Download Narrative Outline

Narrative Outline
I.
SOCIAL WORK WITH COMMUNITIES
Social work with communities is a generalist practice method that enables individuals and
groups to achieve a more desirable level of life satisfaction as well as more effective levels of
adaptation.
A. Community: Definition and Social Work Roles
1. Community can be defined as a group of individuals who live in close proximity to one
another, who share a common environment, including public and private resources, and
who identify themselves with that community.
2. Roles Played by Social Workers in Communities
Generalist social work practitioners engaged in community practice play many of the
same professional roles as those who work with individuals, families, and groups:
• Social workers may serve as a broker with several agencies to obtain resources
necessary for the achievement of intervention goals.
• The social worker in community practice may serve as an enabler in seeking to help
people identify and clarify their problems (assessment) and in supporting and
stimulating the group to unite in its efforts to secure change.
• The social worker in community practice may function in the role of advocate for a
client system in confronting unresponsive representatives of community institutions.
• A social work community practitioner might serve as an activist who seeks change in
institutional response patterns.
B. Community Practice Approaches
Social work with the community, like other methods of social work practice, is based on
planned change. It assumes familiarity, skill, and experience on the part of the social worker,
including the basic social work skills of problem identification, data collection, assessment,
analysis (or interpretation), and the development of planned intervention. Social workers
who routinely practice with communities generally use a social action, social planning, or
community development approach.
1. Social Action - This approach, popularized by Saul Alinsky, stresses organization and
group cohesion in confrontational approaches geared to modify or eliminate institutional
power bases that negatively affect the group.
2. Social Planning – This approach emphasizes modifying institutional practices by applying
knowledge, values, and theory – a practical, rational approach to problem solving that
assumes well-intentioned people will be responsive to sound arguments.
3. Community Development – This approach considers and respects the diversity of the
population and uses those differences as strengths in achieving community betterment for
all citizens.
II.
POLICY PRACTICE
A. The Development of Social Welfare Policy
DiNitto (2000) defines social welfare policy as “anything a government chooses to do, or
not to do, that affects the quality of life of its people” (p.2). Social welfare policies are
influenced by the prevailing social values of the time. Day (2003, pp. 5-12) identifies the
following social values that have the potential for impacting the development of social
policies:
1. Judeo-Christian charity values – those who require assistance have a right to help, and
society has an obligation to respond.
2. Individualism – failure to achieve is the fault of the individual and not society.
3. The Protestant work ethic and capitalism – work is a means of achieving religious
salvation, individualism, personal achievement, and the morality of wealth.
4. Social Darwinism – the lives of the “economically unfit” should not be saved by giving
them public assistance. The poor are morally degenerate and should perish, and any
society that aids the poor will be destroyed by their immorality.
5. Patriarchy – power and authority are vested in men.
6. The New Puritanism – this perspective emphasizes a return to patriarchy and the Puritan
values of the past: chastity (particularly for women), honesty in dealing with others,
abstinence from things defined by religion and customs as immoral, and behavior that
will not offend others.
7. Marriage and the nuclear family – an emphasis is placed on preserving the traditional
marriage system – husband, wife, and one or more children.
8. The “American Ideal” – an unhealthy focus is placed on looking and acting a certain way,
coupled with race and gender stereotypes.
Taken alone or in combination, these values can have a powerful impact on the social welfare
policies that guide the work of the social work profession.
Gilbert and Terrell (2000, p.60) view social welfare policy as an explicit course of action and
focus on decisions and choices that help determine the outcomes of that course of action. They
believe that social welfare policies can be interpreted as choices among principles determining
what benefits are offered and to whom, how the benefits are provided, and how they are financed.
III.
MODELS OF POLICY ANALYSIS
Haynes & Mickelson (2003, pp. 69-74) argue than an understanding of policy models (patterns
of something to be made) is central to simplifying and clarifying our understanding of social
welfare policy. They offer the following models as a framework for understanding how social
welfare policy is developed and implemented:
1. Institutional model – with this model, the focus is on social welfare policy
as the
output of government institutions such as Congress, state legislatures, the courts, and
political parties.
2. Process model – with this model, the focus is on gaining an appreciation for and an
understanding of how social welfare policy decisions are made.
3. Group theory model – with this model, the focus is on the interaction between political
interest groups such as advocacy groups, policy institutes, or “think tanks”, political
action committees or PACs, and lobbying organizations.
4. Elite theory model – with this model, the focus is on the preferences, values, and
behavior of a “governing elite, usually at the expense of other members of society.
5. Rational model – with this model, the focus is on efficiency, positive outcomes, cost
benefit, long-term results, and the common good. Rational policy making is
comprehensive, objective, and free from the influence of special interest groups.
6. Incremental model – with this model, the focus is on using existing policies as a baseline
for change. Attention is concentrated on how new or proposed policies affect (increase,
decrease, or modify) that base. This approach typically involves limited change, political
expediency, or fine-tuning rather than dramatic change, resulting in something for
everyone and minimal conflict.
IV.
THE PRACTITIONER’S ROLE IN SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY
The formulation and development of social welfare policy are not one-way undertakings.
Social work professionals have an important role in defining and shaping social welfare policy as
well.
V.
ADMINISTRATION AND DELIVERY OF SOCIAL WELFARE SERVICES
A. Meeting the Challenge
Above all, the major task of the social welfare agency’s administrator is to bring resources,
opportunities, and goals together in such a way that a variety of social missions are
accomplished.
B. Weighing the Client’s Best Interests
The professional social worker in the social service agency needs to steer between two dangers.
Rigid adherence to the rules can result in a subtle but debilitating form of tyranny. On the other
hand, over-involving clients in decisions that affect the structure and nature of services being
offered can result in a limited agency perspective.
VI.
SOCIAL WELFARE AGENCIES: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Organized social welfare in colonial America was practically nonexistent. Times were tough
and resources were scarce. All able-bodied adults were expected to work to support themselves
and their families. Adults who could not care for themselves through no fault of their own (the
disabled and the elderly) were provided care in the home of another or were relegated to
almshouses where they received minimal care. Able-bodied individuals who refused to work or
were unable to find work were placed in workhouses where they lived in squalid conditions,
sometimes with their children, in return for forced work.
The private voluntary sector began to grow in the 1700s in response to the public disgrace over
the living conditions in the almshouses, including the fact that children lived with the adults in the
same quarters. Limited government involvement in providing social welfare services continued
throughout the 18th century and well into the 19th century. The care for the poor and the needy was
almost exclusively the purview of religious institutions and private charitable organizations.
Successive waves of immigration throughout the 1800s, coupled with the aftermath of the Civil
War, brought a rapid expansion of private voluntary agencies (Charity Organization Societies and
settlement houses), particularly in urban areas located along the eastern seaboard and in large
Midwestern cities such as Chicago.
It wasn’t until the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression that the federal
government assumed a major role in the American social welfare system. The passage of the
Social Security Act in 1935 marked the formal entry of the federal government into the public
social service arena.
The growth of federal government involvement in public social programs continued through
the first half of the 20th century. The growth peaked with the War on Poverty and the Great
Society programs of the Johnson administration and has been on the decline since that time.
Successive Republican presidential administrations since the 1970s have placed an emphasis on a
“new federalism” characterized by limited government involvement, a transfer of responsibility
for social welfare programs to the states through block grants, a renewed emphasis on personal
and family responsibility, the privatization of public social services, reliance on religious
institutions and faith-based organizations and the private voluntary sector to pick up the slack, and
strict accountability requirements.
As a result, even though there are many more resources available, the contemporary social
welfare system in the United States is similar in many ways to the one found in colonial America.
VII.
CONTEMPORARY STRUCTURES
Today, organized social service activities are provided directly by local, state, and federal
governments, by sectarian or faith-based organizations, and by private nonprofit agencies. Private
nonprofit social agencies provide a host of services to individuals, groups, neighborhoods, and
communities. They also serve as an organizing entity and conduit for charitable funds and
voluntary efforts.
VIII.
RESEARCH PRACTICE
Given the increased demand for accountability by those who fund social welfare programs,
research plays an ever-increasing role in determining how resources are allocated. Social work as
a profession is committed to empirical research to generate new knowledge and evaluate practice
methods to ensure that client systems at all levels are adequately served.
A. Disciplinary Research
Disciplinary research is the term used to distinguish investigations designed to expand the
body of knowledge of a particular discipline. The intent is explanation for its own sake.
Disciplinary research begins with a paradigm or perspective that structures the research, the
research goals, and the research methods used. The paradigm directs the investigator to where
and how to seek evidence.
B. Policy Research
Policy research is a specialized form of inquiry whose purpose is to provide reliable,
valid, and relevant knowledge for public officials, agency managers, and others to support the
decision-making processes of government. The importance of policy research cannot be
underestimated. All too often, social policies are formulated that have no empirical basis. Such
policies are doomed to fail at some point because they do not reflect the realities of the
situations they address.
C. Evaluative Research
Evaluative research is used to assess the efficacy of a particular policy or set of policies
or to measure the impact of a particular intervention approach. In addition to evaluating the
effectiveness of social work programs, social workers also evaluate the effectiveness of their
direct work with clients.
D. Demonstrating a Causal Connection
It is insufficient to report that a favorable outcome occurred while a program was in
place. The evaluator must demonstrate that the outcome reasonably can be attributed to the
policy action or program and not to some other explanation. Regardless of the level of
sophistication of the researcher or the statistical tools available to analyze results, the
researcher cannot prove that A caused B. The best he or she can do is to conclude that there is a
strong relationship between the two. Thus, social science evaluation can be used to help
decision makers reject bad policy, but it cannot help them select with certainty the “best
policy.”
IX.
THE STATUS OF SOCIAL WORK IN COMMUNITIES, POLICY ADMINISTRATION, AND RESEARCH
Social workers’ status as professionals depends on the presence of two conditions: a
recognized body of knowledge that can be transmitted, and a defined and legitimized (that is,
often-certified) area of activity. Increasingly, social workers are saying that their practice wisdom
is highly relevant to policy development. To date, however, this policy-practice perspective has
not been highly developed. A clear challenge for the future is to find ways to make the practice
knowledge – the local knowledge about effective interventions – a central part of policy
development. Regardless of the auspices of social agencies in which they work, social workers
must maintain a strong professional presence in both the policy and practice arenas at the
community, state, and national levels.
X.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN COMMUNITY SOCIAL WORK, POLICY, ADMINISTRATION, AND
RESEARCH
An almost infinite number of career opportunities are available for social workers in the areas
of community social work and policy, administration, and research. Agencies such as family
service agencies, state departments of human services, hospitals, correctional centers, mental-
health agencies, programs that work with persons with disabilities, school social services, youth
organizations, and a variety of related service delivery organizations use community practice
methodologies. Social workers are employed as policy analysts by many state and local
government agencies and as policy advocates for organizations advocating for the needs of
constituent groups they serve. Social workers serve as administrators of large state agencies, local
government agencies, and private agencies of all sizes. Social workers are also engaged in a
variety of research-related jobs.
XI.
SUMMARY
If this chapter has one message, it is that policy, administration, research, and practice at all
levels are not separate spheres, but interrelated domains, each fundamentally dependent on the
other. All social workers need to be involved in evaluating their efforts and continuing to generate
new knowledge that can be used to strengthen social welfare policies and services.