Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice, The, 6th edition

A CONCEPTUAL AND PRACTICAL PRESENTATION OF THE STRENGTHS PERSPECTIVE IN SOCIAL WORK

• Helps beginning and more advanced social workers and students effectively use the strengths perspective.
• Every chapter has illustrations and case examples from the practice and experiences of the authors, who represent a wide variety of fields of social work.

IMPROVE CRITICAL THINKING

• Every chapter includes 4 critical thinking questions (designed to encourage the reader to apply the ideas and practices in a variety of ways), 4 multiple choice questions so that readers can quickly assess how well they grasp some of the key ideas, and two short essay questions that require the reader to employ the key concepts in more complex practice situations.
• Includes critical thinking questions and supplemental materials emphasizing every foundation competency and many practice behaviors outlined in the 2008 CSWE EPAS.

ENGAGE STUDENTS

• Every chapter includes 4 critical thinking questions designed to encourage the reader to apply the ideas and practices in a variety of ways, 4 multiple choice questions so that readers can quickly assess how well they grasp some of the key ideas, and two short essay questions that require the reader to employ the key concepts in more complex practice situations.
• Every chapter has illustrations and case examples from the practice and experiences of the authors, who represent a wide variety of fields of social work.
• Every chapter moves easily from conceptual material to practice examples and back again.

EXPLORE CURRENT ISSUES

• Three new chapters have been added to reflect the most current knowledge in the field. They include:
  • Human Rights and Sexual Orientation (Ch. 6)
  • “Knowing” the Effectiveness of an Evidence-Based Practice — Strengths-Based Case Management with Substance Abusers (Ch. 8)
  • Animating Hope (Ch. 12)
    • The 12 chapters from the previous edition have been slightly revised to reflect changes in both theory and practice over the past 3 years.

• Explains why the core competencies are important.
• Includes a complete CSWE EPAS grid describing each of the 10 core competencies and practice behavior examples.
• Includes chapter-specific practice behavior coverage in the text.
• Includes complete core competency coverage by chapter in the text.
• Lists core competencies in the table of contents under each heading.
• Chapter opening grid highlighting the core competencies addressed throughout the chapter.
• Competency-based critical thinking questions tie to both competency application and chapter content.
• Includes an assess your competence section to rate how well students understand key concepts from the chapter.
• Supplements Package - PowerPoint presentations.
• Create a Custom Text - For enrollments of at least 25, create your own textbook by combining chapters from best-selling Pearson textbooks and/or reading selections in the sequence you want.  To begin building your custom text, visit www.pearsoncustomlibrary.com. You may also work with a dedicated Pearson Custom editor to create your ideal text—publishing your own original content or mixing and matching Pearson content. Contact your Pearson Publisher’s Representative to get started.

Found in this Section:
1. Overview of Changes2. Chapter-by-Chapter Changes

• Critical thinking questions and supplemental materials emphasize every foundation competency and many practice behaviors outlined in the 2008 CSWE EPAS.

ENGAGE STUDENTS

• The text integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS with critical thinking questions and practice tests to assess student understanding and development of competency.

EXPLORE CURRENT ISSUES

• Three new chapters have been added to reflect the most current knowledge in the field. They include:
  • Human Rights and Sexual Orientation (Ch. 6)
  • “Knowing” the Effectiveness of an Evidence-Based Practice — Strengths-Based Case Management with Substance Abusers (Ch. 8)
  • Animating Hope (Ch. 12)
    • The 12 chapters from the previous edition have been slightly revised to reflect changes in both theory and practice over the past 3 years.

• Explains why the core competencies are important.
• Includes a complete CSWE EPAS grid describing each of the 10 core competencies and practice behavior examples.
• Includes chapter-specific practice behavior coverage in the text.
• Includes complete core competency coverage by chapter in the text.
• Lists core competencies in the table of contents under each heading.
• Chapter opening grid highlighting the core competencies addressed throughout the chapter.
• Competency-based critical thinking questions tie to both competency application and chapter content.
• Includes an assess your competence section to rate how well students understand key concepts from the chapter.

SUPPORT INSTRUCTORS

• Create a Custom Text - For enrollments of at least 25, create your own textbook by combining chapters from best-selling Pearson textbooks and/or reading selections in the sequence you want.  To begin building your custom text, visit www.pearsoncustomlibrary.com. You may also work with a dedicated Pearson Custom editor to create your ideal text—publishing your own original content or mixing and matching Pearson content. Contact your Pearson Publisher’s Representative to get started.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Power in the People by Dennis Saleebey

• Sets forth the basic themes, lexicon, and practice principles of the strengths perspective
• References to the “triplet of opacity” (Taleb, The Black Swan) provide humility
  • Shows just how much the past (of someone’s life) can inform us about the future
    • Examples from the people’s uprisings in the Middle East, and the tragic massacre by Jared Loughner provide context for this opacity

Chapter 2: Learning and Practicing the Strengths Perspective: Stepping Out of Comfortable Mind-Sets by Robert Blundo

• Provides case examples that reveal the challenges to individuals with problems and those who would help them
• Relays an informative history of how the medical/scientific model has captured much of social work practice
• Gives insight into the conceptual and practical means to subvert that model; and
  • Switch to another “language game”--the language of strengths and possibility

Chapter 3: Integrating the Core Competencies in Strengths-Based, Person-Centered Practice: Clarifying Purpose and Reflecting Principles by Walter E. Kisthardt

• New examples of training and practice using a person-centered approach to strengths practice
  • Provides the reader with a clear sense of what it means to practice from this vantage point

Chapter 4: Chronic Illness and Spiritual Transformation by Edward R. Canda

• Provides the reader with a personal account of what has been learned from a continuing, complex struggle with Cystic Fibrosis
• Provides a personal encounter with artistic depictions of the “dance of death”
  • experience of an untimely death of a beloved mentor
  • meditations on the reality and suddenness of death

Chapter 5: The Strengths Approach to Practice: Beginnings by Dennis Saleebey

• Recounts the basic concepts in strengths-based practice that inform the practitioner
• Provides the provision of a framework of questions to assist in the uncovering of an individual’s strengths

Chapter 6: Human Rights and Sexual Orientation by Gary Bailey

• NEW chapter to this edition.
  • Asks the reader to think or re-think about sexual orientation in terms of basic, global human rights
  • Makes a strong argument for having the central social work value--social justice—at the heart of our knowing and doing as teachers and practitioners

Chapter 7: The Strengths Perspective in Criminal Justice by Michael D. Clark

• Continues his efforts to change the language and lenses through which practitioners in the criminal justice system understand their practice
• Argues for moving away from the usual nostrums of control and compliance to 3 newer ways of thinking about this work
  • Macro level—Creating the Climate: from Apparatus to Architect
  • Mezzo level--from Adversary to Activator
  • Micro level--from Argument to Accord

Chapter 8: “Knowing” the Effectiveness of an Evidence-Based Practice: Strengths-Based Case Management with Substance Abusers by Richard C. Rapp & D. Timothy Lane

• NEW chapter to this edition.
• Asks-philosophically--what constitutes “knowing”
  • Notes that we not only can frame our mind-set; we can act effectively as case managers
  • Provides a conceptual and practical road-map to the steps of strengths-based case management

Chapter 9: The Strengths Model with Older Adults: Critical Practice Components by Holly Nelson-Becker, Rosemary Chapin, and Becky Fast

• New case study–using a conceptual framework that directs helping older adults
  • includes practice components
  • ends with a declaration of the importance of workers engaging in self-care
    • to manage the stresses of working  with an elder population that is growing and growing older

Chapter 10: Assessing Strengths: Identifying Acts of Resistance to Violence and Oppression by Kim M. Anderson

• Continues the development of resistance to oppression
  • factors as a key to helping women who were abused see that they did have some strengths and wiles in fighting off, mentally and/or physically, their abusers
    • Instructive new case examples illustrate ten guidelines for constructing a strengths assessment that can lead to effective practice

Chapter 11: A Shift in Thinking: Influencing Social Workers’ Beliefs about Individual and Family Resilience by Bonnie Benard and Sara Truebridge

• Continues to explicate the authors’ work in changing the mind-set of social workers who work with high-stress populations
• Uses ideas about the inherent and learned nature of resilience to build beliefs that help counter incessant work stress
  • to help relieve and handle the stress of clients, give social workers and other help-givers the same tools

Chapter 12: Animating Hope by W. Patrick Sullivan & Destinee L. Floyd

• NEW chapter to this edition.
• Gives a realistic view of the anxiety and doubt of people diagnosed with mental illness
• Provides an uplifting antidote to their sense of helplessness and dispiritedness--the possibility of hope

Chapter 13: Exploring the True Nature of Internal Resilience: A View from the Inside-Out by Jack Pransky and Diane McMillen

• Extends the authors’ basic contention--the most significant change in individuals comes from the inside-out
• Opposes the usual professional social work idiom--change comes from the outside-in
• McMillen’s story of self-enrichment through exposure to this model will be instructive to all who read it

Chapter 14: Poverty through the Lens of Economic Human Rights by Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Rosemary Barbera, Carrie Young and Monica Beemer

• Understanding poverty is an economic human rights issue
• Offers valuable ideas on economic human rights in administration;
  • social work education for “professional” practice; and
  • how the current CSWE EPAS may hinder this kind of practice
    • The “Sisters of the Road” chronicle is especially instructive

Chapter 15: Uncertainties and Cautions about the Strengths Perspective by Dennis Saleebey

• Presents the strengths perspective as a social justice issue in that in the context of the current economy
  • Example, the number of individuals and families who are struggling is growing exponentially and that we need leaders and policies that can support them and get them to a place in society where they can contribute and be rewarded.
• Poses questions and critiques often leveled at the strengths perspective and attempts to answer them reasonably and fairly
  • Acknowledges much work remains to be done