Presented by a former student of the author
July 6, 2026 in
R. Ramsay – 1988 (Unpublished Paper)
I am honored to be your keynote speaker on the occasion of CASW's centennial
celebrations. First, let me put to rest any concerns about my intentions.
All of you, I presume, are well aware of Abraham Flexner's now infamous speech
delivered to a national conference of social workers in the
In its first 60 years, CASW and others like
it world-round, had negative critics in abundance. In fact, negativism,
fragmentation and an embarrassing lack of unity characterized the profession. I
need only to remind you that in 1986, membership in CASW numbered slightly less
than 10,000, which represented approximately one-third of the estimated 30,000
practicing social workers in
As I drove here this fine July morning, I was
struck by the sun's reflection on the magnificent stylized tetrahedral
sculpture in front of the exquisite clear span structure of this beautifully
constructed convention centre. The sculpture is a monument to the
cohesive social functioning of all citizens of the world, and of course to you
and I, it represents nature's universal coordinate system that our profession
adopted as its common organizing framework just before the turn of the
century. On the way in as I admired this wonderful Naturdome, I paused to
smell the flowers, no longer tainted with acid rain. I took comfort in knowing
that threats of resource depletion and nuclear devastation no longer hover
around our heads. Large planetary regions of food shortages, poverty and human
desperation, world-round are largely behind us. We human beings are finally
headed in the direction of achieving our terrestrial purpose. Humankind is
beginning to truly fulfill its local information gathering and problem-solving
function of maintaining the integrity of eternally regenerative processes in
Universe, so clearly described to us through the experiential work of
Buckminster Fuller from the 1930s to the 1980s.
The fact that social workers no longer doubt
their professional status has freed us to stand along side others in a
collective effort to discover and maintain regenerative processes around the
world. In
A successful conclusion to this search emerged in the 1990s, when nature's
fundamental coordinate system, discovered some years earlier by Buckminster
Fuller, was accepted world-round as the profession's common practice framework.
Fuller, as most now know, was one of
In this section, I will deal
with the part of history that Alvin Tofler, the well-known 20th century
futurist, called the First Wave (Tofler, 1981). I will not deal with the Stone
Age era of this wave, but instead, will concentrate on its two more recent
phases, the Tribal Community and the Agricultural Society. In the next section,
I will address the Industrial Civilization phase of his Second Wave.
Thompson (1972) in speculating about the
transformations of cultures discovered a four-part structure that seemed to
universally account for values and conflicts in human institutions, and also
seemed to accurately depict the holistic nature of reality. In the Tribal
Community, this model of four provides us with a way of understanding the
structure of a primary human group in a food-gathering community aimed
primarily at the survival of its members. This group consisted of a Headman,
the leader and the equal of the men he must hunt with. There was the Hunter,
known for his physical strength, grace and speed. The third member was
the Shaman, the craftsman and the magician, when they had need of this
assistance. The fourth was the Clown, the joker who made fun of the seriousness
and strengths of the other three. These were not just four ordinary men. The
members of these early food-gathering groups were men who worked closely
together in coordinated pursuit. As a group they had a special set of
interlocking and complementary qualities. Together they formed a “stable
hunting group in which all their skills were balanced” (pp. 105-108). In these
primary human groups, there appeared to be a true unity of well being in which
all the complementary and opposing forces seemed to be dynamically integrated.
From our modern day planetary perspective, it is interesting to note that
Thompson described the four-part structure of hunter behavior in men, but
omitted any reference to any kind of similar structure in the consolidator
behavior of women in these tribal communities. Nor, of course, did he describe
a holistic structure involving the partnership structure of men and women.
When economic surpluses appeared, the early tribal community societies began
the transformation process from food-gathering communities to becoming much
larger food-producing societies. What emerged was the Agriculture Society
of Tofler's First Wave. The complementarity of the primary group structure gave
way to the development of specializations that served to increase the distance
between those with different roles. Relationships were no longer immediate, but
intermediate. The structure of primary human group relations changed from
individuals to institutions. The unity of primary groups changed to a
multiplicity of human groups. The Agriculture Society was the beginning of
modern civilization. In this social transformation, the Headman evolved into
the institution of the State, the Shaman into the institution of Religion, the
Hunter into the Military and the Clown into the institution of Art. Social
distance between the institutions increased, role differentiation became marked
and value differences were accentuated. The expansion into an
agricultural society and its concomitant growth into an urban society brought
about conditions of increased conflict and the maintenance of stability, more
or less, at the same time. The institutions of this new form of
collective society had to evolve special values about caring for individuals.
History has recorded numerous attempts by different agricultural societies to
deal with individual and social problems through various form of charitable
behaviors to others. Some of the earliest attitudes about charity are
found in Hammurabi's code of justice in Babylonian times, in Jewish beliefs
about what God expected from them, and in records of Christ's
teachings. Unconditional charity toward individuals in times of
hardship was the requirement or general expectation in all cases. A form of
universal access to charity seemed to be operative in these First Wave
cultures.
When Christianity was legalized by the Roman
emperor,
During the feudal system,
which began in
The
The Poor Law policies evolved before and
during the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth century
The roots of social welfare
services and the discipline of social work are easily traced to those who
fought against the harsh attitudes and policies of Industrial Civilization in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reform workers in
In
By the turn of the last century,
a number of reform activities were in place or evolving which occupied most of
the social reform efforts throughout the greater part of the whole
century. In 1795, the Speemhamland system was introduced which
established the "poverty line" as a bench mark for determining who
were living below minimally accepted standards. The idea was to be helpful by
making it possible for workers to be eligible for subsidization whenever their
wages dipped below the poverty line. The price of bread and the number of
dependents in the worker’s family determined the line. Over the years, our 20th
century colleagues engaged in many studies and debates around the issues of
subsidizing the working poor, establishing minimum wages for all employees, and
providing a guaranteed annual income for all members of society, regardless of
their capacity or ability to "earn-a-living." However, there
was never a serious effort by any level of government policy to establish a
“quality of life” line and support it as a matter of prudent social policy.
In the middle of the nineteenth century,
feminists in
The first sign of social welfare being other
than a local government responsibility was established in 1883 when Chancellor
Bismarck of a newly united
At the turn of the last century, consumer's
leagues were established, first in
The discipline of
social work emerged with a dual-purpose philosophy that was fostered by
conflicting social welfare perspectives in previous centuries. The duality of
these perspectives was identified as the need for specialized attention to
social reform of the environment and the provision of individualized personal
social services. In the early development of the profession and emergence of
formal social welfare organizations, the comprehensive and interconnected
nature of this duality was never fully explored or firmly rooted into a
broad-based philosophical domain and practice orientation. Instead, the
fundamental separateness of independent entities that underlies the concept of
duality produced a divisive dichotomy between those who supported individual
change and those who supported social reform methods.
Believers in moral certainty
felt that "poverty could be avoided by anyone who really wanted to"
(Carniol, 1986, p. 25) and that it was the low moral values of individuals
which caused them to be poor. A strong follower of this belief was Mary
Richmond. She was a pioneer charity worker involved in the early development of
Charity Organization Services in
Followers of the rational inquiry school
believed social reform could be achieved by convincing politicians through
quantitative research that the cause of dependency problems was socially rooted
and could be relieved through environmental improvements. This type of reform
work, which began in Victorian England, became known as the Settlement
Movement. The original idea was to preserve "human and spiritual values in
an age of urbanization and industrialization" (Davis, 1977, p. 1266). The
original settlements were called "university settlements" because the
movement was founded on the idea of university men living in the worst parishes
of
Social work has always dealt
with problems of dependency (Popple 1985, p. 573), although, the social worker
today is well aware of the great variance in service/treatment approaches that
emerged over the years. The earliest social workers were philanthropic
volunteers, but by the beginning of the 20th century, there was a growing
awareness of the wide scope of dependency problems and a realization that the
social functioning work of these volunteers was fulfilling a fundamental need
in society. The concept of socialization was evolving as central to the mission
of social work. Socialization work involved a process by which humans in
different life stages of development learn to participate in the organized
social contexts of their lives, over time (Specht, 1988, p. 49).
The orientation struggle,
described earlier, between individual rehabilitation and social reform
continued into the 20th century as charity and settlement work shifted from a
base of voluntary philanthropy, largely associated with the institution of
religion, to scientific philanthropy, which was becoming closely associated
with the institution of education. Philanthropy came from an early Greek
word that meant "acts of love for mankind" and was institutionalized
in the Greek city-states (Barker, p.181). Workers from both forms of
philanthropy struggled with issues of how to conceptualize and define this
rapidly spreading vocation as a full fledged profession. The need for a common
conceptual framework to embrace the practice orientation dichotomy was evident
early on, but not fully recognized for many years. An over reliance on
sociological theories of professionalization (Popple, p. 352) delayed, if not
prevented, social workers from seeing the need for a common organizing
framework. They did agree on one thing: voluntary philanthropy had to be
replaced by scientific philanthropy.
Now, it may seem unfathomable to think that
these early-applied philanthropists once treated the individual separate from
his/her environment, but they did. Simon Patten first coined the title social
worker, presumably tied to the emerging notion of socialization work, in 1900.
Patten applied the concept to both the friendly visitors of
The pioneers of our
profession were mostly independent women who eventually sought payment for
their services so they could "earn a living" in their chosen
occupation. Formal education for social workers was advocated for, and begun in
the 1890s, influenced by Mary Richmond and others.
With the rapid developments that occurred at
the turn of the last century, it was important for social work to be recognized
as a legitimate profession. A milestone event (or millstone, depending on your
judgment) happened in 1915 when Abraham Flexner was asked to address the NCCC
(an association of
Flexner concluded that social work was an intellectual activity with a
mediating function that linked individuals with social functioning problems to
helpful resources. Although it had the basic characteristics of a profession,
it did not fulfill all the criteria. Social welfare issues were too broad to be
addressed by one professional body; moreover, he stated that social work lacked
an exclusive knowledge base and framework, and did not have a distinctive
scientific method to address the complexity of these issues. From that time
forward, social workers tried to establish their discipline according to the
professional trait model set out by Flexner. Other than the knowledge that his
speech is heralded as an important turning point in our history, most social
workers in this or the last century had no idea of who he was, or why this
non-social worker was invited to address a national conference of social
workers. Very few knew that he authored The Flexner Report in 1910, a highly
critical evaluation of medical education in both the
The task of shaping our profession according
to the trait model proved to be impossible to achieve, largely, because social
work by its very nature is diverse in its functions, and one method or
technique could not fit every function. The preoccupation with Flexner's method
criterion led to an identity crisis among practicing social workers that left
them wandering in search of professional recognition and legitimacy for more
than half of the last century. According to
Fields of Practice: Casework
specialties quickly emerged and by the 1920s there were several clinically
oriented fields of practice: child welfare, family, psychiatric, medical, and
school social work. In
The Americans, as you may recall, did not
have a single integrated professional association until the amalgamation in
1955 of several associations (seven in all) into the National Association of
Social Workers (NASW). Canadian social workers did not experience the same kind
of specialization differentiation in their professional association
developments. A single national association, the Canadian Association of Social
Workers (CASW) was founded in 1926 and operated with a network of chapters
across the country for almost fifty years (Gowanlock, 1984). In 1975, it
was reorganized into a federated structure of eleven organizational members:
ten provincial and one territorial associations.
Generic Social Case Work: Despite the
prominence of social case work dominated fields of practice early in our
history, the need for a distinctive, but common, communicable technique was not
overlooked. Leading executives and board members in the social casework field met
for the first Milford Conference in 1923. At their meeting in 1925, a committee
was formed and asked to prepare a report on several important questions, one of
which was "What is generic social case work?" (Milford Conference,
1929, p. 7). Their report, completed three years later, concluded that
social casework was a definite entity and that the method differences in the
separate fields of practice were primarily descriptive rather than substantive.
Generic social casework was defined as the common field; specialty forms of
social casework were merely incidental. Although their definition identified
the generic foundation of casework, it reinforced the method model as the core
professional technique in social work. Apart from the unfortunate reinforcement
of a specialty method identity, which was to dominate the profession until the
late 1960s and into the 1970s, the report was rich with historical information
that could be linked to the profession's search for a common organizing
framework. The report contains some of the earliest references to the concept
of norms in human life and human relationships. Norms were concepts of
desirable social activities that influenced the way people lived and the way
social workers practiced. Social workers were concerned with social functioning
activities that were, or could be, impaired by one or more deviations from
accepted standards of normal social life. There was an inference that social
workers should endorse norms that are flexible and subject to differences in definition,
and work toward formulating a philosophy of social case work that was grounded
in normative and socialization concepts. The report also introduced the concept
of "community resources" as effective relationships outside the
immediate field of social casework and its particular focus on the individual
that may impair a person's capacity to organize his/her own social functioning
activities. Examples listed included, churches, industry, insurance
societies, public departments, social legislation, agencies for education,
recreation, law enforcement, and the promotion of social and health work. The
report went on to identify the social agency as a critical component in the
practice framework of a social worker and pointed out that social casework was
almost universally carried on through the medium of organizations that heavily
influenced the type of social work that could be practiced. A final subject of
importance to our review of 20th century social work was the strong emphasis on
the future growth of social casework being dependent upon it developing a
scientific character. The report stressed that "research of the social
caseworker should go beyond the discussing of data and principles necessary for
the discharge of his own immediate function. It should aim to throw light upon
deep-seated factors in social life which lead to difficulties of adjustment
between the individual and his social environment" (p. 42). The committee
completed its work with a growing conviction that there was unity in the whole
field of social casework (notice that they did not use the generic term social
work) regardless of its specific applications.
Theoretical Foundations: The profession was
still searching for a scientific theory to ground a common conceptual
framework, when Freud and his work was introduced to
Methods of Practice: In the 1930s, the
"diagnostic" school of practice, based on Freudian theory and
The limitations of method specialties became
evident during the Great Depression. Because of its dominant allegiance to clinically
oriented social case work, the discipline was not organized to meet the needs
of large masses during the Depression, who were poor and less able through no
fault of their own. While professional social work could offer expert
therapeutic techniques, clients now had social welfare needs on a large scale
and needed advocacy, brokerage, administrative and planning services.
Furthermore, while the organized profession tended to operate from private
agencies and clinics and practice specialty methods, the need was for massive
new programs in public agencies. As result, divisions in the profession were
further exacerbated. After the Depression, a new breed of general practice
social workers were employed mostly in public agencies, implementing public welfare
programs sanctioned by new social security legislation.
Canada's first entry into the social security
field, for example, was in 1927 with the introduction of subsidized payments
for an old-age pension program for needy citizens over the age of 70 years
based on a strict and often humiliating means test (Guest, 1985, p. 1723). Its
first attempt at welfare state legislation was taken in 1935 with the passage
of a national unemployment scheme by the federal government, in spite of the
lack of its constitutional authority to do so (Turner, p. 55). This legislation
was eventually ruled unconstitutional in 1937. It took until 1940 for an
amendment to the BNA act that cleared the way for a national unemployment
insurance act. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, a historical meeting during the
early part of the second Great War between the British Prime Minister Churchill
and Roosevelt, the American President, formulated, as one of its agreements,
the citizen's right to social security (Turner, 1986, p. 56). The agreement
also acknowledged that provisions had to be made in the post-war world to cover
dependency difficulties of individuals and families that were beyond their
capacity to handle. In 1942, the Beveridge Report was issued in
Many of the workers employed to implement the
public programs were not specifically trained in social work, others had
undergraduate degrees instead of graduate degrees in social work, which up
until then had been seen as the mark of a "professional" in keeping
with Flexner's criteria. The accrediting body for social workers, The American
Association of Schools of Social Work, for example, had declared as of 1939
that the accreditation standard would be a 2-year MSW degree program.
Logically, it followed that the MSW degree was declared the minimum requirement
to be considered a professional social worker (Barker, p. 189).
After World War II, mainstream social
workers, supporting Flexner's criteria for a profession, regained control of
the profession (Popple, 1985, p. 565). Their goal was to perfect one
educationally communicable technique (method) as the key to a common knowledge
and skill base for the profession. However, specialties continued to grow and
by the 1950s the profession, supported by the Boehm "Social Work Education
Curriculum Study" (CSWE, 1959), laid claim to a broad-base orientation
that recognized five methods: casework, group work, community organization, administration,
and research. This pattern of specialized methodologies was a departure from
the dominance of casework, but it failed miserably as a way to find common
ground in the profession. This necessitated a new basis for conceptualizing the
common elements of the profession. The adherents of diagnostic and functional
schools began to merge and loose their separate identities; their combined
approaches took on a psychosocial orientation. Two major texts were published,
Perlman's Social Casework: A Problem-Solving Process(1957) and Hollis's
Casework: A Psychosocial Therapy (1965) that represented attempts to unify the
disparate elements of systematic methods in social work. Systemic views of the
domain of social work were emerging, but not fully conceptualized into working
models.
Up to the mid-century point,
social work had been evolving as a profession based on its efforts to adhere to
the method approach of those disciplines generally recognized as a science.
Wilber (1984) reminded us that science could be defined any way we liked as
long as we were consistent. He pointed out, however, that there should be a
clear distinction between method of science and the domain of science. He
informed us that "the method of science refers to the ways or means that
whatever we call science manages to gather facts, data, or information, and
manages to confirm or refute propositions vis a vis that data (p. 12). In this
sense, method is the way any science manages to gather knowledge. Method refers
to the epistemology - the way knowledge is investigated critically - of
science. In its simplest form, "scientific method involves those
knowledge-claims open to experiential validation or refutation" (p. 13).
Method, correctly so, has nothing to do with the domain or objects of the
scientific method. On the other hand, he stated that "domain . . . simply
refers to the types of events or phenomena that become, or can become, objects
of investigation by whatever it is we mean by science (p. 12). Domain refers to
the philosophical way science views the nature of reality. According to Wilber,
if there is a way to test a knowledge-claim by experiential validation or
refutation, then that knowledge can properly be called "scientific"
(p. 13). Wilber's work made it clear that any endeavor could be a science as
long its objects of investigation (domain) and its methods of investigation
(scientific method) were open to experiential tests. The difference between a
science and a non-science is the dividing line between "testable and
non-testable (or merely dogmatic pronouncements, the former being exposed to
confirmation/refutation based on open experience, the latter being based on
evidence no more substantial than the 'because-I-tell-so' variety" (p.13).
New Professionalization Models: In the 1950s
and 1960s, new sociological models for defining professions emerged. The
"process model" instead of emphasizing the need for specialized
skills and one common body of theoretical knowledge, followed an approach that
had occupations in society distributed along a developmental continuum (Popple,
1985 p. 562). Using this model, social work seemed to fit the classification of
a professional occupation. The "power model" also developed to
classify occupations as professions was used by social workers to defend their
status as a profession because they had carved out a place in society and
purported to have control over the nature of their professional work (p. 562).
The trait model of Flexner was revised by
The 1960s and early 1970s were times of great
social upheaval and social work was criticized from both inside and outside its
professional boundaries. Richan and Mendelson (1973) made the point that in its
rush to professionalize, "social work - with its emphasis on the
development of knowledge and skills in dealing with social problems, and with
its highly organized agencies for the delivery of needed service - has so very
little to do with the poor today” (p. 6). There was widespread criticism of the
validity of social work workers focussing on individual treatment and
neglecting the area of social reform. It was as if the very professional
recognition that social workers had tried so hard to achieve during the
profession's first 60 to 70 years was to be its very undoing. As a result
of the political and social turmoil’s of the 60s, social work education
expanded to include more community planning and political action courses.
Freudian influenced clinical social casework became somewhat less important,
but remained the dominant method in social work education and practice
settings.
With this historical overview
of societal and professional developments, I hope I have adequately refreshed
your knowledge of the roots of our profession up to the 1960s. The first sixty
years reflected a constant tension between the dichotomous roots of our
declared social purpose: causes of social problems versus treatment of victims
(Diner, 1977, p. 2). In addition, there were sub tensions within each purpose
area. Those on the social problem/environment side struggled with the
respective merits of scholarly objectivity and social advocacy. On the
treatment side, debates ensued around a individual psyche or social environment
centered practice. Other debates occurred about the knowledge base: social work
versus social welfare. The social work advocates argued the need for focussed
knowledge to perform the actual tasks of social work practice; the social
welfare advocates argued for a base that encompassed all knowledge and all
practice relevant to human well being. These individual-reform struggles
carried on throughout the 1960s, into the 1970s and well into the 1980s. In the
meantime, the discipline in its quest for legitimate recognition as a profession
continued to search for a way to re-structure the conceptual foundations of the
profession, but didn’t make much headway. Although not widely recognized, it
seemed apparent to some that the conceptual foundations might have to be found
in an area that to date had not been explored by social workers.
I will now review some of the developments that lead to the discovery of
nature's fundamental coordinate system as a unifying framework to conceptually
ground the scientific domain of social work, its broad base professional
paradigm and multiple methods of practice. By 1980, Leighninger was warning us
that we would be unable to achieve or maintain a unique position as a
profession if we failed to develop a core professional identity based on a
combination of:
A few years earlier, Chambers (1977) had reminded us of the importance of our
historical roots, "social work, like every profession must be possessed by
a sense of history or else drift without tradition or purpose".
Some of the key issues of
social work, which had been identified as early as the 1950s were still being
debated in the 1980s. The main issues were:
The issues of domain and professional legitimization were addressed by Popple
(1986). His thesis was social problems, whether they arise within micro
or macro systems, were problems of dependency. Dependency defined in the Popple
context was said to be "a state of being in which people cannot accomplish
daily living tasks or life aspirations with their own resources, skills and
knowledge" (cited in Ramsay, 1986, p. 51). Examples of dependency problems
could be seen everywhere. Changes which resulted from the transition to an
industrialized urban society created social conditions where individuals were
without resources that they once depended on, such as the family, church and
manual labor; it became the responsibility of society to respond to the
dependency problems that ensued. Popple's proposition was that society, forced
to find a rational way of addressing dependency problems, looked for an
appropriate occupation to meet the need. As the rudiments of a
philanthropic occupation were already evolving, a contract of sorts was agreed
on between it and society in general. That occupation became identified as
social work and its central mission was directed to the socialization processes
between people and their environments. In essence, the domain of social work
became the social assignment of managing dependency. Popple claimed that all
efforts to limit or narrow the domain to fit specified methods of practice led
to nothing more than the profession paying attention to fewer social
functioning problems; the widespread social problem manifestations of
dependency remained larger than life.
Popple also addressed our determined search
to become a recognized "profession" (p. 573). This search
probably rose out of the initial questions that gave rise to the sociology of
professions:
The search for recognition was based on the traditional assumption that there
are some essential quality(s) that distinguish professions from other
occupations. Durkheim, for example, Johnson said, saw professions as
occupational membership communities with high moral standards that would
reverse the break-up of social order in industrial societies and serve as a
positive force in social development. Others went further and claimed
professions were to be distinguished from other occupations by their
"altruism" that is expressed in terms of a service orientation (p.
12-13). Professionalism was identified as those occupational activities
that were not concerned with self-interest, but with the welfare of the people
being served. Popple was not a proponent of sociological models of a
profession; in fact, he saw the concept of profession to be little more than an
occupational group's need for power and prestige. If social work has to be
defined, he claimed "it should be defined as a federated profession - a
group of different occupational specialities unified into one profession by a
common social assignment" (p. 574). In summary, Popple gave social workers
a new way of looking at both domain and the profession. Those who accepted the
logic of his thesis realized the challenge ahead. They recognized the
tremendous scope of social work's domain; dependency was everywhere. They knew
that to tackle the social assignment of managing dependency, the profession
would need a common framework from which to begin; one that was foundational,
flexible, procedurally systematic, and, above all, holistic and systemic
in perspective. They also understood that to stand as a profession in its own
right, social work had to define the legitimate problems and methods of
research and practice for succeeding generations of practitioners. Kuhn
(1970) informed us that for all new sciences to be societally recognized they
had to share two essential characteristics:
Accomplishments that share these two characteristics, Kuhn referred to as
"paradigms" of like-minded groups. He used this concept to refer to
actual scientific practices that provide models from which develop coherent
traditions of scientific research. By mid-century, social work had achieved
these two characteristics even though it had invested most of its attention to
the development of scientific methods of practice. Study of the social work
paradigm provided the means to prepare students for membership in the
professional community of social work that they would later practice. The
importance of a common paradigm is seen in minimal disagreement over
fundamentals from those who learn the bases of their field from the same
conceptual models. Kuhn's work also showed us that workers (researchers
or practitioners) whose work is based on a shared paradigm are committed to the
same rules and standards for scientific practice. The commitment to a
particular professional community and the apparent consensus this produces are
prerequisites for the genesis and continuation of a specific practice
tradition.
Since the late 1950s, the
social work search for an organizing framework to accommodate the common
domain, paradigm and method of social work relied primarily on models derived
from general systems and ecological systems perspectives.
General Systems Theory: This theory came from
the work of Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, a great biologist, who believed the
survival of a system depended upon the exchange of energy and information
between an organism and its environment. He discovered that there were
comprehensive system behaviors in nature unpredicted by the behaviors of the
systems' components, a phenomenon known to scientists as synergy (Fuller, 1963,
p. 69). A system was defined simply as a "set of elements standing in
interaction" (1967: 115). According to Stein (1974), "Systems theory
gives social work the conceptual tools to explain long-standing notions and to
guide and give direction to social work practice" (p. 31). Since the
person-situation/person-in-environment domain was basic to social work, the
interconnections and relationships between the person and his environment were
easily understood in the context of open system theory. Several general systems
principles have been helpful in the social and applied sciences to distinguish
identity characteristics of a system: boundary (which indicates completeness),
structure (which establishes form), hierarchy (outlines the division of labor),
transactional nature (depicts the interrelationship patterns), and time
(establishes the temporal status). Other principles served to explain the
operational characteristics of a system: input (incoming information),
throughput (information processing), output (end result information and
consequences), feedback (cycled information) and entropy (natural tendency
toward disintegration). Additional principles were helpful in understanding the
internal characteristics of a system: steady state (a free-floating balance),
homeostasis (a fixed or predetermined balance), differentiation (awareness of
others), nonsummativity (sum of the parts does not equal or explain the whole),
and reciprocity (two way information exchanges). Two other principles helped
explain the trajectory or path characteristics of a system: equifinality
(different routes to the same outcome) and multifinality (one method produces
different outcomes). When they were first introduced, systems theories were
seen as the answer to a holistic conception of social work, the development of
social work "generalists", and a unified theory of social work
(Stein, 1974. p. 33).
Hearn (1958, 1969) was the first to use
systems theory to find a common conceptual model for social work. His model and
those that followed after from other social work theorists and educators were
frequently criticized, however, for several shortcomings. First, systems models
were acknowledged for the rich insight that could be obtained about the domain
of social work (the person-in-environment life space of others), but they
failed to provide "how to do it" methods for practitioners. Second,
the language of systems was too mechanistic and nonhuman. Third, the concepts,
in order to encompass a vast and diverse range of phenomena, were highly
abstract and therefore, difficult to apply at a practical level (Germain, 1979,
pp 6-7). General systems was also criticized for its alleged failure to
eliminate differential, hierarchical power imbalances between member units of a
system (Carniol, 1986). Perhaps its greatest criticism, one that Von
Bertalanaffy acknowledged, was its lack of objective employment (Fuller, 1963,
p. 69). In other words, the principles could not be translated into
physical models or artifacts for illustration, teaching or practice purposes.
Eco-Systems Theory: The ecological perspective, which is a form of general
systems theory, came from biology and dealt with the adaptive fit between
living organisms and their environment. Ecological practitioners were trained
to focus on the interface between systems or systems' elements (Meyer, 1983).
They were, and still are, concerned with the relationships between organisms
that a person with a primary focus on a specific element in a system would be
inclined to miss. In social work, this meant that the primary focus of the
profession was on social functioning in a person-in-environment domain.
Adaptive fit coming from an ecological framework was characterized by an
interdependent process, which mediated the inside system of the person, singly
or in groups, and the outside systems of its environment. The elements in an
ecological system are constantly affecting and being affected by each other.
The reciprocity between elements is constantly shaping, creating and adapting
their relationship to each other. The ecologically minded social worker had to
assess all the elements in the total person-in-environment terrain. This set up
an expectation that they may require a general and/or specific knowledge of
these elements and their relationships, ranging from individual or group self
awareness, dynamics of intimate personal relationships, influence of cultural
beliefs and customs, to the policies and mandates of organized social services
agencies. The ecosystems informed social worker was expected to work at
multiple interfaces of the transacting elements. The ecological (systemic)
perspective (Meyer, 1983; Germain, 1979), which is different from an ecological
(systematic) model (Germain and Gitterman, 1980), provides a common framework
for a cognitive understanding of the person-in-environment domain of social
work, regardless of the applied method used. This perspective, according to
Germain (1979), is concerned with the growth, development, and potentialities
of human beings and with the properties of environments that support or fail to
support the expression of human potential (p. 7-8). The ecological perspective,
like the general systems perspective, was limited. It had not been used as an
organizing framework for understanding the broad-base orientation of the
profession, or for understanding the operative processes of a method driven
intervention. The ecosystems theory also failed to provide an objective
framework for interrelationships to be concretely configured in other than a
two point linear system or in a three point triangular system. Ecosystems
knowledge provided no help in knowing how to construct conceptual frameworks
that could show the interrelationship patterns of a holistic system or answer
the question of how many components were necessary to have a constellation of
components that would constitute a whole system.
Natural Systems Theory: In the 1980s, Ramsay
(1986) identified a third systems perspective; the natural systems discoveries
of R. Buckminster Fuller (1963, 1969, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1982). Fuller had
discovered a universal coordinate system, which he named "synergetics”
that cut across and underpinned all scientific disciplines. Synergetics
is a triangular and tetrahedral system that employs 60-degree coordination, which
is nature's way of physically packing elements together (1975, pp. 22-23).
Synergetics rejects all axioms as "self-evident"; every thing must be
experientially verifiable. Fuller's discovery was based on the empirical
findings of physicists who found that nature is always most economical and
therefore did not function according to man's 90-degree angle (x y z axis)
coordinate system (Fuller, 1969, p. 95). Nature's way was to use very
economical and fundamental 60-degree coordination, best illustrated by Van't
Hoff's "proof of the tetrahedral configuration of carbon, the combining
master of organic chemistry" (p. 100-101). In chemistry, it was
discovered that tetrahedral systems chemically bonded in different ways. When
single bonded together by one vertex, they form a very flexible linkage. Double
bonding is a hinge-like linkage, still flexible but more compact. Triple
bonding is rigid, lacking flexibility but capable of differentiation. Quadra
bonding is enmeshed, lacking flexibility and differentialness.
Fuller's synergetic coordinate system proved
to be the unifying framework that social workers had been searching for. For
the first time social workers could conceptually organize all the different
components -domain, paradigm and method- in the common base of their
profession. Synergetics is the exploratory approach of starting with the
whole (Fuller, 1975, p. 13). It is based on a generalized principle of
synergy that the behaviors of whole systems are unpredicted by the behavior of
their parts taken separately. A corollary of synergy is that once you
start dealing with the known behavior of the whole and the known behavior of
some of the parts, you will quite possibly be able to discover the presence of
other parts and their behaviors (pp. 9 & 12). Humans have used this
approach to make rare discoveries. The Greeks discovered the law of the
triangle: the sum of the inside angles is always 180 degrees. This law
was later expanded to include the outside angles as well so that we now know
that the sum of the outside angles is always 900 degrees. Thus the known
behavior of the whole and the known behavior of any part may give you a clue to
the behavior of the other parts.
Holism: In constructing the
common conceptual framework, Ramsay integrated our historical developments. He
borrowed from the insights and previous work of several social workers before
him. They realized that a conceptual framework had to encompass all possible
interrelationships in several different components of the discipline for it to
be able to address broad and complex problems (Bartlett, 1970; Meyer, 1970;
Goldstein, 1973; Pincus & Minahan, 1973; Middleman & Goldberg, 1974;
Siporin, 1975; Compton & Galaway, 1975; Shulman, 1979; Anderson, 1981;
O'Neil, 1985). These developers all shared the belief that the domain of
social work should not focus solely on the individual or on the environment,
but had to focus on the interdependence of the two. They all believed
that one had to "see" the many interrelationships involved, whether
they were associated with a individual problem, a group problem, or one of even
larger scope. They knew that problems did not exist in a vacuum. To start with
a whole picture, social workers needed to see how every element in a system can
affect every other element. A systems perspective, they argued, let social
workers connect multiple variables to their cases, and at the same time see the
possibility of a wide range of intervention methods and skills. As Meyer so
often used to state, "it is more professionally accountable to see cases
in their true complexity, and then to select the appropriate methods and
skills" (Meyer, 1983, p.27).
Science of Social Work: The natural systems
perspective, combined with selected characteristics of general systems and
ecological perspectives, served as a conceptual framework for constructing and
"seeing" the common base of social work in its entirety. Using this
perspective Ramsay found a way to objectively employ systems theory in social
work. He did this almost twenty-five years after Von Bertalanffy and Fuller
were brought together on several panels at a World Affairs Conference in 1963
and agreed that they had discovered the same natural coordinate system through
completely different circumstances (Fuller, 1963, p. 69). This practical
application of systems theory turned out to be a big breakthrough in
establishing social work as a legitimate science-profession. Science as
referred to earlier could be defined any way one wished as long as consistency
was present. Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the great theoretical physicists in
the first half of the 20th century, defined science simply as "the
conscientious attempt to set in order the facts of experience" (Fuller,
1976, p. 7). A similar definition was provided by the highly acclaimed Viennese
physicist, Ernst Mach who said "Physics is experience arranged in the most
economical order" (Fuller, p. 7). Mach's definition incorporated the
discoveries of physicists that nature always works in the most economical way
possible. These definitions were used by Ramsay to define "social work as
the conscientious attempt to set the facts of experience in the most economical
socialization order." Working from this understanding of science,
social work was recognized as part of "design science" (Gabel, 1979),
a new paradigm for viewing our world that emerged out of Fuller's work.
Gabel explained that "design science sees the environment and the human
condition as being ever improvable . . . [which] involves understanding the
critical interrelated nature of our problems and their global scope; the
inability of present, locally focussed planning methods to deal effectively
with these problems; and new systematic alternative approaches for recognizing,
resolving, and preventing our present and anticipated problems through the
development of artifacts" (pp.10-11). We learned that design science
unlike "pure" science that often claims to be value-free is
value-laden. Design involves the structuring of environments in preferred
directions; where we want to go is determined by our values (Gabel, p. 11).
Most importantly for social work, Gabel pointed out that:
One of the
underlying tenets of design science is that we are all in 'this' together;
'this' being the Earth, humanity, and our innumerable problems. Problems are
all interconnected just as is our ecology. Problems are parts; design science
seeks to deal with wholes, with systems. The method of design science is one of
always starting with the whole and working toward the particular (p. 11).
We also learned that the parameters of social
work, as a design science, could be objectified. This is done by using the
natural systems framework to establish coherent models of practice and
practitioner domains, professional paradigm and intervention methods.
System Empiricism: Fuller provided empirical
evidence that there is no known experience that is less than a system. A system
is the simplest experience any human can have and it must always have
insideness and outsideness. Only after there are four events/elements of an
experience can we have insideness and outsideness differentiating guide points.
Identification of a system begins first with the discovery of self or of
"otherness." A living system begins with awareness. If there is
no otherness there can be no awareness. If there is no insideness and
outsideness, there can be no life or thought. Systems, Fuller proved to us,
always divide all the universe into three principle parts (Fuller and Dil,
1983):
The above listed divisions, also as discovered by Fuller, can be expanded into
several zones of micro and macro relevancy. These are
Thought systems, for example,
consist only of clearly relevant considerations. Therefore, they have
micro- and macro-relevant limits. There are some experiences to small or of too
high a frequency to be considered. Other experiences are too large and too
infrequent to be considered.
A system does not exist unless it has
boundary and structure. Fuller empirically discovered the simplest whole system
experience of the universe to be geometrically tetrahedral; a unique
system-defining set of interdependent and related parts/components consisting
of four (4) elements, four (4) faces, and six (6) connecting linear
interrelationships. A tetrahedral system (natural system) is nature's minimum
"set of elements standing in interaction" that constitutes a whole
experience. Anything less than a tetrahedron is not whole. A tetrahedral system
provided us with a topologically-systemic way of thinking; a geometric way of
thinking in which basic properties of the system were invariant (did not
change) when undergoing transformations. It was a thought system that could be
programmed within the human mind, or systemically programmed into a computer.
Users of this system could be taught to recognize, quantify, qualify and
evaluate any topological discrepancies, in the elements and interrelationships
of a system, however, the system was limited to only giving answers to specific
system questions. It could answer: "Which is the most advantageous way -
this way or that way?" after all relevant information was known or
gathered. Like all other systems perspectives before it, the tetrahedral system
could not answer professional judgment, "What do I do?" questions,
but it did bring social workers closer to understanding roles and functions in
the social assignment management of dependency.
Man's Function in the Universe: After he
discovered nature's coordinate system, Fuller asked himself the question,
"Did man have a particular function in the universe and if he did what
might it be?" From the astronomers, he found evidence that indicated
an expanding universe, supported "by the law of entropy or increase of
random elements which must ever fill more space" (Fuller, 1969, p. 145).
Empirical evidence told him that unique behaviors were usually countered by
opposite behaviors of some kind; therefore, he concluded that an expanding
universe would have a concurrently contracting universe. He found proof of this
in the discovery that our planet earth serves as a contracting agent in
universe. Earth like the sun is not radiant. Our planet receives energy from
the sun, but doesn't lose it at the same rate; therefore, we are a collecting
or concentrating center, possibly one of thousands like us in universe. This
sets the conditions for ecological balance to become operative at the surface
of the earth. He found that all species in biological systems are genetically
and environmentally programmed to alter their environment, which in turn alters
the species behaviors (p. 146). Thus he correctly concluded that biological
life on earth is antientropic. "Earth is acting as an antientropic
[syntropic] center as may all planets in universe" (p. 146). Of all the
antientropic/syntropic species, none compares with brain-directed humans.
Humankind constantly differentiates and sorts out their experiences in their
thoughts. As a consequence we are always rearranging our environments so
that we may eat, be clean, move about and communicate with others in more
orderly, swifter and satisfying ways. Through the work of Penfield, a well
known Canadian neurologist, humankind discovered that it is much easier to
explain all the data in the memory banks of the brain if we assume the
existence of the "mind" than if we assume only the existence of the
brain. From this, Fuller helped us understand the function of the mind in
relation to generalizations in science. The scientific meaning of
generalization is precise: "the discovery and statement of a principle
that holds true without exception" (p. 147). We were shown experimentally
that tension is never independent of compression. They only
coexist. He showed us proof of many other coexistent behaviors that
resulted in the well-known generalization "that there is a plurality of
coexistent behaviors in nature which are the complementary behaviors" (p.
147). He, also, showed us that functions only coexist with other functions,
which led to a further generalization that "unity is plural and at minimum
two" (p.147). What is meant by the mind as opposed to the brain, he
concluded, is man's ability to generalize. The ability to generalize, also,
gives humankind the tendency to moralize from semi- or axiom based
generalizations. The ability to generalize allows us to orderly simplify
enormous amounts of special case experiences. The mind searches for the
patterns between experiences to help us accomplish things with fewer and fewer
words. This orderly simplification is exactly opposite of entropy and the Law
of the Increase of the Random Element. It is the decrease of the random
element. Fuller gave us evidence of the mind being the most advanced phase of
antientropy/syntropy in universe; therefore, he concluded:
"man's mind and his generalizations, which weigh nothing, operate at the
most exquisite stage of universe contraction. Metaphysics balances
physics. The physical portion of universe expands entropically. The
metaphysical contracts antientropically" (p. 147).
This explanation of the mind was later
supported independently when Norbert Weiner, a renowned mathematician and
communications scientist, published that "Man is the ultimate antientropy."
From this Fuller declared that the function of man in universe had been
discovered: "Man seems essential to the complementary functioning of
universe." Therefore, he concluded the probability of humanity
annihilating itself and thus eliminating the antientropic function from
universe is approximately zero (p. 150). This is not to say that humankind on
earth may not destroy itself; it simply means that there are probably thousands
other planets like us in universe with humans living on them. What is important
is for all humankind to consciously behave in a manner that will protect our
function in universe and thereby contribute to the maintenance of a eternally
regenerative universe. It should be our goal to ensure an adequate standard of
living support for all humanity and rid ourselves of political systems and
self-serving ideologies that protect the privileged few and exploit the poor
and less able. Fuller was a strong advocate of a world-around livingry policy
that would "make it possible for anybody and everybody in the human family
to enjoy total earth without any human interfering with any other human and
without any human gaining advantage at the expense of another" (1981, p.
169). Fuller was against the accumulation of "material wealth",
which he believed to be self-serving and Malthusian. He argued for the
dominance of "real" wealth, defined as "organized human
capability and know-how to employ planetary assets and energy to provide
protection, comfort, nurturing, developmental opportunities minimum restraints,
and an increasing range and depth of experience for human lives" (p.
199). We should seek these outcomes because, as Fuller experimentally
demonstrated, that although there is nothing in our human experiences that shows
when there is not enough to go around, it is logical to expect humans to fight
to the death, because they are going to die anyway. There is however logic in
thinking that when there is enough to go around humans will not even think of
fighting.
Once it became clear that the
minimum coordinate system of the universe was tetrahedral, the natural systems
perspective was quickly adapted to the design science of social work. It
served as a common conceptual framework to organize the different, but
interconnected components of social work into a minimum of four interbondable
models:
The Domain of Practice component conceptually objectified the
person-in-environment, social assignment domain of social work. The broadbased
generalist-specialist paradigm of the profession was conceptually presented by
the Paradigm of the Professional component. The framework for developing and
understanding the disciplined use of self as a professional “tool” was
conceptualized by the Domain of Practitioner component. And, the common
structure and systematic process of the general scientific method of social
work that had to accommodate a broad range of intervention modes was
conceptualized by the Methods of Practice component.
This component was introduced
to the profession after remarkable transitions had occurred in society from the
time the profession first emerged just before the turn of the 20th century. At
that time, people lived in a society where 90% resided in rural settings and
grew their own food, a good standard of living was limited to the privileged
few, and life expectancy was not high (Fuller and Dil, 1983). By the 1980s,
over half of all humanity enjoyed a standard of living superior to any group in
1900, life expectancies had doubled, and most of the rural dwellers had moved
into towns and cities, hoping for employment and a better life. The urban
settings were not equipped to meet these needs. During the last two decades of
the century, a further transition occurred. Big cities, instead of being
centers for the production, marketing and distribution of physical goods, were
transforming into centers for metaphysical exchanges of knowledge and
ideas. Physical production was moving outside the cities. Our society had
"entered upon the greatest revolution in the history of humanity"
(Fuller and Dil, 1983, p. 212). Society, on a global basis, was going to
experience a bloody revolution in which everybody would lose, or it was going
to experience a "technological design science-revolution" in which
all humanity (not just 50%) would be elevated to higher standards of living
than any had ever experienced before. People, world around, were beginning to
fully comprehend that "the function of mankind is to think, to discover
and use principles. . . . [and] to serve as local universe information
harvesters and a local universe problem solvers" (Fuller and Dil, p.
212-213) to help maintain the "integrity of eternal regeneration of the
universe" (p. 220).
The Domain of Practice component was
developed out of the above-described context as a guide for social work in its
central area of concern: the person-in-environment (PIE) interactions among
people, singly or in groups. Charlotte Towle was one of the pioneers in social
work who recognized the kinds of common human needs that are or form part of
the essential elements of the PIE interactions among people. These are physical
welfare, opportunity for emotional and intellectual growth, relationships with
others, and provisions for spiritual need (Johnson, 1986, p. 9). The structure
of the Domain of Practice component was developed primarily from the minimum structure
requirements of a natural system, but incorporated general systems
characteristics and the adaptive fit focus of the ecological perspective. Use
of the model helped social workers learn to visualize, understand, and assess
the person-in-environment social assignment domain of the profession
synergetically (the study of whole behaviors/experiences), instead of
energetically (the study of differentiated behaviors/experiences). Social
workers were finally able to "see" that the central focus of their work
was on a complex pattern of linear and non-linear interrelationships between
people and their environmental surroundings. Social work was a
relationship-centered design science-profession.
Person-in-environment elements and their
transactional interrelationships can be depicted as an identifiable whole
system, which has the minimum elements (4) and interrelationships (6) of a
natural whole system. For the system to be "alive", each element must
have the capacity to be aware of its other parts/elements. The otherness
characteristics of the model are conceptually defined as two kinds: single
otherness, which refers to the person-side of the systems and plural otherness,
which refers to the environment-side (both physical and metaphysical) of the
system.
"Single otherness" or self system
in the model includes several different size units - individual or a group of
people, in a family, community, organization, nation-state or global village -
depending on the scale of the self system being studied, observed or worked
with. This concept was initially identified in social work as the
"particularization of the individual" in which social caseworkers
were to deal with the normal life and activities and their deviations with
reference to individual functioning (Milford Conference, 1929, p. 20). This
concept has been elaborated in this model to mean the particularization of
different size self-systems. Single otherness systems have awareness of their
own presence (which means that an individual, for example, is part of his own
environment) as well as awareness of other environmental surroundings/demands.
Individual life, singly or in a group, is supported at two levels: physical and
metaphysical. Physical includes all that is experienced through the senses and
coordinated through the brain. The brain, made up of physical atoms and
molecules, operates entirely inside the physical skull to coordinate
"information that is being fed in from the outside the skull by the senses
- smelling, touching, hearing and seeing" (Fuller and Dil, 1983, p. 71).
Metaphysical includes only what is experienced cognitively and is processed
through the mind. Minds are entirely metaphysical and "from time to
time, discover relationships . . . that cannot be smelled, touched, seen or
heard" (p. 71). Only the mind is capable of finding the true
interrelationships of our experiences. Individual human development over the
course of a life cycle structurally includes the interrelationships between
four single otherness components: physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual.
Contacts with and between elements in the PIE
system are physical; the cognitive focus on transactional patterns within or
between systems is metaphysical. Self-units can tune-in to inside
self-information or tune-out (not the same as tune-off) to outside
self-information with their singular or collective senses of sight, touch,
smell and hearing. The individual/group meanings and relationships attached to
what they sense is a function of the mind(s) and its stored memory bank of all
past and present experiences.
Plural otherness in the component includes
all the environments of the self-system. The environment elements of a
self-system are plural and always different from that of the next moment and
from that of every other self-systems. Environments can be semi-similar and
overlapping for a person or group of persons, but never identical. Plural
otherness and single otherness combine to form a whole system that also can
tune-in to its inside information or tune-out to other domain of practice PIE
systems. The plural otherness experiences of central concern to social work in
this model are three essential environment elements: validator otherness,
resource otherness and personal otherness.
The "validator otherness" element
defines multisource system values, beliefs, ideologies, customs, traditions,
norms, laws, policies and procedures that are strong enough to regulate,
control, socialize, shape or otherwise validate the behavior and responses of
the other elements. The concept validator comes from the word valid, which
means something that can be based on evidence that is supported, accepted and
convincing. A validator then is something that validates, ratifies or confirms.
The early identification of norms, in The Milford Conference Report, as an
important component of the philosophy of social case work is now integrated as
one of the four core elements of the domain of practice.
Widespread allegiance to national laws,
cultural customs, religious doctrines or family and organizational rules are
examples of centralized validators that members of these societal structures
have agreed to follow. Doctrines of free speech, assembly and worship are
examples of more flexible, decentralized validators that allow for diversified
and controversial exchanges among members of a societal system. This element
anchors all of the interdependent experiences in a societal system, yet it was
an ignored component of the domain framework for many years. In NASW's
second issue on conceptual frameworks, Souflee (1981, p. 90), a social worker
in a
The "personal otherness" element
defines informal social support experiences that are intimately or closely
related to a self-system. The concept of personal comes from the word person
and is an adjective that pertains to or concerns a particular person. Personal
otherness refers to those special relationships that belong to, or are defined
as part of a single otherness self system. When entities from these two
elements are joined, they form primary interrelationships of emotional and
personal support grounded in common values, interests, goals or
aspirations. Spousal and intimate friend relationships, family and kin
networks, community twinning, and international treaties between nations with
common interests, geographic, economic, political or others, are examples of
personal otherness relationships among different sized self systems.
The "resource otherness" element
defines a wide range of formal and informal socioeconomic support
opportunities, resources and services that can sustain, enhance or impede
growth and development in different size self and personal other systems. The
concept resource refers to those experiences which can be resorted to for aid
or support, or something that can be drawn on. The community resources
factor described in the Milford Conference Report recognized the importance of
including this concept as a core component of human life and human
relationships. In the domain of practice component, they include all of the
society-wide institutional structures that should be in place that will
maximize the social welfare and social development potential of all biological
and socially organized systems. Friends, acquaintances, neighborhood networks,
mutual-aid and social support services, economic resources, political
institutions, social welfare programs and a host of other society sanctioned,
government and non-government, resource systems are examples of different types
of resource otherness that constitute part of the environment of self and
personal other elements. Renewable and nonrenewable natural resources are
included as part of the resources otherness element.
The structure of the Domain of Practice
provides a systemic way for a social worker to focus on, understand, and assess
the interdependent transactional patterns of any PIE life system both before
and after a particular method of intervention is selected. Social workers using
this model to guide their work must be educationally prepared to focus on a
minimum of six different transactional interrelationship patterns between four
essential system elements. In fact, the natural systems discovery of Fuller led
him to discover a simple equation, r = (n2 - n)/2 - where n equals the number
of experiences and r the minimum number of relationships (Fuller, 1969, p.
73). Social workers have been using the equation ever since they learned
to use it for identifying the minimum number of relationships in a life system
according to any sum of quantifiable experiences. Once the relationships were
quantitatively identified, social workers have been better able to help the
people they serve assess them in terms of the quality of their strengths and
weaknesses and to rank order them in terms of priorities. The profession of
social work was assigned the responsibility of understanding a wide range of
possible professional activities in situations where one or more
interrelationships between self-system coping patterns and environmental
demands had impaired the ability of these system units to successfully function
as interdependent members of their society. This component provided the focal
point for social workers to conceptually understand that they are assigned to
do work in a person-in-environment context. It also clarified for them that the
central focus of their profession, as
Regardless of how a
profession is legitimated in our society, the hallmark of any profession is
practice. This means the ability to do something with a high degree of skill in
a context that requires practitioners always to be above self-interest motives,
and at all times to have the welfare of his/her clients and others that they
serve as their primary interest. The importance of practice to a profession can
be best understood by making a distinction between the concepts of praxis and
practice. "Praxis is what everybody knows how to do and does in a society.
Practice consists of a special system of actions unique to and institutionally
vested in a professional role; it occurs when social behavior is drawn from the
general behavior or the society and segregated into a professional preserve
(Rein and White, 1981, p. 4). Although a lot of social work centers around some
fairly common praxis activities, social workers are expected to have practice
knowledge about human development processes, institutional resource systems,
enabling and social control features of social policy and legislation, and
individual and social reform intervention techniques. The profession's
knowledge for practice is expected to be internally consistent with change
theories that direct the differential application of roles and skills by
competent practitioners, who act under the guidance of a codified set of values
and ethics. Professional knowledge is not discovered outside the profession by
context-free knowledge creating scholars and scientists; instead, it is
contained in practice, although much of it is unrealized and unarticulated
(Martin & White, p. 35). Bringing the knowledge of practice to the surface
is the function of systematic studies that can produce generalized information
and problem-solving results, available for use in unique human situations.
Professions in general receive societal sanctions for practitioners to operate
through some combination of completing a prescribed program of studies; proving
a minimum level of competence in an examination(s); meeting the regulatory
requirements of state registration, licensing or certification; or adhering to
employment expectations by government or non-government organizations
authorized to offer certain services. In addition professions are generally
organized into some form of professional organization for the purpose of
increasing the level of individual practitioner performance, ensuring a minimum
public service standard of competence by practitioners, and to protect the
members right to practice their profession. Professions generally include
different levels of practice from the general practitioner to the advanced
specialist, all of who seek the right from society to practice autonomously and
to have the means to be self-regulated. In some professions the rights of
professional autonomy are not fully awarded and its professional members must function
under some form of bureaucratic control. The culture of a profession is steeped
in values that control the feelings and actions of practitioners toward their
clients and others. The value base of the profession is formalized into an
ethical code - a statement of what professionals ought to do when they enter
the life system of another person for the purpose of offering a professional
service. The value base is many ways like a "calling" for social
workers; it gives them the motivation to keep the moral and humane wellsprings
of their work alive and active. It helps them visualize a whole picture that is
larger than themselves to which they can contribute in their own individual
way. As Gustafson (1982) so aptly said, "a 'calling' without
professionalization is bumbling, ineffective, and even dangerous. A profession
with out a calling, however has no taps of moral and humane rootage to keep
motivation alive, to keep human sensitivities and sensibilities alert, and to
nourish a proper sense of self-fulfillment" (p. 514). In social work, the
presence of organized bodies of knowledge, regulatory requirements for
practice, organized professional associations, comprehensive codes of ethics
and a sense of calling did not provide the profession with a common framework
for accommodating the range and depth of practice among its members.
The development of the professional model was
an attempt to identify a framework - a new paradigm- that was conceptually
different from the traditional method paradigm, but similar to the PIE domain
model in its ability to organize the whole of social work's practice activities
in a systemic way. The professional model provided social workers with the
ability to do what Rein and White recommended in the 1980s, and that is to "enlarge
the notion of context to include not only the client's situation but the agency
itself and more broadly the institutional setting of practice" (p. 37).
Ramsay's common conceptual model provided a paradigm for different specialty
and occupational interests in social work to be interconnected as a unified
whole for the purpose of meeting the social assignment responsibilities of the
profession. A natural systems perspective was used to identify the broad-base
of social work and the range of generalist-specialist approaches that are used
by social workers when dealing with complex dependency problems in a PIE life
system. The specific constructs for a comprehensive common whole model were
first introduced by Pincus and Minahan (1973), who established a set of
criteria that would account for the paradigm similarities in the knowledge,
values and skills of traditional method models. Their criteria is
summarized below:
Based on these criteria, they introduced the beginnings of a PIE model, but
never advanced the model beyond identifying the central experiences (informal,
formal and societal) of a resources element, and the goal seeking outcome
experiences of the self-element (life tasks, life aspirations and alleviation
of distress). Their major contribution was toward the establishment of a unifying
professional practice paradigm for all social workers. The structural elements
of a tetrahedral system, although not identified as such, were classified and
divided into four subsystems: change agent, client, target and action.
The "change agent system" concept
came from our general knowledge that every citizen is a change-agent of society
because every citizen makes a difference to the society in which he/she
participates (Halmos, 1978, p. 19). Social work involves those citizens who are
specifically prepared and have societal assigned responsibilities to change
either systemic situations in societies at large, or the personalities of
individuals, one by one. When the systemic and individual change
responsibilities were polarized in social work and forced to face each they
were frequently judged to distinctly different and ideologically incompatible.
Halmos argued that they did not have to be seen in conflict, but instead in
equilibration because the co-presence of disparities is common place in nature.
His greatest concern was to prevent advocates of equilibration from trying to
"hybridize" or "fuse" systemic and individual change
strategies into one.
The change-agent element in the paradigm of
the profession component was adopted from earlier work on planned change
(Lippit, Watson & Westley,1958). Social workers were seen as dual-purpose
change agents in the human service professions, who were sanctioned to deal
with social functioning dependency issues and to provide planned change
interventions for the betterment of social functioning. Although social workers
work perform a variety of roles and work in wide ranging person-in-environment
situations and have obtained considerable changes in the direction of
professional autonomy and self-regulatory status, there have been few changes
in the organizational settings of their work, over the years. Not unlike the
social caseworkers of the 1920s, social workers still are primarily employees
of organized programs and services, although self-employed private practitioners
have increased substantially, in several parts/elements of
"Client system", also, adapted from
Lippit et al was originally used to identify any expected beneficiary of
services from a change agent. Pincus and Minahan defined beneficiary more
narrowly to mean client systems of different sizes and types that ask for or
need some kind of social functioning assistance and engage (or, are engaged by)
a social worker by way of an explicit contract or agreement. Clients according
to Pincus and Minahan could be classified by a practitioner, depending on the
presence or absence of an explicit contract, as "real" or
"potential" clients regardless of the formal status they are given by
the employing organization. Depending on the contractual state, the
information-problem solving exchanges occurring between social workers and
their clients may be conducted in a relationship context of collaboration,
negotiation or conflict.
The "target system" element was
adopted from other works. These works identified specific entities - singly or
collectively - that required some form of influence/persuasion to move or act
in a certain way if the goals of the social work helping agreement were to be
achieved (Burns & Glasser, 1963; Kramer & Specht, 1969, and Brager,
1968). This system also identifies some of the non-client specialty interests
of social work. Concerned families, for example, may need specialized
persuasion and support to foster homeless children. A community resource may
require the influence of a social worker highly skilled in advocacy strategies
for it to be convinced of the need to cease identified discriminatory
practices. The employing organization of a social worker may need the
persuasion of social policy and planning expertise to change outdated program
policies.
The "action system" element was
borrowed from
Pincus and Minahan used the general systems
perspective in a non-specific way as an organizing framework for their generic
practice model. Their model helped social workers of the 1970s and 80s
recognize that people who ask for (or are assigned to receive) help with social
functioning problems are not necessarily the major focus of attention. It
helped practitioners realize that the size and type of helping system cannot be
predetermined. It helped them understand the purpose of social change
activities, including those directed at the change agent system; and learn how
to choose different relationship stances, roles, functions, and tasks that were
beneficial at a practical level. Their model was limited because it was not
based on a coordinate system that could organize the subsystem elements of the
model into a systemic whole or constellation of interconnected elements.
The common whole model eliminated this limitation by specifically using a
natural systems artifact as the organizing framework for their practice model.
Each element has its own zones of relevancy (clear, possible and none) to help
social workers assess the need for, and their own ability to, provide
generalist-specialist, client-non client and/or direct-indirect services. In
developing the Common Whole of Social Work model, Ramsay used the tetrahedral
framework to show the flexible single bonding relationship between PIE systems
of the Domain of Practice and different practice approaches of the Professional
Model. The flexibility of single bonding illustrates how the primary
focus of the social worker can be changed or rotated depending on the
person-in-environment experiences to be worked with and the change agent roles
adopted and the practice approaches selected by the social worker. At no time
is the social worker in danger of hybridizing the unifying purpose
responsibilities of his/her profession. A bond at the client/self vertexes
depicts the action of the social worker engaging with others to provide direct
client services, like casework, group work or community work, to a specified
unit size such as an individual, family, or community group. Each time the
social worker changes his/her interrelationship focus or changes the unit of
attention to a different part of the PIE system, the intersystem connections are
rotated to reflect the change in role, function or relationship stance that
might be required. When the bonding rotation shifts to the target/resource
vertexes this depicts a shift that changes direct client service work by the
social worker change agent to indirect functions. This includes functions like
advocating policy changes or providing requested information to a needed
resource system such as self-help membership group or a statutory social
welfare service. The variations in the bonding links can be used to model how
social workers can provide a client with individual change oriented counseling
services during one time period and in a different time period engage in
environmental change activities to provide better opportunities, resources or
services for the same client.
Like the Domain of Practice, social workers
that used the Paradigm of the Profession component quickly learned to work in
the enlarged context of their profession. They are now quick to recognize,
understand and focus on a minimum of six different linear-nonlinear
interrelationship possibilities of professional practice. They accepted
that the range of practice roles expected of professional social workers may
require them to engage in functional tasks and activities associated with any
of the four practice elements. Generalist social workers would have to
work with and between all of the system elements. A generalist worker might
begin his/her day providing direct casework services to a family client system,
followed by lobbying a political resource for better neighborhood housing on
behalf of the client. They then finish the day consulting with a single
parenting mutual-aid support group who are preparing a brief to city council on
needed improvements in day-care services. Specialist practitioners, on the
other hand, learned to concentrate their values, knowledge and skills more
narrowly into roles and practice abilities associated with one subsystem, for
example, a clinician, social planner, policy developer, community organizer, administrator,
researcher, staff developer, supervisor, and so on. Together, these two
components gave social workers the ability to obtain "whole picture"
information on systemic interrelationships and to answer questions about what
would make a better functioning PIE system or which practice
alternatives/options might be preferred to bring about a better social
functioning pattern in the PIE system. These components did not provide answers
for social workers in how to conduct themselves in the intervention processes
of a selected method of practice.
Like the clients and others
that social workers work with in the Domain of Practice, the practitioners,
individually or in teams, have their own person-in-environment interactions
that affect their professional use of self in practice situations. In addition
to dealing with the whole system nature of the social units they are working
with, social workers must have a whole system awareness of their own
person-in-environment elements. The professional use of self in practice places
a high demand on social workers to be able to rise above their own personal
needs and give priority to the needs of others. The ability to use themselves
in the dynamics of the intervention is considered a major tool in the helping
endeavor. By using a practitioner component version of Domain of
Practice, the social worker is quickly able to identify self issues, validator
other, personal other and resource other interrelationships that can strengthen
or inhibit his/her ability to work with the domain of clients and others. The
practitioner is also able to work through the method processes in a mutually
respective interchange.
To provide general guidance
in the systematic methods of professional practice, Ramsay used the tetrahedral
framework to develop a Methods of Practice component as a foundation method
guide for all practice. Dating back to the earliest forms of charity
organization methods, Flexner's allegations that social work was not a full
fledged profession because it lacked a communicable technique, and Richmond's
two publications, Social Diagnosis and What is Social Casework?, social work's
search for a professional identity has been dominated by method speciality
approaches to practice. At varying times during the last century, method has
been defined in some form as an orderly systematic set of procedures for
attaining an object or goal. More specifically, method in the scientific sense,
is defined as a way of "gaining knowledge whereby hypotheses are tested
(instrumentally or experimentally) by reference to experience ('data') that is
potentially public, or open to repetition (confirmation or refutation) by
peers" (Wilber, 1984, p. 13). Method has also been referred to as the
"how to do it" part of social work, the all important purposeful,
planned process through which practical tasks and activities are reciprocally
accomplished between client and social worker and most important case specific
goals are achieved. Method has predominantly been seen as providing the primary
framework for social workers to put their knowledge, values, and skills of
social work into action. Apart from being divided into separate and distinct
kinds of methods, namely the traditional methods of social casework, social
group work, and community organization,
Ramsay's method component was an attempt to
find a systematic organizing framework that was experientially grounded that
could be interconnected with the other three components. His criteria for a
unifying framework required a model that provided the profession with the
necessary infrastructures to apply its knowledge, values, and skills
systemically as well as systematically. It had to account for both the physical
and metaphysical work that social workers do with separate person-environment
entities, between interrelationships, and amongst holistic patterns of
interrelationships. Nature's fundamental coordinate system was selected because
it met these criteria. When the three upright faces of a tetrahedron are
laid down flat, they form a two- dimensional four triangle geometrical
structure. The triangle elements of this structure can be rearranged to form a
systematic model that has either three or four visible phases aligned in
sequence. A three-phase model requires a simple folding of the top triangle
element on to its mirror image below. A four-phase model requires the top
triangle to be flipped to the right and located at the end of the third
element. These method elements are then used to provide a process frame for a
systematic sequence of intra- and intersystem transactions between a social
worker(s) and others that moves through space and time toward a desired
problem-solving/solution outcome. The triangular elements in the Methods
component represent the general nature of the systematic focus in each phase of
the process. Each phase will have a combination of "open" and
"closed" focus tasks and responsibilities that must be accomplished in
some order depending on the selected method or modality of practice being used.
The models are designed to accommodate a pluralistic knowledge base, a variety
of scientific theories, different scientific methodologies, and a range of
intuitive and empirically grounded or evidence-based intervention skills.
The structural elements of a three-phase
model are divided into the phases of Engagement, Assessment and Intervention.
Each phase requires the accomplishment of two major focus tasks and operational
responsibilities: connect and localize; expand and compress; individualize and
disconnect. Related to other clinical-like method models, these focus tasks
cover the full range of tuning-in, establishing rapport, initial contracting,
starting-where-the-client-is-at, identifying problems/themes of concern, rank
ordering priorities, partializing problems, data collecting, exploring for
clarity, social history taking, analyzing data, assessing, summarizing,
planning, individualizing, specializing, terminating, evaluating, referring and
follow-up. In the four-phase component, Evaluation is identified as a
separate phase. The major focus tasks and operational responsibilities are:
review and conclude. These tasks cover the activities of outcome evaluation,
process and role reviews, follow-up, formal descriptive or explanatory studies,
analysis and conclusions, reporting and generalizing. The process phases of
other major methods in social work - social group work and community
organization - are easily accommodated in either a three-phase or a four-phase
general method component.
For social workers interested in research,
and who wanted to reinforce our historical ties to a scientific base, or who
wanted to combine practice and research in a contemporary
practitioner-researcher model, a revised model with three different phase names
was depicted: Proposal, Methodology, and Results. The focus tasks and
operational responsibilities were review and identify; collect and analyze;
generalize and report. These six (6) tasks correspond quite closely to the nine
(9) steps in Polansky's paradigm of scientific methodology. A researchable
problem is identified (conceptualization), the logic by which conclusions will
be drawn (study design) is determined. The potential subjects are identified
(sampling design), instruments for data collection are borrowed or created
(method of data collection), data is collected (study execution), and data is
analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively (analysis of results). The results are
then compared with the problem that was identified (conclusions), larger
implications are inferred (generalizations), and the study is summarized into a
report (dissemination) (Skidmore, 1988, p. 134). This model incorporates
previously reported procedural requirements of science dealing with
observation, measurement, theory, and division of labor and scope, and the
generic practitioner/researcher problem-solving phases of problem
identification, generation of alternatives and selection of strategies for
problem solution, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of findings
(Grinnell, 1988, p.16).
Although, field education has long been an
integral part of social work education, there have been few attempts to
understand both the systemic and systematic components of this experience in a
student's education. In the 1980s, Schneck was one of the first to intuitively
design a holistic model of integrated field education that was linked to
tetrahedral principles (1987, pp 6-8). His model was based on five principles:
synchrony, harmony, congruence, continguity, and reciprocity (the mutuality of
experiential exchanges between the other four). Based on these principles, he
designed a systemic model incorporating the major content components in the
field experience: ideological, conceptual, emotional, and behavioral, with
individual/group teaching learning activities suggested for the integration of
learning (p. 8). The content requirements of field education were achieved over
four major process stages: integration/engagement, problem solving,
intervention/change, and stabilization/disengagement. The similarities of these
two models to nature's tetrahedral coordinate system are obvious and
compelling.
The systemic depiction of the practice,
professional and practitioner components can be overlaid on the systematic
depiction of the method component to illustrate the intersystem bonding of the
four components, and to graphically portray the coexistence of both the
systemic and systematic in social work practice. The social worker and
client (or others) are located on separate spherical/elliptical pathways that
represent the nature of their converging-diverging interrelationships over time
and at various points in the method process. The transactional problem-solving
exchanges of these four components ordinarily requires the presence of two or
more persons and their respective pluralistic environments that can come
together in a variety of unit sizes, and be involved in a range of role
experiences for social functioning purposes. Ordinarily, at the point of
contact, the PIE constellation pathway is in some type of alleged or thought to
be dysfunctioning state and the assistance of a social worker is voluntarily
sought or requested from some sort of referral resource in the client's life
system. The process is activated by the quality of the worker-client
relationship exchanges between each other that produces a forward or backward
movement in the method framework that is perpendicular to the axis of their
relationship. In this way, the joint problem-solving efforts of the social
worker and the client will generate synergic progress (whole systems outcomes
unpredicted by the behavior of any of their parts before they come together,
and which could not be accomplished by any of the parts separately) toward a
desired outcome. The social worker's pathway is expected to be on the
"upswing" and in a positive functioning state in an effort to quickly
and effectively engage the two pathways in a mutually acceptable relationship.
The functional pathways are spherical lines that become interdependently linked
until their purpose for being together ends. At the point of termination, a
converse relationship should be present. The life system circumstances of the
client should be functionally on the "upswing" representing a
function state that is separating from the social worker and moving
successfully into sustainable interdependent relationships within their own
life system. The social worker’s function should be on the "down
swing", allowing separation from the client, and moving away from active
involvement in the client's life system. In a dysfunctional sense, the social
worker may experience termination anxieties, exhaustion and/or burnout from one
or a combination of work responsibilities. Practice inside each model is guided
by the social worker's adherence to the acknowledged purpose, focus, sanctions,
values, ethics, functions, methods, roles, specialty techniques and
interpersonal communication skills of the profession.
It was Ramsay's belief that a
framework that included all four components would provide the best training for
an effective social worker. He recognized that a common organizing framework
must be broad and comprehensive, and the time necessary to teach the details of
an unifying conceptual framework would limit the time available to deal with
students' interest in different theories and specialized methods of practice.
To minimize this problem, social work education curricula adopted the tetrahedral
system as their common conceptual framework and made instruction about the
framework an introductory course requirement for all students. This paved the
way for students to concentrate in other courses on scientific theories, unique
methods and the scientific basis of research in social work. The important
point that Ramsay seemed to be making was that with a sound knowledge and
understanding of a common organizing framework, every social worker, whether
they chose to be a generalist or specialist, would have the ability to see
dependency problems from similar systemic and systematic perspectives. Such an
approach would, therefore, remove the blinders that have historically prevented
practitioners from seeing social work in its entirety. In addition, it would
provide the profession with the much-needed unified identity that it spent most
of the last century searching for.
So there you have it . . .
Changing Social Contexts: Many other changes
were ongoing within the profession that led all members on a world scale to
ultimately accept that nature's fundamental coordinate system was as common to
our profession as it was to every other discipline and profession. As mentioned
earlier, the integration in
Regulatory Developments: Efforts in
Without going into one of the Codes in its
entirety, let me give you an example to illustrate my point about the need for
an interdependent approach. One of the standards declares that a social
worker must be competent in the performance of the services and functions
undertaken on behalf of the client. The commentary for this standard
states that a social worker must recognize there are times when a client problem
is beyond his/her particular skill level to resolve. When one views a
client system in the context of the natural systems model, it becomes more
readily apparent when this occurs. In addition, when social workers are
trained to see all problems from a systems perspective and are able to
recognize the complexity of the professional domain, they are less likely to be
threatened by other professionals impinging on their
"territory." This, after all, is what a system is . . .
the combining of all efforts toward an effective resolution. This is synergy in
action. The commentary under the same standard goes on to state that a social
worker must have:
. . . knowledge and
understanding of human development and functioning, cultural and environmental
factors affecting human life and the patterns of social interactions
contributing to the interdependence of human behavior (CASW Code of Ethics,
1983). Once again, the emphasis is on interdependence. The authors of the Code
were not seeing person and environment as polarized entities, but as mutually
interdependent.
Let's pause for a moment and take a closer look at some of the characteristics
of the social work profession. This should further illustrate some of the
lessons of our history and point to why the acceptance of the empirically
grounded natural systems perspective gave social work the common conceptual
framework it had been searching for:
Value Base: The value base of
social work is two fold. Social workers believe in the integrity and well being
of all individuals in society and adhere to basic beliefs of equality for all.
Secondly, social workers believe that society, as a whole, has an obligation to
respect the inherent dignity of individuals through the provision of
opportunities, resources and services to promote the same. The
instrumental values required to manifest these basic values were classified by
Biestek (1957) into: individualization, recognition of individual need to
express feelings, controlled emotional involvement, acceptance, non-judgmental
attitude, client self-determination, and confidentiality (p.17). Pincus and
Minahan (1973) dedicated a whole chapter to the differentiation between primary
and instrumental values, and knowledge. We all recognize how easily the two can
be confused which can often bring the process of problem solving to its knees.
When social workers were able to "eye the interrelationships" within
their own societal life system, with knowledge being one of their resource
otherness, it became much easier for them to "see" the clear
difference between values (part of their validator otherness) and knowledge
they possessed.
Consider another aspect of values. As we are all aware, the social worker is
often faced with clients who, for whatever reason, have touched a sensitive
nerve in our belief system. Perhaps you might have a personal issue with
rape or child molesting, for example. In such a case, it is essential to see
the individual within a larger systems framework and to recognize how
interrelationships within that person's own PIE system could have been
dysfunctional, thereby contributing to the present problem. In essence, the
natural systems model gives us a way of adhering to the basic beliefs about
human integrity that led us to social work initially. There is, on the other
hand, potential for a social worker who is pursuing a narrow specialist
approach to ignore the basic values of social work; specialists run the risk of
"tunnel vision", which may tend to weaken their adherence to the basic
values of the profession.
Purpose: The purpose of social work
follows naturally from its value base, addressing the need for both individual
and social change. The CASW Code of Ethics, for example, clearly states
that change goals must be for the benefit of both. Once again, we see that the
individual and society are not viewed in isolation; they are recognized as
interdependent, each acting and reacting with the other. How could one possibly
see how and where this interdependence occurs without have a broad systems
perspective? As the natural systems perspective indicates, with its
person-in-environment Domain of Practice, social work is a broad orientation
profession. So, a common whole practice framework is important to all workers
whether they remain "generalists" or become "specialists"
in their social work careers. In either case, the natural systems framework
gives them a starting point. Both generalists and specialists must be
aware of all the interrelationships in their client's life as well as all the
relationships their own life. They also need to remain cognizant of their
professional paradigm and how it frames an awareness of how their practice
options are conducted in relation to other elements of the common whole
framework.
Sanctions of Practice: When we review the
spectrum of how the practice of social work is sanctioned, we are immediately
struck by the need for flexible pathways toward desired goals and outcomes. In
spite of voluntary self-regulatory legislation being in place since the 1960s,
most social workers in
Now that we have reviewed some of the
internal characteristics of our profession which led us to natural systems as
our conceptual framework, let's turn for moment to some of the outside/external
factors in our own country that affected our choice of a common organizing
framework.
Political and Economic Environments:
Disparity and diversity are the two words that best describe the external
factors which contributed to our choice of a natural systems framework. Drover
(1984) documented this and described the prevalence of disparity and diversity
in
Crisis in the Welfare State: As
political ideologies of the 1980s moved in the direction of neo-conservatism,
the Welfare State was criticized for depending too heavily on government and
society in general. It was, therefore, not surprising to see major cutbacks in
both federal and provincial funding of social welfare programs at the first
hint of a fiscal crisis at both federal and provincial levels. The resulting
nation-wide restraints on social welfare expenditures brought to fore the need
to find creative and flexible means to approach mounting social problems.
Earlier in this presentation, I introduced the concept of synergy . . . summing
the strengths of linked parts and getting more strength than the sum of the
parts, or in other words how to get more for less. You can imagine, therefore,
how the natural systems framework came to the aid of the Canadian welfare state
during those years of cutback management. It is interesting, but not
surprising, that it took this fiscal crisis before natural systems began to
receive the recognition it deserved. Kuhn, way back in the 1960s, discovered
that a crisis "requires a discipline to dismantle the existing model of
activities and to replace it with another" (Franklin, 1986; Kuhn, 1970).
Others both before and after him reflected similar views. John Stuart Mill, a
well-known philosopher and economist in the 19th century said, "no great
improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes
place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought."
Betty Bumpers, founder of Peace Links in 1988, conveyed the same message. She
said, "we have to develop a new way of thinking, appreciating our differences,
and working out ways to live with each other. We must re-structure our
way of thinking and learn to co-exist or we will die together." These
messages all referred to the need for a major paradigm shift. Even more
interesting is that Fuller, who as we know discovered nature's coordinate
system, once said that every consideration of his inventions and developments
by others occurred in emergencies (1969, p. 335). If he could speak to us
today, he would undoubtedly tell us that humankind's innate mind capacity to
problem-solve worked to prevent the destruction of the society's welfare system
. . . his concept of antientropy in action.
The Welfare State was in crisis in more ways
than one. Drover, then President of CASW and two of his Executive Committee
members, secretary Ramsay and past president Gayle James, presented a CASW
brief to the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects
for
All of the factors I have
reviewed for you were extremely influential in the birth of the natural systems
organizing framework, as we know it today. Its introduction did not mean the
demise of specializations, but it did mean that every social worker was first a
social worker . . . everybody worked from a common conceptual framework.
The common whole framework and its tetrahedral models first took shape for me
when I did my undergraduate practicum at a shelter for battered women. I was
there to assist women with their relationships and I was able to use the
systems models to clearly visualize all of the interrelationships involved.
With the Domain of Practice component, I was able to recognize how the values
that these women held were instrumental in convincing them to remain in
destructive relationships. Their personal otherness experiences almost always
involved the abusive mate. Assisting a woman to mend or break this
relationship was rarely easy. However, if I hadn’t had a model that
helped me visualized the complexity of her interrelationships, my efforts would
have been almost pointless. Resource opportunities and services for these women
were scarce, but through the use of the common whole components, I was able to
better understand and find the ways to best tap the resources that did exist. I
even began to carry with me a homemade construction of a tetrahedron made out
of knitting needles and rubber balls. When I could show the women, by simply
disconnecting one or two of the supporting needles of the structure, how the
rest of the system became less stable, they were better able to understand the
dynamics of their relationship-centered crises.
The Paradigm of the Profession component
allowed me to keep my finger on the pulse of progress of each individual and
family system that I worked with. I was able to make decisions about who had to
be targeted in order to achieve the best results for my clients. This made my
heavy caseload much more manageable. To this day, I cannot recall any real
disadvantage to the use of the common whole model in that particular practicum
setting.
Widespread acceptance of the natural systems
grounded common whole of social work framework has been a long, hard and slow
process; social workers respond to new developments with the same degree of
hesitancy and caution as ordinary citizens. For a long time many colleague
social workers believed that systems theories (GST and ecological systems in
the beginning) were too idealistic, that they didn't address the practical
day-to-day issues of social work. To this criticism, I ask you to review some
of Fuller's original concepts and his urging that we accept ambiguity while
searching for the truth. How can anyone define what is "too
idealistic" when Fuller and others have shown that "life continually
alters the environment and the altered environment in turn alters the
potentials, realities, and challenges of life" (Fuller, 1981, p. 130).
Fuller's concept of precession also presents a good argument against the cries
of idealism. Precession refers to the "integrated effect of bodies in
motion upon other bodies in motion" (cited in Ramsay, 1984, p. 15). His
concept of synergy (or ephemeralization - doing more for less) illustrates how
a combination of experiences can turn out far stronger than their
combined/summed strengths. The old axiom that a chain is only as strong as its
weakest link was proven to be wrong and very misleading. We now know that a
when the parts of a chain, for example, the separate tensile strength of iron,
chromium, nickel and other minor constituent parts in the chrome-nickel-steel
used in jet engines) are summed, the total is far less than the actual strength
of the whole system. Whatever you call the affect, precession or synergy, the
end result is more for less. Can we really claim the practical outcomes of
these combinations, idealistic? I call it foolish to ignore empirically
proven systems generalizations. Our practice experiences reinforce these
truths. We know that results achieved by working through the natural systems
perspective can be far more profound than initially anticipated and it is not
until systems experiences are combined that one can even begin to predict what
the outcome might be.
Another argument against the use of systems
models was that they were too general and abstract, lacking specific guides for
intervention. We now know the opposite to be true. Natural systems
frameworks demand the formation of such a detailed whole picture that we are
able to decide which interventions are appropriate for our clients. However, I
must admit that we haven't as yet produced a model that will tell the social
worker exactly what to do or how to do it. And, I not sure such a goal is worth
pursing. The argument that they are too abstract was also wrong. It would be
difficult to convince this audience who automatically have a mental picture of
the chemical bonding effect of one tetrahedron balanced gracefully joined with
another that these models are too abstract. Abstract these models are not!
One of the biggest slams against systems theories was their lack of
sensitivity to deal with destructive power differentials within society.
Cloward and Fox Piven said,
The systems theory approach invites social workers to view clients as
"interacting" with a variety of "systems" in which we
should ostensibly "intervene". We learn that inmates
"interact" with prisons; . . . that recipients "interact"
with welfare departments; . . . that slum and ghetto dwellers
"interact" with urban renewal authorities. But most clients do
not "interact" with these systems, they are oppressed by them (cited in
Carniol, 1987, p. 40).
It was also argued that systems theories were
not able to accommodate radical, fundamental change in society. Instead, we
were accused of changing only specific subsystems in our society, and only
those subsystems that would maintain the status quo. It was even suggested that
by teaching systems theories our schools of social work would just be
"turning out people who will be able to fit well into the social agencies
. . . [and be able] to carry out assignments with a minimum of conflict and
dissatisfaction" (Carniol, 1987, p. 32).
Well, no doubt these were
legitimate concerns, but . . . I wish the critics could see us now. We
did create fundamental changes in the political, social and economic structures
of our society and we did it with our common whole model grounded to a natural
system-organizing framework. We live in a society where economic planners and
social planners are no longer designing programs at the expense of the other.
The economic and social forces are in-sync for the first time in history. We
have moved away from the mind restricting social control policies of
"blind" punishment for all those who make mistakes. We have
discovered the growth limitations in the anti-mistake-making laws and customs
identified by Fuller in the last century (Fuller & Dil, 1983, pp. 129-130).
We are rapidly beginning to transcend the "blood clotting"
restrictive policies of sovereign nation-states and are finding ourselves being
integrated into one world pattern. We no longer think charitably of
underdeveloped nations that need help and superior rich ones that must help
them. We are well on the way of providing abundant life support and
accommodation for all humans, a world-around goal related exam, Fuller
predicted, midway through the last century, that had to be passed if our human
civilization was to survive into the twenty-first century. In fact, I would
hazard to say that these optimistic changes have occurred because of our
understanding and application of nature's fundamental coordinate system. The
combined efforts of all professions and scientific disciplines using their
discipline-relevant natural coordinate system models and design-science
technologies have allowed our society to identify and work with the human life
elements and human relationships that needed to be changed to create the
egalitarian society that we now live in. And, not surprisingly, after making
the necessary radical changes, we still live in a societal structure that
consists of four elements and six fundamental interrelationships - the
foundation basis of our natural systems framework.
In spite of our remarkable advances in the
last forty years, we cannot lose sight of the lessons from history. Like the
constant vigilance we have waged against the return of fatality guaranteed
epidemic diseases, we must prevent pockets of inadequacy from occurring that
would again incite people to the logic of fighting to the death. We must
continue to promote the logic of an egalitarian society and the benefits of
elevating the bottom and all others to the highest standard of living
world-around that humankind has ever experienced, in place of the bloodletting
illogic of pulling down the privileged few. We must not only learn from the
lessons of mistakes in our past, but also model after the examples set by our
predecessors. In spite of our somewhat troubled past, one of our past
presidents reminded us forty years ago of social work's many faces in Canada
(James,1986, pp. 410-411). It is the past dean of a school of social work and
the president of a provincial association of social workers representing
Canadian social workers before a House of Commons Select Committee. It is a
deputy minister social worker lobbying for alcohol consumption revenues to be
invested in the support of dependent spouses affected by the abuse of
alcohol. It is the military social worker bargaining with the commanding
officer for a sergeant and his family with a retarded child to be transferred,
on compassionate grounds, to an area with appropriate services for the child.
It is the social workers in northern
The natural systems framework took humankind
a long time to discover. Few people know that Fuller, convinced of his personal
unworthiness, stood on the
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