The effects of empowerment have become an overwhelming focus, as the need for this skill gained attention for social workers, as well as for many other professions. What is it about empowerment that is drawing so much attention? There are many attributing factors, but the main one is the change of approach that empowerment brings about. Empowerment is vital for social work because of the positive effects it has on clients, as well as workers. Bartram et al. showed how this both benefits the worker as well as clients in a study testing the effects of social empowerment. Gilbert et al. also talks about the positive effects through enhancing the strengths of others, and Evans wrote an article on the social transformation that occurs when people
…show more content…
Karpetis points this out in his Psychoanalytic Insights and Empowerment in Social Work Practice: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the ‘Transference Interpretation to the Setting’ Technique. He found while doing research for his study that “practice principles like… empowerment are often treated as ‘theories of practice’… Frequently proposed practise skills include empathy… optimism, deep listening, respect, and self-awareness” (Karpetis, 3). Knowing this, it is very important for social workers to focus on a few, very important practise skills that are effective across a broad range of problems. They need to try to accommodate each of their client’s needs, but in ways that will work to resolve their issues for the long run and not just for the moment. In order to do this, the importance goes by what the social worker can help with and what the individual needs the most from the …show more content…
We hardly think of the things that we naturally get, and so it is these things that we often disregard when trying to figure out what is truly the issue for clients. We look to the issues and troubles that they have, when we should be looking to underlying things that make people who they are. Leonardson describes in his Empowerment in Social Work: an Individual vs. a Relational Perspective that empowerment is not something we can easily promote in others; it works purely on the individual level, and all social workers can do is introduce it to their clients. He points out that “…in Western cultures, the idea of autonomy and self-reliance as basic values in a society seem to be broadly accepted” (Leonardsen, 4) which is something social workers need to account for in their work with others. In our individualistic culture, everyone is for themselves, so all a worker can hope for is for their clients to choose to
Karpetis points this out in his Psychoanalytic Insights and Empowerment in Social Work Practice: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the ‘Transference Interpretation to the Setting’ Technique. He found while doing research for his study that “practice principles like… empowerment are often treated as ‘theories of practice’… Frequently proposed practise skills include empathy… optimism, deep listening, respect, and self-awareness” (Karpetis, 3). Knowing this, it is very important for social workers to focus on a few, very important practise skills that are effective across a broad range of problems. They need to try to accommodate each of their client’s needs, but in ways that will work to resolve their issues for the long run and not just for the moment. In order to do this, the importance goes by what the social worker can help with and what the individual needs the most from the …show more content…
We hardly think of the things that we naturally get, and so it is these things that we often disregard when trying to figure out what is truly the issue for clients. We look to the issues and troubles that they have, when we should be looking to underlying things that make people who they are. Leonardson describes in his Empowerment in Social Work: an Individual vs. a Relational Perspective that empowerment is not something we can easily promote in others; it works purely on the individual level, and all social workers can do is introduce it to their clients. He points out that “…in Western cultures, the idea of autonomy and self-reliance as basic values in a society seem to be broadly accepted” (Leonardsen, 4) which is something social workers need to account for in their work with others. In our individualistic culture, everyone is for themselves, so all a worker can hope for is for their clients to choose to