Class #1
SOWK 6124 - Theory Development
for Advanced Social Work Practice
THE THEORETICAL •
•
FOUNDATIONS OF
•
SOCIAL WORK
WHAT DOES THEORY HAVE TO DO WITH
SOCIAL WORK?
The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human
relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing.
Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work
intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles
of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work.
International Federation of Social Work, 2012
Competence Intervention Theory
Values
Knowledge
Skills
Impt. Human Counselling
Relationships Community
Social Justice Organization
Integrity Assessment
Dignity & Worth of Evaluation
Persons
Service
KNOWLEDGE
Qualities:
ü non-static
ü infinite process (continually learning& building upon
existing knowledge)
Factual
• adapted from other
disciplines
Knowledge • How we use the theoretical
and factual knowledge to
• analyse and describe the • Legislation, social & inform and shape our
role and task of social organizational policies practice
work and procedures that • Developed through
regulate, dictate and reflection and critical
• inform practice
inform social work’s roles analysis of our practice (life
perspectives and and responsibilities & work experiences)
interventions
Theoretical Practice
knowledge Knowledge
Trevithick (2012)
Theoretical
Practice
Factual
(Reflection)
THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK
Adapted from other Social Work Theories:
Practice Theories
disciplines Roles & Tasks
Describes, explains &
predicts human behaviour
Describes social relations
Describes societal
structures
Social workers might use theory to understand
HO W and explain three main aspects of social work
THEORIES The task and purpose of social work – the role
of social work in society;
HELP
S O C I AL Practice theories: sometimes called social work
WO R K E R S ? approaches or methods – how to go about
doing social work;
The world of service users, including the
internal (psychological) world and the external
(social) world
TYPES OF THEORIES THAT INFORM SOCIAL
WORK PRACTICE
Behavioural and
Developmental Psychodynamic Humanistic
social learning
theories theories theories
theories
Social
constructivist Systems
Critical theories
theories
Theories
WHAT IS A THEORY
q
SOCIAL WORK THEORY The social work profession aims to intervene =
requires social workers to have an
understanding of the operations and
complexities of working with and within these
different systems
People Environment
Theories serve as a basis on which to explain human behavior, growth and development, psychological and social
functioning, the construction of social order, and the ideas of social justice (Teater, 2015, p3)
OPERATIONALISING THEORIES IN SOCIAL WORK
Political &
Societal
Human Behaviour
Social Structures Stages of social structures
work practice
Human Interactions
Communities
Understand Assessment
Families
Intervention
Explain
Evaluation
Predict Termination
Individuals
Layers of Society
THEORY GUIDES SOCIAL W hy th
eories
WORK PRACTICE AT are cri
EVERY STAGE tical
Helps structure
• Explains & organize the social
Assessment stage • what is happening with a client worker’s thinking
• what could have contributed to the presenting problem
toward the next step
. • what is needed or required to alleviate the problem
of intervention
• Predicts and explains
Set criteria to
• why the intervention will work given the
Intervention stage particular situation and setting measure/ judge if the
outcome is
successful
• Facilitates re-assessing a client’s biological, psychological
and sociological functioning
Evaluation stage • Explains the best time to end services Provides indicators of
success
IMPORTANT CONCEPTS: PERSPECTIVE,
THEORY, METHOD AND MODEL
Teater, 2010
Describes, explains or predicts
Theory certain phenomenon
THE Method Specifies what to do when faced with
certain phenomenon
RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN Perspective A way of viewing or understanding certain
THEORY & experiences; based
METHOD on words and principles
Model A theory or method depicted logically or
graphically
Making sense of situations or
behaviours
Provide insight into what might have
occurred in the past or might occur in
WHAT MAKES the future
A THEORY
POWERFUL A professional and ethical responsibility
to intervene based on credible theory
& methods vs intuition
Utilize reliable and effective
approaches established through
quantitative and qualitative research
EPISTEMOLOGY
WHAT D O
YOU Knowledge is
K NO W FO R the awareness and understanding of
particular aspects of reality
SURE?
propositional
knowledge, "knowledge-that" as
opposed to "knowledge-how”
WHAT IS
EPISTEMOLOGY
Episteme – knowledge
Logos – science
The study of Knowledge – how do you
know what you know? How do you
justify what you know you know?
WHAT ARE THE
CONDITIONS FOR
KNOWING?
…
IS
G Y
L O
O
T EM How what exists may be known What can be known
I S
E P
Chia (2002) describes
epistemology as ‘how and
What criteria must be satisfied what it is possible to know’ and
in order to be described as the need to reflect on methods
knowledge and standards through which
reliable and verifiable
knowledge is produced.
Truth
Three necessary
and sufficient
conditions
Justification Belief
JUSTIFYING A • what we observe; the material world
around us
BELIEF AKA Empiricism • Knowledge based on inputs from our
senses
WHAT YOU
• a posteriori
KNOW • emphasis rationale and reason as the
primary basis for justifying claims
EMPIRICISM & Rationalism • the human mind is the source of
knowledge and not the world around us
• a priori (or non-empirical)
RATIONALISM
• presupposes that all knowledge
is "constructed", in that it is contingent on
Constructivism convention, human perception and social
experience.
E PI S T E MO L O G Y
HAS A What are the implications?
S I G NI FI C ANT
I MPAC T I N T HE
What type of research
AC AD EMY privileges rationalism over
empiricism or vice versa?
E PI S T E MO
LOGY IN What constitutes acceptable
S O C I AL knowledge in the field of
social work?
WO R K
What constitutes reality? How
is knowledge produced and
argued for in social work?
HOW SOCIAL
WORK
THEORY
INFORMS
PRACTICE
THE PURPOSE OF SOCIAL WORK IS TO ENABLE THE PEOPLE
TO USE THE SOCIAL RESOURCES TO MEET THEIR LIFE
TA S K S
1. A needed resource or service may
In order to realize their life tasks people
be scarce or may not exist or may
have to interact with 2 kinds of resource
not provide appropriate
systems in the social environment
help to people who need it.
1. Informal or natural resource
2. People may not know the
system consists of family,
existence of a resource system or
friends, neighbours, co may be hesitant to turn it for help for
workers, etc Social Work several reasons like distance,
Intervention corruption, delay or poor quality etc
2. Formal sociocultural resource
3. The polices and procedures of the
systems such as political resource system may inhibit /
organizations, civil prevent it access (eg. Eligibility
organizations, educational criteria, gender, etc)
4. Several resource system may be
systems, hospitals, housing working at cross purposes
societies, police, banks etc.
