Marion Bogo Social Work Practice 2nd ed. Excerpt

Marion Bogo

Social Work Practice 2 nd

edition

integrating concepts , processes ,

&

skills

—Andrew W. Safyer, Adelphi University School of Social Work

“This book integrates theory, research, practice principles, and interviewing skills into a core framework that will be useful to students, supervisors, and experienced clinicians. Written in a clear, accessible style, this text is likely to remain as a standard reference on the bookshelves of social workers for years to come.”

—Goldie Kadushin, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

“Drawing on a wealth of experience, Bogo provides a definitive understanding of holistic social work competence. This book serves as a roadmap to the history and the future of the profession and should be required reading for every social work educator, student, and professional.”

—Debra M. McPhee, Fordham University

“Social Work Practice offers the reader a comprehensive, integrative approach to direct practice in social work. Clearly and authoritatively written, this book will be most useful to graduate students and practicing professionals alike.”

“A clear, well organized, and comprehensive resource for social work students and early career social workers, Social Work Practice emphasizes the significance of the client/worker relationship and the complex socioeconomic and cultural factors in which it is embedded. A timely and relevant educational resource.”

—Shoshana Ringel, University of Maryland

“The author’s choice of generic theoretical conceptual frameworks, evidence-based processes, and direct clinical social work practice principles and interviewing skills unite to create a digestible whole. In this way, the text provides students and teachers of social work with a solid platform from which to build.”

Social Work Practice

s e c o n d e d i tion

—Jerrold R. Brandell, Wayne State University

Marion Bogo

Social Work Practice

“Bogo has written a second edition of her successful and remarkably insightful book. This stateof-the-art book reflects the synthesis of her many years of practice experience and is informed by extant empirically supported knowledge and its application to social work practice. I strongly recommend this stimulating and well-written book.”

Bogo

Since its publication more than ten years ago, Social Work Practice has been widely used as a succinct and focused book to prepare human service providers in the key components underpinning direct practice. This second edition builds on the first edition’s success at synthesizing the latest theories and practice models; helping and change processes; empirical findings; and practice skills, and demonstrates how these interlinked dimensions contribute to the EPAS 2015-endorsed model of holistic competence.

Marion Bogo is a professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. She is the coauthor of The Practice of Field Instruction in Social Work: Theory and Process (Columbia, 1998) and a recipient of the Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award from the Council on Social Work Education.

cup.columbia.edu Printed in the U.S.A.

integrating concepts , processes ,

—Jeanne Finch, Stony Brook University

columbia university press | new york

second edition

&

skills Columbia

contents

a c k n o w l­e d g m e n t s IX i n t r o d u c t i o n XI pa r t o n e Conceptual Frameworks for Social Work Practice 1 one

▶

A View of Holistic Competence in Social Work 3

two

▶

Holistic Competence: Cognitive and Affective Pro­cesses 28

three

▶

Learning to Practice 48

four

▶

The Helping Relationship: Conceptual and Empirical Contributions 80

five

▶

Engage Diversity and Difference 104

six

▶

The Helping Relationship: From Theory to Practice 126

seven

▶

Con­temporary Practice Issues 159

pa r t t w o The Helping Pro­cess in Social Work Practice 189 eight

▶ Beginnings 191

viii Contents

nine

▶ ­Toward Developing Shared Understanding: Assessment and Formulation 217 ten

▶

The Social Worker as Pro­cess Expert 241

eleven

▶

Change Pro­cesses Continued 268

t w e lv e

▶ Endings 295 pa r t t h r e e Interviewing in Social Work Practice 309 thirteen

▶

Communication and Interviewing Skills 311

r e f e r e n c e s 369 i n d e x 399

introduction

s o c i a l w o r k p r a c t i c e is highly complex. Prac­ti­tion­ers are challenged to integrate and apply a wide range of ele­ments and to do so in collaboration with clients. Professional practice involves the synthesis of the knowledge and value base of the profession, helping pro­cesses and skills, in a way that is compatible with the social worker’s “personal self.” The aim of the first edition of this book was to provide generic theoretical knowledge and information about pro­cesses for direct social work practice that social workers could use to build their competence and guide their actions. An attempt was made to synthesize information about traditional and emerging conceptual approaches, practice models, and princi­ples, relevant and supporting empirical work, and skills that are needed to implement and demonstrate effective work with clients.

I was motivated to write a second edition of this book in light of the continuously expanding social work knowledge base and the notion of educating for competence, first articulated in the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in 2008 (CSWE 2008). EPAS 2015 (CSWE 2015) further expanded the notion of competence to include holistic competence, stating, “the demonstration of competence is informed by knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive and affective pro­cesses that include the social worker’s critical thinking, affective reactions, and exercise of judgment in regard to unique practice situations” (6). This book integrates conceptualizations and findings from the research on competence undertaken with my team that is consistent with this perspective (Bogo et al. 2013; Bogo et al. 2017; Bogo et al. 2004; Bogo et al. 2006).

xii introduc tion

The person-­in-­environment and bio-­psychosocial perspectives remain dominant in direct practice that aims to integrate attention to diversity in work with clients. ­These organ­izing frameworks are used to gain understanding about the ­human condition, social functioning, and well-­being.

Increasing theoretical and empirical contributions from basic and social sciences now provide more depth and render ­these concepts more complex.

Indeed, the number of practice models and princi­ples continues to grow.

Social work educational programs are committed to exposing students to the profession’s intellectual debates and to both traditional and innovative approaches. They aim to cover considerable ground, from societal to individual perspectives, and from philosophical positions to empirical findings. As a result, social work students are likely to find a program of study that is crammed with innumerable bodies of knowledge, perspectives, values, and practice approaches. Course reading lists grow and basic practice texts expand with the publication of each new edition as authors incorporate the newest concepts and debates into their work. As more specialized models are described and tested, students are also presented with an ever-­expanding range of procedures and specific intervention techniques.

Students clearly state that at the beginning of their studies, they want to learn about a core foundation of interrelated concepts, pro­cesses, princi­ ples, and skills for practice. Such a core is seen as a place to start, that is, a place that can serve as a foundation throughout one’s ­career—­a foundation that provides a sense of being grounded as a professional and engenders confidence that one possesses a core of competencies that is available to use in practice. Such a core can be built on and adapted based on the mandate of the agency, the worker’s role, the specific model procedures, specialized information about populations and prob­lems, and the needs of the par­tic­ u­lar client in the working relationship with the social worker. In both editions of this book, the aim was to address t­ hese challenges by presenting an integration of information about selected generic theoretical concepts and models, relevant empirically based helping and change pro­cesses, long-­standing social work practice princi­ples, and communication and interviewing skills. ­These dimensions can be used as an integrated foundation for generalist and specialist practice when working directly with clients, including in advanced clinical social work practice.

This book is or­ga­nized into three sections: “Conceptual Frameworks for Social Work Practice,” “The Helping Pro­cess in Social Work Practice,” and

in t roduc tion

xiii

“Interviewing in Social Work Practice.” Part 1, “Conceptual Frameworks for Social Work Practice,” provides a comprehensive discussion of holistic competence in relation to EPAS 2015 and identifies key themes in the con­ temporary knowledge base. It also addresses challenges for students learning about social work as they integrate information about values, theories, and models while developing their professional identity and use of self. Collaborative relationships with clients and working with diversity and difference are examined in the remaining chapters in this section.

Part 2 is entitled “The Helping Pro­cess in Social Work Practice” and includes chapters on the ­actual stages, tasks, pro­cesses, and interventions used to assist clients in bringing about changes in their lives or to offer them support. Chapters in this section draw on the concepts and competencies discussed in part 1, and demonstrate how prac­ti­tion­ers can bridge theory and practice through preparatory, beginning, assessment, m ­ iddle, and ending stages. Pro­cesses for supporting clients and helping them to bring about change in their lives are discussed in depth.

The final section of the book is entitled “Interviewing in Social Work Practice” and consists of one chapter. Chapter 13 provides a detailed discussion of the interviewing skills social workers use in practice. Skills are described and illustrated with examples. ­These interviewing be­hav­iors constitute a skill set that the practitioner uses to ground and operationalize the concepts and pro­cesses discussed in the previous two sections of the book.

Chapter 13 can be used on its own in social work courses on interviewing or in conjunction with the entire book in social work practice courses in under­ graduate and gradu­ate programs, and at generalist and specialized levels.

The book’s material can be used in clinical programs and adapted or modified to meet the needs of programs’ specializations regarding “specific population, prob­lem area, method of intervention, perspective or approach to practice” (CSWE 2015, 12). This book is especially useful for students as they begin to learn about social work practice. Field instructors and experienced prac­ti­tion­ers have also found the book informative, as it provides an opportunity to reexamine con­temporary social work practice theory and to review selected empirically based techniques, long-­standing practice princi­ples, and interviewing skills.

In describing how concepts may be applied in the real world of social work practice, I have aimed to provide information at a level that is not so abstract that it is unclear, but neither is material presented in so concrete a

xiv introduc tion

manner that a cookbook-­like approach would result. Rather, my aim is to provide information about concepts and practice pro­cesses or princi­ples that prac­ti­tion­ers can use in a flexible and reflective manner so that together with clients, they can fashion their own unique helping relationship and a pathway for clients to achieve positive results.