What does the social worker mean who says, “I don’t use any practice theories. I just do what works for my clients.”
What will be an ideal response?
For this discussion students should use the book’s definition of a practice theory, which is “a coherent set of ideas about human nature, including concepts of health, illness, normalcy, and deviance, which provide explanations for behavior and rationales for intervention. Practice theories usually include concepts about what internal and external factors help people to change.” Students can be given examples of problems in living that are experienced by clients or people in their everyday lives (in fact, students may use examples from their own lives). With these examples, students should share their views about how the problem developed, and given its source, what would help the problem be resolved. This discussion gets at the question of, what are the students’ assumptions about the elements of how people change, and can be helped to change? The thinking that underlies a student’s ideas about how to address problems and how change occurs reflects his or her “natural” practice theory.
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Answer the following statement(s) true (T) or false (F)
The roles and skills used in work with individuals are used on all levels of practice that social workers serve.
The program that took children from the streets and orphanages from New York
and placed them with farming families in the west is often referred to as: a. The Westward Movement b. The Orphan Train Movement c. The Orphan Farming Movement d. The Street Arab Project
Bootstrapping is
a) Engaging in actions that slowly build interest and commitment b) Mobilizing people to action c) Highlighting incentives for collective action d) Engaging in person-to-person contact where community members feel valued
Agoraphobia refers to fear of:
a) Speaking in public b) Being in a place where there is no apparent assistance available c) Being in a confined space, like an elevator d) Being surrounded by a crowd of people