Exam 1 (Chapter 1) Flashcards
Social work role
Behavior and activity involved in performing some designated function that is part of professional social work practice.
Micro practice
Practice with individuals
Mezzo practice
Practice with groups
Macro practice
Practice with larger systems, including organizations and communities
Target system or target of change
The system that social workers need “to change or influence in order to accomplish their goals”
Advocacy
The act of “representing, championing, or defending the rights of others”
Generalist practice
The application of an eclectic knowledge base, professional values and ethics, and a wide range of skills to target systems of any size for change.
Empowerment
“The process of increasing personal, interpersonal, or political power so that individuals can take action to improve their life situations”
Self-determination
Each individual’s right to make his or her own decisions
Strengths
Includes any “capacities, resources, and assets” that can be accessed to increase empowerment.
Resiliency
The ability of an individual, family, group, community, or organization to recover from adversity and resume functioning even when suffering serious trouble, confusion, or hardship.
Human diversity
Entails multiple factors, including “age, class, color, culture, disability, and ability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex, sexual orientation, and tribal sovereign status.
Organizational structure
The formal and informal manner in which tasks and responsibilities, line of authority, channels of communication, and dimensions of power are established and coordinated within an organization.
Fields of practice
Broad areas of social work that address certain types of populations and needs.
System
A set of orderly, interrelated elements that forms a functional whole.
Subsystem
A secondary or subordinate system—a system within a system. For example, a subsystem within a family of five (mother, father, and three children) is the parental subsystem that includes the mother and father.
Boundary
An invisible or symbolic “line of demarcation that separates an individual, a subsystem, or a system from outside surroundings”.
Interaction
Involves mutual involvement and communication with other people and groups in the environment.
Input
Is the energy, information, or communication flow received from other systems
Output
Is the same flow emitted from a system to the environment or to other systems.
Homeostasis
Refers to the tendency for a system to maintain a relatively stable, constant state of equilibrium or balance.
Equifinality
Refers to the fact that there are many different means to the same end. In other words, there are many ways of viewing a problem and, thus, many potential means of solving it.
Client system
Is any individual, family, group, organization, or community that will ultimately benefit from generalist social work intervention.
Change agent system
Is the individual who initiates the planned change process. This book assumes you will function as the change agent system while helping your client systems.
Action system
Includes those people who agree and are committed to work together in order to attain the proposed change.
Social environment
Involves the conditions, circumstances, and human interactions that encompass human beings.
Person-in-environment
Focus sees people as constantly interacting with various systems around them. These systems include the family, friends, work, social services, politics, religion, goods and services, and educational systems.
Transactions
Interactions in which something is communicated or exchanged is active and dynamic.
Energy
Is the natural power of active involvement among people and their environments.
Interface
Is the exact point at which the interaction between an individual and the environment takes place.
Adaptation
Is the capacity to adjust to surrounding environmental conditions.