Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach, Second Edition

Replete with numerous diagrams, charts, tables, and exercises, the second edition of Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach brings alive the systems model of social work practice. Learning systems analysis will lead you to a more dynamic view of reality. With this book as a guide, you are sure to give your social work practice the overhaul it needs. This user-friendly text will allow you to integrate micro and macro modes of intervention, sensitize your practice, enhance your conflict resolution skills, and analyze system-environment structures and currents.The basis for popular ecological models in current social work literature, the systems model can be used to understand social change, to plan or direct social change, and to analyze environmental impacts on human growth and behavior. As Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach explains, the systems model is appropriate for international social work because it is applicable across cultural and societal boundaries. This book provides you with specific system-based intervention steps, descriptions of problem situations, and an understanding of practice theory for your social work practice. A key resource for educators, students, and practitioners, it discusses:

• creating an effective network of social services
  
• the implications of ecological theory for social work practice
  
• eco-mapping
  
• systems-oriented concepts in the social sciences and social work
  
• the individual person as a system
  
• managing social change and conflict processes
  
• gleaning effective strategies from existing practice models

With its outline of a one-semester master's level course in systems analysis and its discussion of the 20th-century paradigm shift from reductionism to wholeness, Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach will be a great asset to social workers both within and beyond the classroom. Those in other helping professions, such as education, psychology, and organization development, will also find this book vital to understanding the changes experienced during the last 30 years. You will discover how many systems-based professional social work roles and strategies are compatible with existing models.

Contents
Foreword (Shula Albeck)

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Why Bother with Systems?
• Chapter Outline
• A Personal Note
• Chapter 1. Social Systems and Their Environments
• Introduction to the Systems Idea
• People as the Focus
• The Individual As a System
• A Person-Environment Model
• Expressing System Principles Visually
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 2. Some Characteristics of Open Systems
• Introduction
• Helping the P. Family: A Case Report
• Definitions and Concepts
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 3. Additional Characteristics of Open Systems
• Introduction
• The Betty D. Situation: A Case Report
• More Definitions and Concepts
• Communications and System-Environment Relations
• Functions
• Manifest and Latent Functions
• Coherence
• Review of the Systems Model
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 4. System Change
• Introduction
• What Is “Change”?
• Some Conditions That Lead to Social Change
• Change in Systemic Terms
• Change Versus Progress
• System Change at the Personal Level
• A Systems Analysis of Organizational Change
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 5. Systems Analysis of Some Social Work Practices
• Introduction
• Defining Problems and Needs Systemically
• Systemic Models of Human Development and Behavior
• Creating A New Agency: A Case Report
• Client, Action, and Target Systems
• Stages of the Action Episode
• Input or Boundary Management
• Throughput Management
• Feedback Management
• Influencing Policy
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 6. A Systems Model of Conflict Resolution
• Introduction
• Some Preliminary Thoughts About Conflict
• Four Components of All Conflicts
• Five Potential Outcomes
• Selective Intervention Suggestions
• Conflict Mediation as a Professional Role
• Summary
• Exercises
• Chapter 7. Implications and Conclusions
• The Systems Model As Practice Theory
• A Review of the Systems Model
• Meshing Everything Together
• Limitations of Systems Analysis
• Usefulness of the Systems Approach
• Environments and Individual Development: Coda
• Further Observations on Systems-Oriented Social Work
• Appendix A. The Systems Approach As a Model
• Introduction
• Paradigm Shift in Recent Times
• The Beginnings of Systems Thinking
• Systems Thinking in the Social Sciences
• Systems Thinking in Social Work
• Appendix B. Outline of a Suggested One-Semester MA Course on “Systems Analysis in Social Work”
• Bibliography
• Index