Homework

Social workers can help you understand and leverage community and family issues and
problems. The diagram below shows some of ways social workers can help: "social
environment," "social capital," "culture," and "health behaviors, practices, & coping skills
of families.

Social work involves taking into account many factors of an individual’s life. While there
are many theories in social work, systems theory is a unique way of addressing human
behavior in terms of these multi-layered relationships and environments. The theory is
premised on the idea that an effective system is based on individual needs, rewards,
expectations, and attributes of the people living in the system.
Systems theory in social work is based on the idea that behavior is influenced by a
variety of factors that work together as a system. These factors include family, friends,
social settings, economic class, and the environment at home. The theory posits that
these and other factors influence how individuals think and act, and therefore examining
these social structures to find ways to correct ineffective parts or adapt for missing
elements of a given system can positively impact behavior. The fields of psychology,
communication theory and psychiatry influence modern social work systems theory.

In this particular theoretical approach to social work, professionals observe and analyze
the many systems that contribute to the subject’s behavior and welfare. They then work
to improve those systems according to the individual’s unique situation.

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Activity 1

In the Diagram above, If you are the case manager and hypothetically the client has a
problem with his studies how would you address the problem using the system theory or
the Person in Environment approach?

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