THE HELPING / PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCESS IN SOCIAL WORK

Learning Objectives:
 Stress and understand the helping process in social work and its impact on
client’s social functioning
 Consider various approaches on interventative roles of a social worker
 Analyze and critique the framework in social work and its relevance on the
helping process

Problem –Solving Framework in Social Work

 Helen Harris Perlman

◦ Is considered as the originator of the problem-solving framework in social

work which has greatly influence social work thinking.
◦ In her book, she describes social work process as a progressive
transaction between the professional helper and the client, consisting of a
series of problem-solving operations which can be summarized as follows:
1. The facts that constitute and bear upon the problem must be ascertained
and ,grasped (study);
2. The facts must be thought about, i.e., turned over, probed into, and organized in
the mind, examined in their relationship to one another, and searched for their
significance (diagnosis)
3. Some choice or decision must be made as an end result of the consideration ,of
the particular facts with the intention of resolving the problem (treatment)

 In social work literature, there are a number of other well-known authors who
follows a framework for problem-solving. Among these are the following whose
writing are based on the traditional social work methods of casework, group work
and community organization:
 Florence Hollis Robert D. Vinter Arthur Dunham

Casework Process Group Work Process Community Organization Process

1. Defining the general 1.Intake 1.Recognition of the problem

nature of the
problem presented

2. Psychological study 2.Diagnosis and 2. Analysis of the problem or

treatment planning assessment

3. Diagnosis and 3.Group composition 3. Planning or

formulation consideration
treatment plans of the action
to be taken

4. Group development 4. Action- is the execution of the plans

and treatment and initiation of the service or project

4.Treatment 5. Evaluation

5. Evaluation 6. Termination 5. Evaluation

5 Steps Of Problem Solving

by: Dewey and Polya
1. Recognition or definition of the problem and engagement with client system;
2. Data collection;
3. Assessment of the situation;
4. Goal-setting and planning assessment;
5. Intervention or carrying out of the action;
6. Evaluation; and
7. Termination
 5 Steps Social Work Helping Process
1. Assessment
2. Planning
3. Intervention or Plan implementation
4. Evaluation
5. Termination

The Helping Relationship

 Relationship

◦ A basic concept in social work.

◦ All worker’s professional relationship should involve self-discipline and
self-awareness.

Essential Characters of the Worker’s

1. Compassion- I deeply care about you.
2. Mutuality- we are here on a common human level; let’s agree on a plan and then
let’s walk the path together.
3. Humility- please help me to understand.
4. Respect- I consider you as having worth. I treat your ideas and feelings with
consideration. I do not intrude upon your person.
5. Openness- I offer myself to you as you see me: real, genuine and authentic.
6. Empathy- I am trying to feel what you are feeling.
7. Involvement- I am trying to share and help in your efforts.
8. Support- I will lend my convictions and back up your progress.
9. Expectation- I have confidence that you can achieve your goals.
10. Limitation – I must remind you of your agreed upon obligations.
11. Confrontation –I must ask you to look at yourself.
12. Planning- I will always bring proposals but I would rather have yours.
13. Enabling- I am here to help you become more able, more powerful.
14. Spontaneity and Control- I will be as open as possible, yet I must recognize that,
in your behalf, I need to exercise some self-control.
15. Role and person- I am both a human being like you and a social representative
of an agency, with a special function to perform.
16. Science and art- I hope to bring you a professional skill which must be based on
organized knowledge, but I am dealing with people, and my humanity must lend
art to grace the science.

A. Assessment
 “A process and a product of understanding on which action is based.”-Max
Siporin
 Information /Data Gathering

1. Primary Source (client)

2. Secondary Source (significant other)
3. Existing Data (records and reports)
4. Worker’s observations (worker’s own observation)

B. Planning
 Planning process translates the content of assessment into a goal statement that
describes the desired results, and is also concerned with identifying the means to
reach the goals.
 Goal

◦ Goals are ends. They are the desired or expected outcomes an endeavor.
◦ Interim, Intermediate Goals And Objectives
◦ They refer to specific, short term goals which facilitate the achievement
the long term or overall goals.
◦ Objectives and intermediate goals may relate, not just to clients but to the
other person or social systems that are involved in the situation.
 Goals should have the following characteristics:

1. Specific, concrete and measurable- goals are stated in too broad or general
terms are difficult to measure.
2. Feasible- goals should be realistic and attainable
C. Intervention
 This phase in the helping process is concerned with action that would solve the
client’s problem.
 Intervention involves the rendering of all specific and interrelated services
appropriate to the given problem situation in the light of the assessment and
planning.
Interventive Roles
 Resource provider

 Social broker

 Mediator

 Advocate

 Enabler

 Counselor/Therapist

 Inverntive Roles Beyond Direct Practice

 Mobilizer of community elite

 Documentor /social critique

 Policy/program change advocates

Limitations on worker Activity

 Time

 Skill

 Ethics

 Agency function

D. Evaluation
 Is defined as the “collection of data about outcomes of a program of action
relative to goals and objectives set in advance of the implementation of that
program.
  Is a continual process where the worker keeps on gathering data which she uses
in an ongoing reassessment of objectives , intervention plans and even the
definition of the problem.(ongoing evaluation)
 Purpose of Evaluation

1. Measuring outcomes (dependent variables) of programs or specific intervention

2. Measuring the change process or the nature of the intervention
themselves( independent variables)
3. Utilizing a research design that will permit you to attribute the outcome to the
change processes.
Types of Evaluation
 Summative Evaluation

◦ is concerned with outcomes of effectiveness

◦ Formative Evaluation
◦ is concerned with looking at the process of the work
E. Termination
 When helping relationship terminated?

1. When the goals set by worker and the client have been reached.
2. When, after a reasonable period of time, there has been very little
movement toward the attainment of the attainment of the goals
formulated, and the prospect for any change in the situation is held
unlikely.
3. When client thinks that the worker has provided sufficient help so that it is
now possible for the client to pursue problem-solving on his own.
4. When an agency does not have resources needed by the client or the
worker does not get her agency’s approval to provide the services needed
by the client.
5. When the system outside the client make it difficult for the client to
continue with the helping relationship or when these system influence the
client to discontinue the relationship.
6. When for one reason or another, the worker must leave the agency.
 Two term were used in relation to the termination of the helping
relationship
 Transfer

◦ The process by which a client is referred by his social worker to another

worker, usually in the same agency, because the former will no longer be
able to continue working with the client, or because she thinks another
worker is in a better position to work with her client’s problem.
 Referral

◦ Is the act of directing a client to another worker/agency because the

service that the client needs is beyond the present agency worker’s
competence, or the client needs the additional service which the present
agency cannot provide.