Chapter 1: The Social Work Vision - A Progressive View Flashcards
When and where did the Charity Organization Society form?
The movement began in 1877 in the United States
When and where did the Settlement House Movement begin?
It began in 1884 in England
What did the Charity Organization Movement belive?
The movement believed that a rational system of coordinated, private, and scientific philanthropy supplemented by an army of ‘friendly visitors’ would do much to diminish destitution, hardship, and begging
Why was coordination viewed as important for the COM?
Coordination was viewed as important because otherwise, people living in poverty might take advantage of a fragmented charity system and obtain duplicative goods and services.
What is the modern version of a Charity Organization Society?
The United Way, is an example
What did the Settlement House Movement believe?
Their approach was rather than seeing as makers of their own misfortune, it believed that they were victims of an unjust social order than discriminated against large numbers of people so that a few might benefit. In other words, the capitalist system caused poverty, not the people experiencing poverty
What did people involved with the SHM do?
They established houses in slum neighbourhoods and worked directly with families in attempts to do something about poor sanitary conditions, slum housing, crime, poverty, sweatshop work conditions, and so on
What was the primary focus of the Settlement House Movement?
Focusing on reforming society, rather than reforming the person
What is known as the conventional view in social work, and what is it?
The conventional view, or social welfare, has always been held by the majority, and is influenced by and reflective of popular beliefs and attitudes about the nature of the individual, of society, and of the relationship between the two.
In the social welfare perspective, how is society viewed?
Society is viewed as comprising social institutions that serve the individual as long as they make full use of available opportunities for personal success
The conventional/social welfare view acknowledges that:
social problems do exist but define them in terms of personal difficulties or immediate environmental issues that require social work intervention either to help people cope with or adjust to existing institutions or to modify existing policies in a limited fashion
What is the progressive or critical view?
Also known as social work practice, this view does not believe that our present social institutions are capable of adequately meeting human need
What is the ultimate goal of progressive and critical social work?
Social transformation in support of social justice
What do the two schools of conventional social work focus on?
One focuses on the individual or individuals as both the source of and the solutions to problems and has as its goal to help the individual cope with, fit into, and/or adjust to society
The other focuses on the goodness of fit between the individual and their environment
Social work must be viewed as a highly ______ practice in which social problems and their solutions are shaped by access to power and resources
political
What does it mean to politicize something or someone?
To introduce the idea that everything has political elements; that is, to introduce the idea that nothing is neutral and everything involves an overt or covert struggle over power, resources, and affirming identities.
What are examples of conventional social work perspectives/approaches
Psychodynamic, behavioural, client-centred, psychosocial, clinical, family therapies, casework
What are examples of progressive social work perspectives/approaches
Feminist theory, Marxist, radical, structural, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, critical, post-colonial, Indigenous, narrative, just therapy
What are Canadian social work educational institutions being coerced into doing?
Developing academic programs with more emphasis on learning about a variety of intervention techniques and assessments related to determining eligibility for services than on understanding the importance of connecting social work theory with practice
What has the current Canadian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics (2005) retreated to?
An era when there was no vision or articulation of what social work wanted when no statement of social philosophy existed, and when the primary task of social work was to help people cope with, adjust to, and/or fit back into the very society that caused them problems in the first place
What is impartiality?
Impartiality is a liberal-humanist notion that was adopted as a professional norm by mainstream social work dating back to at least 1958 when Wilensky and Lebeaux called for it to become part of the social work “professional self”.
What does the notion of professional impartiality specify?
The desirability of providing social work services to people without regard to gender, class, race, sexuality, age, and so on. In other words, all people should be treated equally
To treat all social groups as if they were all the same is to:
maintain the inequalities that exist among them
What is the Radical Social Work Group?
An organization founded in 2008, is New York City-based collective and community of social service workers and activists who organized for social justice and human rights.
What was the mission of the Radical Social Work Group?
To promote social change by challenging the systems of injustice that they and their service users face and to transform society by using radical social work principles and practices
What is ethics concerned with?
Ethics is concerned with oppression as a process within groups that has the power to limit the lives, experiences, and opportunities of groups in an unjust way
What is social justice defined as through the International Federation of Social Worker’s (IFSW)
Social justice is defined only in terms of distributing or redistributing society’s resources (i.e. distributive or redistributive justice), which excludes doing anything about the social institutions, policies, processes, and practices responsible for the inequitable distribution in the first place.
What is injustice, according to this distributive notion of social justice?
A situation in which one group has a monopoly over a particular good
