ABSTRACT
Converting practice principles into action is clearly not a random activity. As we demonstrate in the practice chapters which follow this section of the book, our concept of practice contains a theory of social action. It is the task of this chapter to describe the advocacy/ empowerment action orientation which guides our work. As a preamble to this discussion, however, we want to make two transcending assumptions: that a guide for action is not a map, a set of concretized standards, or a maze through which one must travel according to a set prescription; and that the course of action will be as necessarily determined by the actors involved as is its overriding purposes, that the people always transcend the means they choose to express their interests.
