Social Work Theory Test #1

Micro Social Work Practice

Work with individuals, dyads, and families. Also referred to as direct practice, casework, clinical social work, clinical practice, counselling, and therapy. 19th century origin.

Mezzo/Meso Social Work Practice

Work with groups (some consider it to be part of macro practice, others of micro).

Macro Social Work Practice

Work with organizations, communities, and at the policy level (some consider only policy level to be macro practice). Indirect rather than direct practice. Includes community work, policy-level work, and non-profit management.

Advocacy

The act of speaking or of disseminating information intended to influence individual behaviour or opinion, corporate conduct or public policy and law.

Social Work Advocacy

The exclusive and mutual representation of a client(s) or cause in a forum, attempting to systematically influence decision making in an unjust or unresponsive system(s).

Case Advocacy

Advocacy in pursuit of policy changes on behalf of specific client(s) or individual. Usually pursues a decision to allow a one-time exception to current policy.

Cause Advocacy

Addresses a single issue, condition, or problem that a number of people are interested in and support. Pursues change that will affect all people using a service at a specific location which may yield legislative or regulatory change.

Internal Advocacy

Change agent (social worker) is employed within the target system or organization to be changed.

External Advocacy

Change agent (social worker) is not employed within the target system and is external to the organization that is being changed.

Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601

Laid the foundation for the progression from private charity to public welfare, where the care and supervision of the poor became the responsibility of each parish, town, village, or hamlet, which originated in England/Wales.

Deserving Poor

People who were seen as being of good moral character, clean and tidy, and temporarily out of luck through no fault of their own, or they were orphans, thrifty elderly and the disabled, with no relatives to take care of them.

Undeserving Poor

Individuals deemed to be lazy or morally degenerate.

Almshouses (Circa 990-Present)

European Christian private institutions maintained by a charity or the trustees of a bequest, provided housing and support to the ‘deserving poor’, and offered meals and temporary shelter to the transient poor and distressed folk.

Poorhouses (After 1601)

Not private charitable institutions, were established and managed by parishes as per Poor Law, financed by taxes.

Workhouses/Houses of Industry (After 1601-April 1st, 1930)

Institutions where people unable to support themselves could go/were sent to live and work; managed by parishes, state, or contracted out to private entrepreneurs. Deplorable conditions, hard, unpaid, degrading work.

Houses of Correction (After 1601)

Institutions for the confinement and reform of persons convicted of minor offences and not regarded as confirmed criminals; places where the ‘wandering poor’ (vagrants and beggars who ‘refused to work’) were sent to work.

Mary Ellen Richmond (1861-1928)

The founder of casework/micro social work practice. Prominent figure in Charity and Organization Society (COS)

Charity Organization Society (COS)

Brought order to chaos in London (1869) by overlapping activities of 640 charities dealing with the poor. Provided assistance to the poor, disabled, and needy with a focus on detailed investigations to avoid fraudulent claims.

Friendly Visitors

Volunteers from privileged backgrounds that were recruited to befriend the poor applying for assistance, go to their homes, make individual assessments, and correct their problems. Were the first caseworkers.

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

The founder of macro social work practice/community work, becoming a leader in the women’s suffrage and world peace movements. First American woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Settlement House Movement

Toynbee Hall (1884), had the concept of ‘settling in’ the poor and the privileged in one house in a slum, encouraging them to work together to improve conditions.

Hull House in Chicago

Jane Addams contributed, importing the settlement house concept into the US alongside Ellen Gates.

Social Workers Term

Coined by Simon N Patten in 1900, presumably tied to the emerging notion of socialization work and applied it to friendly visitors and settlement house residents.

Social Diagnosis

Mary Richmond publication in 1917 that was will be used as a primary text for training social workers for years to come. Includes:

• Collection of social evidence

• Critical examination of the material leading to diagnosis.

• Development of a case plan with client involvement.

Psychiatry

Focuses on individually-based mental illness, generally treated with prescription medications or biological treatments. Medical doctor who can prescribe medication.

Psychology

Focuses on individual behaviour, internal thoughts and feelings.

Role of a Social Worker (Social Work and Social Service Work Act 1998)

A role of a person who assesses, diagnoses, treats, and evaluates individual, interpersonal, and societal problems through the use of social work knowledge, skills, interventions, and strategies.

Organizations

Greek word Organon, meaning tool or instrument. Coming together of two or more people for the pursuit of common goals or accomplishment of tasks that could not be accomplished alone.

Max Weber

Father of modern organizational theory.

Organizational Theory

Specialized, multidisciplinary field of inquiry concerned with studying organizations (sociology, psychology, political science, economics, anthropology).

Human Service Organizations

Groups working directly with and on people, with a goal of improving human lives and conditions, and promoting people’s overall welfare and well-being. Not automatically social work organizations.

Organizational Identity

A set of statements that organization’s members perceive to be central, distinctive, and enduring to their organization.

Mission Statement

An action-based statement that declares the purpose of an organization, who and how it serves, and its values/beliefs/set of key principles/philosophical or ideological foundation.

Incorporated Organization

A legal entity (an artificial person) separate from its members and management, paperwork with the government needs to be filed, fees paid. Can open bank accounts, purchase/sell property, liability on the organization.

Unincorporated (Voluntary Non-Profit) Organization

Legal thanks to guaranteed freedom of association. Not a formal legal entity in the eyes of the law, rather its an association of individuals. Cannot open a bank account, be liable, be sued or sue.

Public (Governmental) Organizations

3 levels of government in Canada: federal, provincial/territorial, municipal. First two have ministries, arm’s length agencies, Crown corporations.

For-Profit Organizations/Businesses

Private, incorporated, registered businesses delivering human services for profit. Long-term care homes, addiction or mental health supports, medical and dental clinics.

Not-For-Profit Organizations and Charities

Referred to as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Any organization neither established nor run by government. Can be incorporated either provincially or federally.

NGO Term

Used for the first time in the 1945 United Nations Charter.

Board of Directors

Governing body that has legal responsibility and represents organization as trustees, consisting of unpaid volunteers (unless is representational model). Is a legal requirement for incorporated not-for-profits.

Registered Charity General Categories

• Relief of poverty (food bank)

• Advancement of education (school, post-secondary, museum, research centre)

• Advancement of religion

  • Certain other purposes that benefit the community (elderly care, disaster relief, etc).

Advantages of Charitable Status

• Tax exemptions

• Can issue tax receipts to donors for income tax purposes, making it easier to fundraise.

Disadvantages of Charitable Status

• Can only use 10% of their budget for political advocacy (like lobbying)

• Required to file an income tax return at least every two years, which are available to the public.

Private Foundation

Can be established as a corporation or a trust.

A Trust

Fiduciary relationship, meaning it occurs when one person gives property or assets to another person to manage on behalf of still other people (third party beneficiaries). Not considered a legal entity in Canada, but a taxpayer.

“Dealing With Each Other At Arm’s Length”

People serving as the charity directors, trustees, or like officials are not close relatives nor have close business connection outside of their involvement with this charity.

Public Foundation

Can be established as a corporation or a trust, generally giving more than 50% of its income annually to other qualified doners, usually other registered charities, but may carry our some of its own charitable activities.

Charitable Organization

Can be established as a corporation, a trust, or under a constitution. Primarily carries out its own charitable activities.

Quasi-Governmental Organizations

Entities primarily established or funded by government but operated independently, often in partnership with private or non-profit stakeholders.

Quango/Qango

Acronym for Quasi-NGOs, Quasi-autonomous NGOs, and quasi-autonomous national government organizations.

Cooperatives

Mostly businesses rather than not-for-profits, but are still people-centered, value-driven, owned and run by and for members, not shareholders.

Social Enterprise

A hybrid organizational model which integrates principles of private enterprise with social sector goals and objectives, and includes various sustainable economic activities designed to yield social impact.

Socially Responsible Enterprise

Profit-oriented company that institutionalizes the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, market orientation is primary, social/civil society orientation is secondary.

Enterprising Non-Profit

Non-profit organization that produces or sells certain goods or services for fundraising purposes.

Incubated Organization

Adapted from the business sector. A company, government, or academic entity may provide services or mentorship to an early-stage venture, entrepreneur, or start-up, and may charge a fee or take a percentage of revenue.

Organizational Structure

An intentional or emergent plan of organization, strategy, and goals that may or may not be reproduced in official tables of organization, constitutions, and job descriptions.

Organizational Culture

A set of common understandings and basic assumptions shared by those belonging to an organization and passed on to new members.

Iron Law of Oligarchy

German sociologist Robert Michels 1911. Defined as a system of oligarchy or structure ruled by a few elite members, usually for their own advantage.

Rational Systems Perspective

Organization is viewed as a ‘rational machine’ or collectivity oriented to the pursuit of specific goals through rational planning, and exhibiting a highly formalized hierarchical structure.

Weber’s Bureaucracy

A system of continuous purposive activity with specialization of functions, administrative staff devoted to such activity and intend to maintain the existence of specialized activity.

Bureaucratic Organization Characteristics

1. Vertical and horizontal staff specialization: each office has a clearly defined sphere of competence.

2. Clearly defined hierarchy of offices.

3. Highly formalized (objective, impersonal)

4. Routinization of tasks.

5. Emphasis on technical expertise and formal educational credentials in hiring and promotion.

6. Job is viewed as a career: employees are expected to progress through the ranks over the years.

Human Relations Perspective

Identified importance of non-material incentives and benefits of ‘democratic’ leadership. Focused on informal organizational structures (social networks of workers/members).

Open-Natural Systems Perspectives

Focus on the relationship between organizations and their environments: recognizes that organization’s boundaries are not fixed but vary a great deal, and that changes in organizational membership and structure largely depend on environmental forces.

Structural Contingency Model or Contingency Theory

Organizations seen as passive objects of the natural selection process.

Population Ecology Theory

Focus on inter-organizational hierarchy and oligarchy: larger, powerful organizations dominate smaller, weaker ones and end up winning in the process of natural selection.

Resource Dependency Theory

Organizations depend on each other, they establish links with other organizations to reduce environmental uncertainty and manage their dependence. Organizations engage in boundary-spanning activities.

Resource Mobilization Theory

Organizations seen as active agents scanning external environment for threats and opportunities, finding useful resources and creatively mobilizing them for the purpose of organizational survival and success.

Non-Hierarchical Organization

Any enterprise in which control rests ultimately and overwhelmingly with the members-employees-owners, regardless of the particular legal framework through which this is achieved.

Direct Democracy

Also known as pure democracy, it is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly without electing representatives to speak on their behalf.

Representative (Adversary) Democracy

People elect representatives to the high organs of power (parliament, congress) to represent interests of a specific electoral district. Decisions are made by the majority rule.

Corporatist Democracy

A system based on group representation rather than individual votes, where decisions are made through negotiation among organized groups sharing common goals.

Participatory (Unitary) Democracy

Based on the common interests of members, qualitative equality of members. Decisions are achieved by consensus.

Complex Federated Democracy

Large federation, associated or umbrella organization which exhibits characteristics of both participatory and representative democracy, often with corporatist and hierarchical elements.

Non-Hierarchical Human Service Organization

An organization that emerges in response to perceived failure of mainstream, hierarchical service organizations to properly address human needs.

Four Dimensions of Organizational Non-Hierarchy

Ideational (ideology and values), structural, cultural, environmental.

Ideational Dimension

Has to do with the organizations ideology and value systems. Refers to the organization’s conceptualization of non-hierarchy.

Structural Dimension

Concerns internal structure depending on the size and scope of the organization, non hierarchical arrangements may be present in all or any of the three sub-dimensions.

Sub-Dimensions (Structural)

• Immediate (core collective)

• Intermediate (e.g. project teams)

• Extended (e.g. member groups)

Cultural Dimension

Relates to internal organizational culture, which can be highly collaborative and anti-oppressive even when organization is hierarchically structured.

Environmental Dimension

Pertains to external organizational relations - how organizations build non-hierarchical partnerships and horizonal linkages with non-member and non-service recipient groups, institutions, and individuals, and with broader sociopolitical movements.

Primary Aspects of Environmental Dimension - Pragmatic

Resource mobilization. Forming non-hierarchical, often mutually beneficial partnerships with other organizations that can give you something you need.

Primary Aspects of Environmental Dimension - Non-Material

Connection with, and support of, immediate communities and larger (international) sociopolitical movements through various initiatives.

Cohesive Culture

Marked by solidarity and strong member/employee commitment. Can be found in ethno and faith specific agencies where members have a shared identity and belonging. May live in the same community.

Pragmatic Culture

Practical, task-oriented, ‘let’s just do the work’ attitude. Members/employees get along, but don’t necessarily socialize outside the workplace.

Collegial Culture

Can be found in organizations dominated by professionals whose work is guided by the code of ethics and shared values of their respective professions.