Individuals, Groups and Communities

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• 5.
• Individuals, Groups and Communities

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Fields of Practice

• Social work with individuals
• Group work
• Community work

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Definition of Practice

• Practice consists of series or process of
  interventive actions drawing on a repertoire of
  knowable, skills and values

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Action-Reflection-Action

• Not a mechanical process
• Each person viewed as unique
• Recognize nuances of each persons situation
• Required ability or think on ones feet

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Social Work with Individuals

• Most common form of social work
• Aimed at helping individual on a one-to-one basis
• Examples include crisis intervention, counseling,
  providing resource information etc.

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Steps in Direct Intervention

• Intake
• Assessment Planning
• Intervention
• Termination Evaluation

Critical to ask the correct questions at every
stage.
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Direct Intervention Skill Set

• Validating Feelings
• Interview Questioning
• Paraphrasing
• Clarification Summarizing
• Information giving
• Interpretation
• Consensus Building

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Social Work with Groups

• Task Groups the purpose is to accomplish
  specific work or tasks
• Treatment Groups The purpose is meet the needs
  of groups members. Types include family or
  household groups, therapy groups and self-help or
  peer groups

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Self-Help Groups

• People coming together with similar problems or
  interest with the belief that by working together
  they can each grow or change
• May or may not include a social worker
• Increasing numbers are emerging on the Internet

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Social Work with Communities

• Four models of community work
• Locality development
• Social planning
• Social action
• Participatory action research

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Virtual Community work

• With the emergence of the Internet new forms of
  community practice have developed
• People meet, learn and organize online

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Community Work Intervention Steps

• Entry
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Goal Setting
• Action Planning
• Action Taking
• Evaluation, Termination and Re-planning

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Two Practice Approaches

• Ecological/Systems Theory
• Structural/Critical/Anti-Oppression