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