers should grasp: social workers are agents of change, not only in regard to client populations, but also in regard to agencies that serve those clients and overall public policy; social workers must learn to respect the self-determination of the client; and social workers must develop cultural competency, which enables them to see themselves, and their clients, as enculturated beings.

Perhaps one of the most essential concepts that social work students must grasp is the notion of client as a "person-in-a-social-environment."

The client is simultaneously a member of multiple social networks that help to form and shape that client's identity. The client is also a participant in, and impacted by, political systems, economic systems, and cultural systems that constitute the social ecology in which the client "swims". The client does not exist in an air-tight bubble; rather, the client lives within a societal context.

If a social worker is to be effective in his or her practice the social worker must be able to analyze the client's relationship to that larger societal context.

Most social workers don't have difficulty recognizing that if they have a client who has difficulty holding down a job the social worker should be particularly attentive when the client provides hints of potentially underlying reasons for their spotty work history, especially if this entails substance abuse or uncontrollable bursts of anger.

In a situation such as this one, most social workers can readily understand that in order to improve the likelihood that their client will be able to hold down a job it will be necessary to work on breaking the client's physiological or psychological addiction, or to work with the client on anger management.

But it is also important for the social worker to look at the situation from another angle: in a social environment where many jobs have been phased out and unemployment, or underemployment is stubbornly high, or even rising, it should not be surprising that these conditions tend to exacerbate any preexisting tendency toward substance abuse or uncontrollable outbursts of anger. Sheer frustration over being caught in the trap of unemployment, or underemployment, can bring behavioral problems to the fore, or even make those problems worse.

The client's behavior may make it more difficult for the client to find a steady job, but the lack of available steady jobs may make it more likely that the client will develop behavioral problems. The social worker must be knowledgeable enough about the social context of the client's situation in order to be an effective helping professional.

The same is true when one is problem-solving and searching for solutions. The presenting problem, which brings the client to the social worker in the first place, may be triggered by an outburst of anger, or a bout of substance abuse that the client was unable to conceal -- or it may be the client's persistent concern about long-term unemployment or underemployment.

In order to effect a solution, the social worker must be able to identify both formal and informal social networks that have weight in the client's life -- or that could potentially play a positive role toward mitigating the problem.

Sometimes being engaged in productive labor, or volunteer work, can give a client a sense of self-esteem, and help the client to form an identity that will enable them to exert more control over their behavior. Likewise, having friends who serve as sounding boards, a listening ear, or who can offer advice, may provide  outlets to reduce or control problematic behavior.

The same can be said for group recreational activities or faith-based communities. The challenge for the social worker will be to identify social networks that are significant and have meaning in the client's life; social networks that provide a useful counter-balance against negative influences, and that may be enlisted as resources to address problematic behavior directly, or conditions -- such as unemployment -- that might exacerbate those problems.

Social work is a profession that draws its knowledge base from both sociological and psychological literature. At the core of social work values, knowledge and skills, therefore, is the ability to understand one's client as a social being, and to be able to see one's client as one who impacts, and is impacted by social conditions. The social worker should be able to see the client as a person who exists within a social context.

C. Matthew Hawkins

A Key Function of Entry-Level Social Work Counseling

Image Credit: Donna Garcia Associates, Inc.

One of the questions that frequently comes up in class is this: "On the one hand, social workers are expected to respect the self-determination of the client, but on the other hand, what clients want for themselves may not be things that are in their best interest -- such as a tendency to satisfy short-term gratification at the expense of long-term growth and stability, or the inability to remove oneself from psychologically abusive relationships."

One of the most essential functions that social workers have, in their professional practice, is the function of being a good listener. Being a good listener does not just involve an activity of the ear, it also involves the activity of the mind. The social worker should not just be passive listener, but an active one; a listener who asks open-ended questions, and picks up on phrases, non-verbal facial expressions and gestures, and other clues that help to emphasize what is most important about what the client has said, and help to reveal what is often left unspoken.

There are several reasons why it is essential that the social worker learn to be a good listener. For one thing, we live in an age where everyone wants to be heard, and few people want to listen. Few of us get the chance to sound out the situations we are struggling with before we are interrupted by the person we are talking to as they smother us with their "advice."

Even if the advice is sound, and, perhaps, "research-based", we won't really know whether or not the advice is appropriate if we haven't taken the time to thoroughly hear the client out so that we can grasp the essence of the situation, and the contextual issues that are related to it -- making the situation, and its solutions, unique to the client.

But even more to the point, part of the process of honoring the right of the client to self-determination is to create space, and create an environment, in which clients can discover constructive conclusions for themselves. It is important to give the client a chance to do the very thing that they frequently do not have the opportunity to do -- which is to transform vague thoughts and feelings into specific and concrete words, and to turn fragments of assorted impressions into recognizable patterns and identifiable relationships.

Part of our role, in consulting with a client, is not to give the client the answer, but to listen, ask probing follow-up questions, and create an opportunity for them to make discoveries -- to have epiphanies -- and, from there, to work out solutions for themselves. You want them to discover patterns and solutions that cannot just be handed to them.

"But", some students may object, "what if you work for a government agency where you are not paid to have the client sound out their situation, and you don't have the time to work with them toward an epiphany? What then?"

Basically, you're screwed in that situation.

But seriously, even when there are legal or administrative mandates for what must come out of the session, an effective practitioner will take the time to give something in order to get something from the client. The practitioner cannot expect the client to listen to, or respect what the practitioner is saying, if the practitioner does not first demonstrate the willingness to listen to, and respect what the client is saying.

The interaction has to go both ways.

In order for the governmental or institutional mandate to be understood, the representative of that government or institution -- which would be you, the social worker -- must engage the client and establish trust. The representative of that government or institution must demonstrate the capacity to understand the client, his or her perspective on things, and his or her situation.

So whether your interaction with the client is the result of the client coming to you voluntarily or involuntarily, active listening is an indispensable part of your role as a social worker, in order to be an effective practitioner.

The social worker has to hear the client out; understand how the client sees the world and why the client's perspective makes sense to the client -- and the social worker must probe for insights into the client's formal and informal social networks and overall situation -- in order for the social worker to effective as a "helping professional."

C. Matthew Hawkins

Are Social Workers Agents of Social Change or are they Guardians of the Status Quo?

Image credit: Career Guidance.com

It's the kind of question that has bedeviled social workers since the profession began; a student raised it once again: Aren't social workers just guardians and agents of the status quo?

The first thing a social work student is supposed to  learn is that social workers are agents of change. This change should not just be focused on the client, but also on the institutions and agencies that ostensibly serve the client; and it extends to social policy as well.

Today, however, many students believe that the only value of a social work program has for them is to teach them research-based techniques for social work practice. They don't often appreciate the fundamental purpose for learning those techniques, which is to become agents of change. It doesn't seem to register with them that part of their job is to critique their work site in order to make it more responsive to their clients' needs.

In today's tight job market and budgetary constraints, too many students say they just want to keep their heads down and not make waves. They say that their primary concern is be boosters for the agency rather than advocates for the client. No wonder social workers are being accused of being guardians of the status quo.

One hears social workers emphasize  "coping skills," but much less time and energy is devoted to developing strategies to empower the client to change their social or institutional environment. Many well-intentioned social workers believe that the best way they can help their client is by helping them to adapt to their circumstances. They are careful not to legitimize clients' dissatisfaction with impersonal, dehumanizing and bureaucratic systems that clients are forced to interact with. Many social workers, today, also seem reluctant to use their values, knowledge and skills to promote institutional or agency change, and changes in public policy.

It reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's observation nearly a century ago when he said that some people are like the bad tailor who, when the sleeve of a coat was too short for the customer's arm, decided to cut off the man's arm rather than lengthen the sleeve. When the cuffs of the man's trousers were too high the tailor wanted to cut off the man's leg rather than lengthen his pants.. When the man's head did not fit his hat the tailor tried to box in the man's head. Chesterton concluded that people like that attempted to tailor the man to fit the suit rather than the suit to fit the man.

A social worker should constantly assess how their agency fits the culture of its clients in its outreach efforts and delivery of services. Rather than merely being guardians and boosters of the status quo, social workers must be prepared to thoughtfully and factually critique the status quo.

I know of a social worker who works in a school in a working class neighborhood. This worker refuses to work beyond 5 PM, or to attend community meetings in the evening, yet she believes that the parents of the children she works with are unmotivated to help their children because they never visit the school and they never respond to the questionnaires she sends home with the students.

I know of a community social worker who holds meetings to plan the development of the business district in a distressed neighborhood at 2 in the afternoon. She always gets a low turnout from small business owners in the neighborhood, and concludes that they don't care about the neighborhood's future. It never occurred to her to go to their shops and talk with them, one-on-one. "I invite them to town meetings, but they never show up," she says.

If she took the time to visit them one-on-one she would find out that, at 2 O'clock in the afternoon, business owners are in the middle of their day. They can't find anyone to watch their store when the planning meetings are held. If she would hold the meetings early in the day, before businesses open; or later in the day, when the kids are out of school and can watch the store, she would get a much better turnout.

Guardians of the status quo tend to assume that that the client, alone, is the one who has to make the adjustment. They often complain that the social system itself is too big for them to even be able to wrap their minds around and understand it, much less develop strategies for changing it. They reason that it is better to teach clients to cope with the existing conditions rather than to try to effect social or institutional change.

This is not a new phenomenon. When I was researching the history of the Urban League, during the 1920s, I came across a caseworker's notes where she was frustrated with a women's club that refused to focus on the home economics lessons that  the social worker thought was important. She took this as evidence of the ignorance and backwardness of these Southern migrant women, who simply didn't understand what the purpose of a women's club is, she thought. Instead, these "backward" women wanted to use the club to organize their neighbors to confront the city about using the ditch behind their houses to dump garbage. Clearly, these women needed to be adjusted.

Many social workers that I have come across have had valuable skills to offer their clients and constituents, but it is important that they understand that their clients and constituents have needs and priorities of their own, and these are often legitimate. People don't exist to serve social policies, bureaucracies and institutions; rather,  bureaucracies, institutions and social policies should serve people.

When the sleeves and the pant legs are too short we should try to tailor the suit to fit the person, not the person to fit the suit. Coping and adaptation to existing circumstances should not be our default reaction to every ill-fit between between communities and the institutions and policies that are ostensibly there to serve them. Social workers should not only look for ways to change the client; they should also be alert for the possibility that the agencies and institutions may also have to be adjusted in order to better serve human needs. The social workers, who have had the greatest impact on society and the profession, were not contented to merely process paperwork. They took note of how the system they were in functioned, and they actively worked to change it.

C. Matthew Hawkins
Also of interest: What is the public image of social work?

Essential Knowledge for Social Work Studies

Cinday Waszak Geary Photography

I often run into students who feel overwhelmed during their first semester studying social work; they ask, "How am I supposed to memorize all of this information?" Actually, you should not try to memorize a whole lot of information. A student will be much better off if he or she focuses on understanding a few key points about social work. What are those key points? They are:

• Social Work history
• Social Work problem solving stages
• The arenas for social work practice
• And the social work code of ethics

That's it. But some students will say, "That's still too much." Let's try to break each of these areas down:

Social Work History

The reason we study social work history is so that we can understand the importance of the three systemic levels of social work practice: the micro system, the mezzo system, and the macro system. Social workers think in terms of social systems, but these systems occur on different levels of the organization of society. The details of social work history should help you to understand how these three systemic levels emerged, and how they are interdependent in good social work practice. When you study the history of social work, focus on what that history tells you about the emergence of social work practice and intervention on the micro, mezzo, and macro level and you will be fine.

Social Work Problem-Solving Stages

Well, what about social work problem solving? What your professors want you know about social work problem solving is that it is a continuous process of engagement, assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, and termination. This process is pretty much the same, whether you are working with a micro system, a mezzo system, or a macro system. First you have to engage the client or constituency -- you have to listen to them. More than listening, you have to actually hear them -- which is not always the same thing as merely listening. You want to try to get a sense of who your clients are and the social environment they are part of, and is part of them.

Assessment and Planning

Once you have engaged the client, and gotten a sense of their social context, you are in a better position to assess the situation and plan an intervention. You want the client to be actively involved in assessment and planning because this empowers them and it enables them to become invested in the intervention that will follow. There will be dissonance, and you and the client will work at cross-purposes, if you assess the client's situation one way, but the client assesses the situation differently and you don't work together to resolve these differences.

Evaluation and Termination

Part of the planning stage of this process includes establishing agreement on how the intervention will be implemented and evaluated for its effectiveness, and at what point your engagement will be terminated. You and the client will have to think about how you will measure the effectiveness of the problem-solving approach that you both are implementing. You have to agree on a point of termination because you want to be able to establish closure -- you don't want the end of the intervention to come abruptly, which can trigger feelings of abandonment and betrayal.

A living and dynamic process

Above all, it is important to understand that this process is, well, a process. It does not have to advance in a linear fashion. There will be plenty of times when you have to double back, re-engage the client, re-assess the situation (especially as it is constantly changing), and re-plan the intervention. This doubling-back process occurs as situations develop that are unexpected -- sometimes unexpectedly good, other times they may be unexpectedly bad -- but you should always be prepared to adjust your assessment and your plans because life is full of contingencies.

Arenas of Social Work Intervention

As we have already noted, social work simultaneously takes place on multiple levels, but intervention is primarily with individuals, families, groups, communities, and/or organizational systems. The individual, family, and group levels of social work practice are fairly familiar to most people entering social work practice, because these levels mirror psychological intervention and counseling.

Individuals and Families

Social workers, who provide service for individuals, will quickly learn that the emotional and psychological dimensions of individuals are inseparable from their experiences in relation to their family -- regardless of whether their family ties are strong or weak. A client will be as much impacted by the survival mechanisms they had to develop, to compensate for a lack of kinship support, as they are if they have strong kinship ties that are effective in transmitting family values, behavior, and perspectives onto their children.

Group work 

Group work is often important because individuals may have experiences that they do not, or cannot share with other family members. Sometimes they will find more support with people outside of the family, who have had similar challenges and experiences. Problem-solving with groups can counter the effects of feeling alone in the world and enable group members to learn from, and support, each other.

Communities and Organizational Systems

When most people think of social work, they think of the medical and psychological models that are used in the profession. The part of the field that tends to be under-emphasized, and under-appreciated, grew out of the tradition of sociology. This aspect of social work engages communities and organizations -- it emerged from early practices of surveying social conditions concerning public health, housing conditions, poverty and associated problem, and race and ethnic relations. Social work on the community and organizational level has also involved consolidating or coordinating service delivery make sure the multiple dimensions of human needs are being met, within a community. Social work on the community and organizational level also focuses on advocacy and public policy.

Social Work Ethics

Social work ethics provide the intellectual software for the profession. The study of ethics is a branch of philosophy; it does not simply consist of mandates for the social worker to memorize and follow, but presents the worker with dilemmas which have to be wrestled with. For example, social workers have an ethical responsibility to promote the self-actualization of the individual; but we also have an ethical responsibility to protect sub-cultures from being steamrolled forced to resemble the dominant culture. What happens, then, when a subculture may be perceived as suppressing the self-actualization of individuals within it because this is a part of their traditional values?

The line between being a stalwart defender of individual rights and being a cultural imperialist is not very clear. Social work ethics present us with dilemmas to be considered, rather than directives to be memorized and implemented uncritically. Social work is a values-driven profession, and social work values are expressions of a set of cultural and historical assumptions. Social work does not stand outside of history and outside of culture; it reflects historical conditions and cultural expression. Social workers must always be self-reflective and must be able to critique the cultural stance of the social work profession itself. They must also be prepared to recognize, and grapple with, the ethical paradoxes that methods of intervention will present to them more frequently than we like to admit.

The Essentials to Social Work Studies

These are the essentials to studying social work. If you are able to discuss how intervention in micro, mezzo, and macro systems emerged out of the history of social work practice; if you can distinguish between the stages of engagement, assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, and termination; if you can contrast and compare arenas of intervention, such as the individual, families, groups, communities, and organizational systems; and if you analyze, synthesize, interpret and evaluate social work ethics and decision-making frameworks -- with appreciation for the ethical dilemmas they present -- then you find that you will not be burdened with having to memorize a whole lot of information that seems "academic" and impractical.

C. Matthew Hawkins

How Do Others See Us? The Image of Social Workers

Image credit: University of Tennessee at Martin

During our last class session an international student raised the question, "What does the general public think about social workers?" This is an important question, not only because it forces us to stand back and consider how we are perceived by American society, also because it prods us to consider some of the tensions between the values social work espouses (collectivism, interdependence, and process-orientation) and some of the essentials of American mythology and ideology (individualism, independence, and task-orientation).

We would like to believe, of course, that society values us and that our clients and constituents think the world of us. The fact of the matter is that many of our clients come to us involuntarily, due to a court order or as part of the requirement to get services from a public or private agency. These clients will see social workers as being agents of a bureaucracy or institution that they might, at best, feel ambivalent about. If a person sees a social worker involuntarily, the worker will have a harder time establishing themselves as a trusted resource, who can help the client to negotiate a complicated system.

Even when the client's encounter with the social worker is voluntary, they may resent the "middle class" social worker, who doesn't live in the neighborhood and is not from the community, but is being paid to work with, or deliver services to, people less income and fewer social resources. Then, of course, there are those who criticize social work when it is funded by government programs, because these people believe in a limited government. They would see the social worker as being part of an over-expanded social welfare state.

It is important for social workers to understand that all of the resistance they are getting from clients, and not all of the opposition that they get from the general public, is generated out of ignorance or mean-spiritedness. If social workers are to continue to be effective in working with clients and influencing public policy it is important for us to understand the legitimate concerns and criticism that -- or the misperceptions and misunderstanding -- that others have of social workers.

One way to get a handle on how social workers are perceived is to think about how we are depicted in mass  media. When was the last time you read a reference to a social worker in a novel, or saw a social worker depicted as a character on television or in a movie? What was the character like? What was the social work character "type"? How do you think the audience responded to this character?

What was the gender of the social worker? What was the social worker's age? What was the race or ethnicity of the social worker? What was the social work character's personality like? What motivated the social worker? How did other characters in the story respond to him or her?

Let's talk about this.

See also: Social Workers in an age of alienation

C. Matthew Hawkins

What Brings You to Social Work?

Image credit: college online.com

During the first class session for the generalist practice skills course (and we will do the same in the Social Welfare course) we considered the essential question for those who are entering or continuing a career in social work: "What is it that brings me into the social work profession to begin with?"

I think this is an important question because it helps us to think about what we are contributing to the social work profession. Really, the question is twofold: What were your prior experiences, before entering the profession?" and "What do you hope to do with the professional skills you are in the process of developing?"

Previous experiences may be of an emotional or psychological nature, such as depression, alcoholism, spousal abuse, etc. They may also include experiences of a more communal or social nature, such as poverty, discrimination, dislocation (immigration, refugee status, homelessness following a natural disaster, etc.), or alienation from one's community and social environment.

It is clear that there is not really a line that divides emotional and psychological experiences from social and community experiences. Being dislocated, as a result of flooding, is certainly a personal disaster, but it is also likely shared by a community of neighbors who have also been displaced by the flooding. Discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or socio-economic class is certainly personally painful, but it is also the result of social ideas about these categories -- in fact, the categories themselves are socially constructed.

One of the themes we will explore during the semester is the dynamic interaction between personal problems (and strengths) and the social environment. This is one of the essential characteristics of the way that social workers think. Our objective, as instructors, should be to teach you how to think within the profession. What tools of analysis and methods of assessment, intervention, and evaluation do social workers use?

Your first assignment is to think about what brings you into the profession. Of course, you should avoid any specific references that would violate the confidentiality of others or that would disclose personal information that you would prefer to keep confidential. You should draw on those parts of your experiences that you feel comfortable sharing with the public.

I also want to point out that not all experiences have to be negative -- some people will come to the social work profession because of positive experiences they have had with social workers. One often thinks about social work in terms of how the profession empowers clients, but the other side of the experience is how the profession empowers the social worker. One of the students asked the rest of the class, "Are you mostly becoming a social worker to empower other people or are you becoming a social worker to empower yourself?" Actually this is a good question; what is the individual social worker getting out of the deal and should they feel guilty about it?

I actually have more to say about that here, but first you should think about your own answers to this question.

So, this is our first question, to inaugurate the course: What is it that brings you to the social work profession? What experiences have you had that make you want to become a social worker? What vision do you have for the future that will involve skills you hope to develop in social social work classes?

C. Matthew Hawkins