ABSTRACT
SOCIAL WORKERS HAVE A LONGSTANDING HISTORY OF intervening in familysituations and crises. Dating to the era of Mary Richmond and the Charity Organization Society and Jane Addams and the Settlement House movements, social workers have focused on intervening with families to enhance their functioning (Logan et al., 2008). Just as social work practitioners respond to societal changes, social workers have also adapted their practice behaviors, including knowledge, skills, and values, to the developmental stages of families or changing structure of
families. While families are generally self-sufficient in meeting their ongoing financial, emotional, and caregiving needs, when they seek help outside the family, they require a response from the helping professions that is developed for that family’s unique needs and differs from the intervention that may be negotiated with an individual client or another family (Briar-Lawson & Naccarato, 2008). Thus, family social work interventions require competencies to address the complexities of the contemporary family, which may include challenges involving culture, racial and ethnic diversity, financial and legal challenges, and intergenerational relationships and dynamics. Different from family therapy, family social work is an approach based on generalist social work skills for intervening with families who are at-risk for a negative outcome as family social work assumes the intervention is familycentered, and support can be provided in the home or in the office and in times of crisis (Collins, Jordan, & Coleman, 2010). Family social work practice interventions may be focused on: (1) reinforcing family strengths to prepare families for long-term change, such as a member arriving, leaving, needing care, or dying; (2) providing additional support to family therapy so families will maintain effective family functioning; and/or (3) creating concrete changes in family functioning to sustain effective and satisfying daily routines independent of formal helpers (Collins et al., 2010, p. 3).
