Social Work Theories and Methods

17/01/2023

One dubious mistake, otherwise it would be 100%.

13/05/2022

Small Word, Big Implications

I am reading some students' work and they have written about attempting to "make" someone understand something.

"Make" is a little word, just four letters, but it reveals a big problem. Whenever we try and "make" someone do something or try and "get" them to do something, we have revealed that we see ourselves as the authority figure who is in charge.

Social workers support people to do things, we empower people to make changes, we help people to understand. We should not be making people do or understand things.

What do you think?

23/04/2022

Allenby's Law

There is no policy, practice, or procedure so inherently effective that it can't be rendered utterly ineffective by the way it is implemented.

21/04/2022

A goal without a plan is just a dream.

Theories and models are the tools social workers can use to stop dreaming and to start making a difference.

01/04/2022

Here is Part 2 of my exploration of Theories, Models, Methods, and Approaches. In this video, I explain how we can use each of these words in relation to being Person-Centred.

I hope that you like it.

This is a second video that was inspired by Siobhan Maclean's video on the differences between the concepts of theory, model, method, and approach.https://ww...

24/03/2022

Theories, Models, Methods, and Approaches, what's the difference?

This video is a short response to a video by Siobhan Maclean (link in the description) where I explain how I use cookery to explain the differences between these concepts.

This video has been produced in response to Siobhan Maclean's video explaining these terms for social work students - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE1rKcz...

05/01/2022

When a strengths-based approach becomes a problem-denying approach, it ceases to be strengths-based.

Discuss.

27/10/2021

The Mushroom Picker's Principle for Referencing

According to the Woodland Trust, there are over 15,000 species of mushrooms in the UK. Many of these are edible, some are inedible, and others are poisonous. If you want to go foraging, you have two main options.

1. You can try and learn how to recognise each species of mushroom, then pick the ones that are edible and avoid all the others.
2. You can learn how to recognise the most common edible mushrooms, then stick to those, avoiding any mushroom you are not familiar with.

What has that got to do with referencing?

If you stick to using references from the module reading list, plus reputable course-related textbooks, and peer-reviewed journal articles, plus a few websites from highly reputable organisations, you are unlikely to get into trouble with your choice of references.
Pick any other source, and you may regret it.
As Terry Pratchett said "All mushrooms are edible. It's just that some of them you can eat more than once." 🙂

26/10/2021

"Good judgement comes from experience and experience well, that comes from poor judgement".

Discuss.

01/10/2021

Acceptance is better demonstrated in actions than merely stated in words.

10/04/2021

I have been thinking lately about academic skills. I know those are not strictly related to social work theories and methods, but would people be interested in my covering some ideas in that area?

If so, what topics would interest you most?

08/04/2021

A really early post, but worth a revisit.