ABSTRACT
This chapter moves beyond engagement and assessment to the first of the chapters which examine intervention with service users. Given the prominence I have already placed on seeing individuals in context, this chapter will consider the usefulness of ecological and systems theories to social work practice. Although these approaches have distinct histories and backgrounds, they also have much in common, as our extract will demonstrate (see also Barber 2002). An ecological approach seeks to understand the centrality of the person in their environment (see Bronfenbrenner 1979) while a systems perspective such as that developed by Pincus and Minahan proposes that four systems must be addressed in social work practice: ‘the change agent system’ (the practitioner and their colleagues and agency); ‘the client system’ (the service user and their networks); ‘the target system’ (the ‘people who need to be changed to accomplish the goals of the change agent’); and ‘the action system’ (‘the change agent and the people he works with and through to accomplish his goals and influence the target system’) (1973: 63). In this extract, Keiran O’Donogue and Jane Maidment, both social work academics in New Zealand, discuss the pros and cons of using an ecological system approach in practice in Australasia.
From M. Nash, R. Munford and K. O’Donogue (eds) Social Work Theories in Action, London: Jessica Kingsley (2005): 39–45.
