DIRECT PROVISION MODEL
• Enhancement of client social functioning through the direct provision of material aid
useful in
eliminating or reducing situational deficiencies.
• "Resource provision"
> Material aid: temporary financial assistance, employment, shelter, medical care, skills training,
etc.
THE INTERCESSION-MEDIATION MODEL
• Process of negotiating the "service jungle" for clients
• The worker "connects" the client to needed services in the system until he has availed them.
> What is need is a third party who will mediate between service demand and service supply and,
where appropriate, assist the agency to provide more adequate and responsive service to clients.
MOBILIZING THE RESOURCES OF CLIENT SYSTEMS TO CHANGE THEIR SOCIAL
REALITY
• Problems are not always due to personal inadequacies but, often, to deficiencies in the social
reality, and that if people are to be helped, the target of attack should be the latter.
> The use of client's own resources is underscored, in changing aspects of his/their reality which
can and should be changed.
CRISIS INTERVENTION (Naomi Golan)
> It offers a treatment model that is rooted in rooted in the problem-solving theory of casework
and developed as part of the short-term, task -centered approach to practice. The model divides
intervention into three phases- assessment, implementation and termination. The following is
Golan's description of these phases.
Assessment of the Situation - This first phase involves mainly an evaluation of five components of
a client's situation to determine whether a crisis exists and what its current status is.
Implementation of Treatment - This "middle phase" is about setting up and working out specific
tasks (primarily by the client, but also by the worker and significant others), designed to solve
specific problems in the current life situation, to modify previous inadequate or inappropriate
ways of functioning and to learn new coping patterns.
Termination - As the end of the time-limited helping relationship nears, worker and client review
their progress, focusing on key themes and basic issues. Emphasis is placed on the tasks
accomplished, the adaptive coping patterns developed, and the ties built with persons and
resources in the community. Future activity when the client will be on his own, is planned. The
case ends with the worker making herself available on an "as needed" basis should new crisis
occur.
THE PROBLEM-SOLVING MODEL
Helen Harris Perlman, the main proponent of the Problem-solving Approach (or "Model") in
social work, acknowledged that although many in individuals and theories influenced her
thinking it was the social psychologist and educator-philosopher John Dewey who spurred her
interest in the matter of how people think and manage to cope. She in fact adopted Dewey's
term "problem-solving" as the name for a different concept of social work practice, that is, a
departure from the (then) already established Freudian-based psychodynamic "diagnostic"
school of thought in social casework.
ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACH
1. The Person - it is viewed as a product of inherited and constitutional makeup in a continuous
transaction with potent persons and forces in life experiences. The person is thus a product of
the past, but in no sense is viewed as a finished product. Each is seen as a product-in-process of
becoming.
2. The Problem - the model is based upon the presence of, and the identification between a help-
seeker and helper of a problem for which help is being either sought or offered.
3. The Place - This model takes into consideration the place which utilizes casework as a model of
helping people with problems.
4. The Process - it consists a following operations:
1. The problem must be identified by the person, i.e., be recognized, named, and placed in the
center of attention.
2. The person's subjective experience of the problem must be and what is being done with it - to
cause, exacerbate, avoid, and deal with it.
3. The causes and effects of the problem and its import and influence upon the person-in-life
space must be identified and examined.
4. The search is possible means and modes of solution must initiate and considered, and
alternatives must be weighed and tried out in the exchange of ideas and reactions that precede
action.
5. Some choice or decision must be made as a result of thinking and feeling through, what means
seem most likely to affect the problem or the person's relation to it.
6. Action taken on the basis of these considerations will test the validity and workability of the
decision.
FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
The functional approach to social work was first developed in the 1930s by the faculty members
of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, principally Jessie Taft, Virginia Robinson,
and Ruth Smalley. It was Taft who introduced the concept of "use of agency function" as a basic
in social work helping, resulting in the "Pennsylvania School" being identified as the "functional
school." During that period the "diagnostic approach" was the only clearly formulated theoretical
approach to approach," the "differential treatment approach," and later, the "psychosocial
approach."
Five Principles guide the Functional Approach
1. Understanding of the phenomenon served (diagnosis) is most effective when related to the
use of a specific service, which is developed in the course of giving the service, which is
developed in the course of giving the service, with the participation of the client, which, is
subject to continuous modification as necessary.
2. The effectiveness of the social work process is enhanced by the worker's conscious use of time
phases in the process, i.e., beginnings, middles, and endings. Each time phase has its own
particular characteristics that should be utilized to the maximum for the client's benefit.
3. The use of agency function gives focus, content, and direction to the helping process.
Accountability to the helping process. Accountability to the agency and to society is derived from
the use of agency function.
4. A conscious use of structure, i.e., time, place, agency, policy and procedure in relation to
agency function and the helping process introduces "form" to the work being undertaken which
furthers the effectiveness of the social work process.
5. To be effective the social work process requires the practitioner's use of relationship to engage
the client in making and acting on choices or decisions as central to the accomplishment of a
client - identified purpose within the context of the agency function.
BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION APPROACH
Behavioral Modification is an approach intended to improve the social functioning of individuals,
families, groups, and organizations by helping them learn new behaviors and eliminating
problematic ways of behaving. Knowledge about this approach is very important for social
workers because most of their interventive efforts are undertaken in order to change or modify
some aspect of the behavior of others who are participants in their professional activities.
Understanding of the three elements of social learning is essential to the practice of Behavioral
Modifications.
1. Target behavior: the behavior that will be the focus of the intervention; it is important to know
what behavior needs to be strengthened/increased or weakened/decreased in terms of
frequency, duration, or intensity.
2. Antecedent behavior: the behaviors) and events) that occur prior to the problem behavior.
3. Consequent behavior: the behaviors) and events) that occur after the problem behavior.