Social Work From Theory to Practice

Social workers practise across a wide range of settings, with all kinds of different people who have diverse cultural experiences. Some work primarily with individuals, whereas others work with families or groups of people in therapeutic or community contexts. Some social workers focus on community advocacy, community action and social change. In such diverse practice contexts, the notion of theoretically informed practice can seem complicated. Yet social workers do draw upon a range of theoretical perspectives in their work, using theory to help understand and make sense of what is, in reality, a complex human world. Many theories used by social workers can also be found influencing the practices of allied professionals: counsellors, psychologists and others working within the human services. Theories explored in this book are not the sole purview of the social work profession, nor can they be claimed as necessarily emerging from within a social work paradigm. Professional interpretations of knowledge and theory overlap and interweave (Trevithick 2012). We would nevertheless argue that theory applied in social work has a disciplinary character that distinguishes it from the application of the same theories across allied disciplines. This is because knowledge and theory in practice are critically influenced by disciplinary attachments and the underpinning values and nature of the profession itself.

Social work's interpretive lens

In the following chapters, we explore a range of practice theories that have been influential in social work. First, however, we will tease out the disciplinary nature of social work's interpretive lens to see how it influences the application of knowledge and theory, what we understand theory to be, and how contemporary debates have influenced the application of theory over time. We propose that the social work interpretive lens is enriched by four additional lenses that together influence the ways in which we apply theory in practice: the relational lens; the social justice lens; the reflective lens; and the lens of change.

The relational lens

According to Howe (2009), relationship-based practice has been an integral part of social work since its inception, and some writers have argued that it represents a critical component of effective social work (Teater 2010).