The Integration of Social Work Practice

Book excerpt: Providing a much-needed framework for directing social work practice into the dynamics of social problems, this scholarly text shows students how to approach generalist practice in an integrative way. The authors suggest social problems (i.e., school drop-outs) as the focus for thinking about generalist practice and utilize a deviance and labeling a perspective of social problems to provide a context for looking at labeling, victimization, and disempowerment of the client population.The six professional roles of conferee, enabler, broker, advocate, mediator, and guardian are presented as having applicability across multi-level client systems, from victim-based rehabilitation and education to creation of needed service delivery systems and mobilizing social welfare policies. Using an empowerment framework as a principle around which to organize intervention, the authors define and apply social work roles in generalist practice and include strategic interventive approaches within those roles.