Reference no: EM132422858 , Length: word count:3000

Practice Framework Assessment - Social Work Practice Lab

Aim: To understand the importance of ascertaining the meaning that service users give to the experiences and the conditions in their lives as well as their wishes and feelings. This is important to ensure that service users are involved in assessment, planning, and review processes with the goal of you, the social worker, being able to first understand the meaning, wishes, and feelings of service users and then presenting these clearly and confidently to others.

To insure that the five themes of the Just Practice Framework are consistently applied when working with service users: Meaning, Context, Power, History and Possibility.

Introduction (half a page)

- What is the topic?

- What is the connection to social work?

- What does your paper do?

Identity and Issues (1 page)

- Think of a person that you are working with and identify where you are in the process (i.e. engagement, assessment/planning/review). Identify the issues being addressed in the situation presented by the person.

Meaning (2 pages)

- How are you working with the service user in order to find out what their understanding of the situation is? How are you ascertaining the MEANING they give to the experiences and conditions that shape their lives, as well as their wishes and feelings?

Contexts (2 pages)

- CONTEXT is the background and set of circumstances and conditions that surround and influence particular events and situations in the lives of all of us. Context allows us to look beyond the obvious and see things that might otherwise be missed. Within social work, the interwoven contexts are often interpersonal, sociopolitical, and community-based. How are you taking into consideration the contexts in which the client's experiences and conditions unfold? What are those contexts? How are contexts adding to the meaning given by the person to their lived experience and conditions? How are contexts impacting your understanding of the situation?

Similarities in Positionality (1 page)

- Consider how your approach is/may be affected by any similarities between you and the person (e.g., in age, gender, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class status, and/or education).

Differences in Positionality (1 page)

- Consider how your approach is/may be affected because of any of your social identities that are not the same as those of the service user (e.g., in age, gender, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class status, and/or education).

Power & History (2 pages)

- As an individual in a "professional position," the social worker has to be aware of how their role might connote POWER to the service user. According to Finn (2016), there are different forms of power. Power over, power within, power with, and power to act.

- Where is the service user experiencing someone having power over them and their life? Where in their life is the service user exercising power over people in their life?

- Where is this happening in their personal life as in people close to them having power over them? Where is the service user exercising power to act with people close to them?

- Where is it happening in their external environment, as in a child welfare system having power over them? Or do the police and or justice system have power over them? Are the service recipients having issues with the school system? Where is the service user exercising power within relationships that are a part of their external environment?

- How much weight/consideration are you giving to this person's story about the experiences and conditions of their life as well as their wishes and feelings?

- How has HISTORY marked the person or their group or community for oppression? How has history shaped their resilience? What might their history tell us about POSSIBILITY for the service user? For example, the service user has had to deal with adversity since they were 12 years old due to sexual orientation and gender non-conformity or the service user has an immigration story.

Power & Possibility (1 page)

- What other avenues are there for the service user's meaning, wishes, and feelings to be presented-including them doing so for themselves? Are you sure that you have adequately explored their meaning, wishes, and feelings?

Conclusion (half a page)

- What is the biggest takeaway from this essay?

- How will this information make you a better social worker?

Textbook - Just Practice: A Social Justice Approach To Social Work, Third Edition by Janet L. Finn.