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Posted 12-20-99
After a lengthy process involving several surveys, individual interviews with faculty members, and two retreats, faculty at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences have approved a statement on community-based practice as the organizing principle of the school's curriculum.
The newly adopted statement is viewed as a bridge between the school's mission statement, which was approved in 1994, and the specific courses and course outlines that define what is taught. "It's a fleshing out of the mission," said Paul Adams, associate dean for academic affairs. "This defines specific principles and guidelines" that constitute community-based practice.
According to the statement, community-based practice views the individual in the context of a pattern of relationships, including family, groups, organizations, and communities, and it builds interventions on the strengths and assets of these entities.
It embraces an inclusive definition of community that recognizes not only geographic communities, but also those based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, race, and other distinctions.
"This approach sees the relationship between the professional social worker and the client as one part of a larger pattern of relationships, and not at the center of it," Adams said. "It recognizes that people are involved in larger patterns of helping, informal supports, informal networks, family, churches, neighbors, community organizations. Social work is one part of it. What matters is, how that whole pattern works to ensure that people's needs are met."
As the document states, "In their role, community-based social workers become involved in these networks of individuals and organizations. The social work task is to understand the patterns of interaction that generate or perpetuate problems ... and to intervene to change them."
The adoption of a community-based practice as the school's guiding principle comes in response to changes in the social work practice environment, including welfare reform, which reduces the role and responsibility of the federal government in welfare and human services and returns power, responsibility, and control to state and local governments.
Another important change is the emergence of managed care. "Funders are not willing to pay for long-term therapy with individuals," Adams said. "They want to see results."
Ironically, while community-based practice is indeed a response to a changing environment, it also represents "a revitalization of our old school roots and the profession's roots in community-oriented social work," Adams said.
Dean Darlyne Bailey points out that in developing the statement, the school tapped into the wisdom of emeriti faculty. "Besides having a required faculty-staff retreat, we had a volunteer retreat with emeriti faculty involved," she said. "They've been down this road before. Community practice is how social work used to be. We wanted to bring their voice and experience into the room." Administrative staff contributed good ideas as well, she noted.
Although the community-based practice approach is grounded in the curriculum, Bailey believes it will influence all aspects of the school. "This is a different way of understanding education, how we do our research and how we set up our partnerships," she said. "It will impact staffing. It has already begun to impact how we look at prospective faculty, and ask, 'Can they buy into it'?"
Throughout the coming year, faculty and administrators will review the entire curriculum as part of the school's reaccreditation self-study report, which is due December 2000.
"We'll be looking at ways we can strengthen and make more visible this community-based practice approach," Adams said. "When we interviewed all faculty individually as a part of this process, we found a tremendous amount of community-based work in research and teaching, so we're building on the strengths of faculty as opposed to creating something entirely new."
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