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Community Social Work Practice

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1. Introduction Community social work has a long history whereas it is the earliest method in social work practice. In accordance with the ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), there is an interrelationship between the society and the individuals. Given that the correlation, there is a crucial need in pursuing “person-environmental-fit”. According to Pavelová (2014), the assistance of communities should be placed at the center in the practice with the aim to seek improvement. Yet, it is believed that social work practice ought not to focus merely on one aspect, but to see situations from a more comprehensive ways including the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. As social work is the work in responding to the needs; therefore, understanding …show more content…

Cornwell (1984) suggested that such definition was not comprehensive enough as it overlooked private accounts. For example, the notions of a community could be described differently between male and female due to the different gender experiences. In the patriarchal society, men are described as breadwinners whereas women are reinforced as the caregiver of the family. As the community was given a fixed definition in the past, the direction of community work and community social work were restricted to a large extent. While community social work was the youngest method in social work, it was adopted as a tool in solving the “problems” of larger communities (Pavelová, 2014). From this, it could be seen that practitioners tended to adopt a deficiency perspective for which viewed “a community as a problem”. With the aim to address the “problems” and to advocate possibilities to improve the quality of life, social workers were placed at a higher ground as the solution for the problems. In the earlier stage of development, community social work was more about tangible needs of the community. For example, settlement houses to fulfill human’s physiological needs. Being the “professional” to work with communities, social workers may be viewed as the expert by the community. Sometimes, even social workers, they may overlook the power imbalance they caused by defining the “problems” of a community. Instead of focusing the community’s deficiency, a community can also be seen as a cohesive place for which emphasizes the importance of human relationships. From this, it suggested that community work should not merely focus on the problems but searched the capital of the community for development. Owing to this, apart from acting a dominant role, social workers should act as facilitators and share their powers. They ought not to define the needs of the community but to let the members of the community define their

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