Overview of uses for of scientific theories for professional practice and for advancement of social work profession

1. Lesson 01 Use Theory for
Professional Purposes
From Forte’s Forte’s An Introduction to
Using Theory in Social Work Practice
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2. Social Workers Begin as
Generalists
 Generalist social workers
 can work with client systems of different sizes
 can enact a variety of roles
 can adapt to diverse practice settings including urban,
suburban, town, and rural environments
 can work in a variety of organizational settings
 can use a systematic planned change process
 can make use of a range of social science and practice
theories
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3. Theory and Generalist SW
 The use of sound and scientific
theoretical knowledge
 adds value to the generalist and specialist
social worker and to the profession
 and helps distinguish us from amateurs,
technicians, volunteers and other non-
professionals
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4. Pragmatism and Conception of
Theories as Useful Tools
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5. "There is nothing is as practical as a good theory" Kurt
Lewin (1951)

6. Flexner, Theory and
Professional Social Work
 Abraham Flexner (1915 / 2001) defined a
profession by reference to theoretical knowledge
- the “the intellectual character of professional
activity involves the working up of ideas into
practice” (p. 154).
 Flexner argued that professionals “derive their
raw materials from science and learning” (p.
156). He emphasized the practical aspect of
theory use by adding the phrase “this material
they work up to a practical and definite end” (p.
156).

7. Mary Richmond

8. Mary Richmond, Social Work
and Theory Use
 In The Training of Charity Workers (1897 / 1971),
Richmond recommended the training of social
workers in a “course of instruction which will combine
theory and practice under leaders who are skilled in
both” (p. 90).
 She appreciated the importance of theory-practice
integration and characterized the ideal workers as
those who have “learned to apply reasonable theory
to many concrete needs and then to modify the
theory by results” (p. 94).
 Her list of attributes of the trained workers included a
capacity for strenuous thinking and the ability to think
for themselves: each an important component of
theory application.

9.  Theories are tools for making sense of and solving
problematic situations. Theorizing is the action of
using these tools (theoretical models, propositions,
concepts, displays, and so on).
 There are many theories & many theorizing skills.
 Effective social workers have large toolboxes and
competency in a range of theorizing skills.
Theories as Tools (Pragmatist
Conception)

10. Many Diverse Tasks – Many
Theoretical Tools
 Social workers work with many different client
systems and with many different kinds of problems or
challenges.
 Problems and their causes vary and one tool may be
insufficient for the diverse caseloads of many
practitioners,
 With a toolbox of multiple theories, the practitioner
can help clients by selecting from a large set of
assessment and intervention tools rather than settling
on just one tool for every job.
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11. Uses of Theories for the
Professional Social Worker
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13. Theories Deepen Understanding
 Effective practitioners are curious about their clients, the clients’
environments, and the challenges these clients confront. Human
curiosity has deep evolutionary roots, and the impulse to solve
the client and organizational problems that emerge in daily
practice may be as fundamental as the impulse to meet needs
for clothing, food and liquids.
 Theories are instruments or tools that enable practitioners to
satisfy this core curiosity, the need to understand events,
objects, people, processes, and situations.
 For example, theories assist workers in making sense of the very complex
situations and person-in-environment puzzles common to professional
activity.
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14. Theories Deepen Understanding:
Examples
 The behavioral theory can enhance our
understanding of a child’s destructive behaviors in the
home.
 The interactionist theory can enhance our
understanding of repeated communication problems
between a supervisor and a worker.
 The critical perspective can help us understand the
difficulties experienced by city mayors attempting to
pass gun control legislation.
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15. Theories Aid in Knowledge
Selection: The Challenge
 For any particular case, there is a multitude of
information that a practitioner might consider in
understanding the person / system in environment
configuration.
 The profession’s Person-in-Environment Framework, for
example, challenges the worker to learn about the person
and his or her qualities, the transactions between the person
and the environment, and the specific contexts in the
environment (cultural, economic, political, and so on)
relevant to a focal challenge.
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16. Theories Aid in Knowledge
Selection: Example
 I was trained as a social group worker. As a member of a
community mental health clubhouse, I soon realized that in work
with small groups, the leader must struggle to make sense of an
abundant data including information about eight or ten
members, their problems, and their styles of participation; about
the interaction of each of these members with each other and
with the whole group; about a range of group processes and
structures; and about the agency and community context of the
group services
 Three theoretical perspectives – role theory, symbolic
interactionism, and the strengths perspective – helped me meet
this knowledge management challenge.
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17. Theories Guide Thinking, Action,
and Evaluation
 Theoretical knowledge provides a
blueprint to guide thinking, acting, and
evaluating during each phase of the
helping process.
 Our choice of a particular theory or set of
theories can have positive consequences
for all that follows during the planned
change process.
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18. Theories Guide Thinking-
Assessment
 A preferred explanatory theory serves as a guide to
what to look at and listen for and also what to ignore
during assessment processes
 During the information gathering and assessment
phase, theories help the worker organize data into
patterns and possibilities for understanding the
focal problem or challenge
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19. Theories Guide Action -
Intervention
 A preferred practice theory serves as a guide to
considering a range of interventions and associated
effectiveness evidence and selecting the optimal
course of action that will help the client during the
intervention process.
 A useful theory of change, for example, will point
to the mechanisms or processes that must be
identified and altered to realize desired outcomes
 During the intervention-planning phase, practice
theory directs the worker and client’s selection or
creation of effective interventions
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20. Theories Guide Judgment -
Evaluation
 During the evaluation of effectiveness
(infusing all helping phases), theory
helps the practitioner and client set
targets for change, determine criteria
for success, devise suitable evaluation
procedures, monitor ongoing mutual
work, and guide the client system to
achievement of desired ends.
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21. Theories Facilitate Professional
Communication: The Challenge
 Theoretical knowledge and theorizing competencies
can inform our helping work, ethical analyses,
research projects, and policy advocacy.
 These endeavors are generally collaborative. Social
workers must communicate and cooperate effectively
and responsibly with colleagues, clients, collaterals,
supervisors, and many others.
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22. Theories Facilitate Professional
Communication
 Theoretical knowledge provides the social worker with a vocabulary for
talking clearly and precisely about practice challenges. This vocabulary
enhances communication between the worker and all stakeholders in the
task at hand.
 The theoretically fluent social worker can explain the agency’s
theoretical orientation in simple terms to a couple seeking marriage
counseling.
 The worker able to translate theoretical jargon into plain English or
Spanish can justify her assessment formulation and intervention plan
and discuss clearly the specifics of the helping process necessary for
client progress to the couple, other family members, and significant
others.
 The worker confident in the use of multiple theoretical languages can
participate articulately and intelligently on the multi professional team
assisting with family services.
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23. Theories Enhance Worker
Confidence
 Tools for professional excellence including
 theoretical knowledge of major and relevant theoretical
traditions
 a large set of effective theorizing skills
 aptitudes for creative and rigorous theory application, and
 developed capacities for thinking critically and reflectively
about theory puzzles, theory application, and theory
development
will supply the social worker with the equipment, esteem, and
confidence for dealing competently with a range of complex
case puzzles and for cooperating adeptly and assuredly with
all members of helping teams.
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24. Uses of Theories for the
Profession of Social Work
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26. The Challenge
 Professional groups in contemporary
societies compete for task assignments,
monetary and other resources, and
legitimacy.
 Mastery of multiple theories and their
languages helps the profession of social work
compete successfully.
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27. Theories Define Professional
Identity and Boundaries: PIE
 Theoretical knowledge helps establish a profession’s
identity and its boundaries.
 Social workers prefer to use theories committed to
explaining “person in environment” configurations, and
social workers prefer theorizing in ways appreciative of the
multiple dimensions of human functioning and the multiple
contexts of behavior.
 This differentiates us from professional groups that prioritize
either the person (psychologists) or the social environment
(sociologists), and groups that specialize in only one aspect
of the person like clergy members emphasizing spirituality or
one environmental context like economists assessing
market conditions
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28. Theories Define Professional
Identity and Boundaries: Values
 Social work differentiates itself by a distinctive set of ethics and
values, and the ways these guide our theory choices and uses.
 The profession, for example, recommends value criteria for
judging the appropriateness of theories like strengths
orientation, justice promotion, and difference affirmation.
 The profession’s code of ethics provides guidelines relevant
to the responsible and sensitive employment of theory in
everyday helping situations.
 Member commitment to and use of these ideals fortifies the
profession’s distinctive identity and core convictions and
differentiate the social work profession from professions with
different theories and different ethical and value preferences.
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29. Theories Promote Profession’s
Status Claims
 What makes social work a profession? A major
ingredient is its proclaimed use of scientific knowledge
accumulated over time and demonstrated to be useful
in ameliorating community and personal problems.
The profession works to document its effectiveness
especially compared to competitors indifferent to
scientific theory
 In fighting for part of the turf allocated by society to
professional organizations, the profession of social work uses
empirically sound theoretical knowledge to achieve successes
at professional tasks like describing, explaining, predicting,
and resolving problems of human membership.
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30. Theories Promote Profession’s
Status as Profession
 Could a professional group earn community regard and
legitimacy by asserting “Count on us. Our members have finely
developed instincts” or “Assign important social tasks to our
profession. We may not know much about science but we have
accumulated many trade secrets over the generations.”
 Not likely.
 Publicity about the informed use of validated scientific
theories improves the reputation and status of social work as
a legitimate, important, and valuable profession in society.
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31. Theories Builds the Collective
Knowledge Base: Our Library
 The knowledge base is like a large library and all
professional social workers have a library card. Each
can check out the books and journals from the library
needed to analyze and understand the particular
features of an upcoming job.
 Switching to the hardware store metaphor, each
member of the social work profession can walk
through the shelves, check out different tools, and
pick the theory-based measurement instruments,
explanatory hypotheses, change logic models,
interventions, or other tools to do the required job.
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32. Theories Builds the Collective
Knowledge Base
 Theories borrowed from other disciplines and
theories created by social workers become part of
this collective resource.
 Continual and enthusiastic theorizing when shared in
communities of applied scientists, for example, stimulates
and guides research. Such theorizing helps researchers
construct and test theory-based explanatory models that
answer important questions identified by the profession
 Evidence-supported theoretical knowledge generated
during practice by social workers also becomes part
of the knowledge base.
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33. Theories Contribute to
Public Problem Solving
 Theories prepare social worker leaders for
participating in the significant role of public
intellectual,
 Social workers can use theories to provide citizens
engaged in projects of human betterment with sound
conceptual orientations, a set or reasonable
explanations, and enlightenment regarding viable
interventions.
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34. Theories Contribute to Public Problem
Solving: Examples
 Theoretical knowledge can be an instrument for contributing a theory-
informed social work perspective to social & political change projects.
 We can describe and recommend assessment and intervention
strategies related to public problems and unmet needs caused by
drug abuse, family conflicts, homelessness, intolerance, poverty,
war, and so on.
 We can engage citizens in appraising the relevant theoretical
reasoning and empirical evidence, and influence public debates and
dialogues about these understandings of problems.
 Theory creation, dissemination, and application can expand the
range of imagined alternatives for both policy and personal
problems. With many options, change agents are more likely to
advance the common good.
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35. Jim Forte, HimselfJim Forte, Himself

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For Forte’s Complete Lesson 01 and
Related Lessons Check Out

37. About Jim Forte
Forte is professor, author of 4 books & 41 articles, and
presenter at international, national, & regional conferences.
Teaching human behavior classes for 16 years, Forte recently
published the books An Introduction to Using Theory & Skills
for Using Theory. As practitioner, Jim worked with the elderly
in a community center, served as clubhouse group worker for
persons with mental health challenges, and led a program for
criminal offenders. Awards include Outstanding VA Social
Work Educator, Outstanding Teaching-CNU, NASW-MD
Social Work Educator of the Year, & SU Distinguished Faculty.
jaforte@salisbury.edu or jamesforte@mac.com,
http://jamesaforte.com (Forte’s website & free resources)

38. Forte’s Free Teaching Resources
 I am creating supplemental resources for my two new books. By
chapter, these include a chapter outline, a PowerPoint
(expanding on chapter content), a list of key terms, and
supplemental items (lists, tables, and on for some chapters). As
I finish resources for additional chapters this semester (Spring,
2016, I will upload them).
 To access these resources (Sort by name to see them in order)
 For Skills for Using Theory in Social Work, go
https://app.box.com/s/qyxx9sgmfb79w3o1r77gt2iy9wtl849a
 For An introduction to Using Theory in Social Work Practice, go to
https://app.box.com/s/9mokwnm35h7rcd77fhd57kuf1mjqz3vt
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