ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with certain aspects of what are usually described as the three methods of social work – social casework, social groupwork and community work. A ‘method’ could, for instance, be said to be a stabilized collection or grouping of techniques and its associated focus of knowledge. The chapter discusses both social casework and social groupwork, that workers employ a range of techniques, but the kind of difference correctly identified in the case of community work cannot so easily be accommodated. The community worker also adopts the roles of controlled participant, agent of social change and resource person. Many of our social problems, argue the community workers, are the result of structural social inequalities and of conflict between social groups. They can most effectively be approached, if not solved, through major policy change, and influencing general social policy in particular directions should become part of the technical expertise of the social worker.
