Generalist Practice Essay

To become a successful social worker, people need to have a better understanding of how things work. According to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), social work is described as promoting the well-being of individuals and community’s through the “quest for social and economic justices, the prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement of the quality of life for all persons” (2008, p.1). An important method that overtime was integrated into social work is the empowerment method of generalist practice. The purpose of this paper is to define generalist practice and its regards to the social work field. It will discuss the interactive process of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. Also, it will introduce the problem-solving model, as well as the importance of empowerment and the strengths-based perspective. Generalist practice refers to the practice of a bachelor level social worker who demonstrates basic skills in multilevel approaches. In other words, generalist social workers work directly with client systems at all levels, connect clients to available …show more content…
It is somewhat of a step-by-step guide for social workers to implement. It can be beneficial for client sessions. There are three phases and processes of empowering practice. They are engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. The first phase is the dialogue as engagement. In this phase, social workers and clients work to build partnerships based on respect and trust, define their respective roles, discuss clients’ experiences with challenging situations, define the purpose of their work, activate client motivation for change, and address any crisis needs (Miley, O-Melia, & DuBois, 2013). In other words, social workers are working towards forming a relationship with their client because without a solid foundation of trust, a client is not going to be very motivated for