Strength Based approach in Social Work

1. Seminar Presentation of
SW 2.2.1

2. Content
 Introduction
 Framework
 5 Frameworks for Social Work Practice
 What is Strength Based Practice
 7 Principles of Strength Based Practice
 6 Standards of Strength Based Practice
 Bottom Up Approach
 7 Straregies
 Conclusion
 Reference

3. Introduction
 “Creating Frameworks for Social Work Practice:
Strength Based and Bottom up Approaches”.
 There is increasing interest in identifying and building
on the strengths and capacities of those supported by
services, as a means to help them resolve problems and
deliver their own solutions.
 Thus it is an approach to Social Work Practice

4. Framework?
 …is a conceptual lens through which one views human
behavior and social structures and which, at the same
time, guides the selection of intervention strategies.
 …can focus or magnify a particular feature while
placing other features in the background.

5. Frameworks For Social Work
Practice
There are many frame works for social work practice like:
 Systems And Ecological Perspectives
 Problem-solving Approach
 Strengths Perspective
 Feminist Approach
 Structural Approach

6. What is Strengths-Based
Practice?
 Strengths-based practice is a collaborative process
between the person supported by services and those
supporting them, allowing them to work together to
determine an outcome that draws on the person’s strengths
and assets. As such, it concerns itself principally with the
quality of the relationship that develops between those
providing and being supported, as well as the elements that
the person seeking support brings to the process (Duncan
and Hubble, 2000). Working in a collaborative way
promotes the opportunity for individuals to be co-
producers of services and support rather than solely
consumers of those services (Morgan and Ziglio, 2007).
Cont…

7. What is Strengths-Based Practice?
 Strengths-based approaches concentrate on the
inherent strengths of individuals, families, groups and
organizations
 To focus on health and well-being is to embrace an
asset-based approach where the goal is to promote the
positive.
 Deploying personal strengths to aid recovery and
empowerment.
Cont…

8. What is Strengths-Based Practice?
 Focusing on strengths does not mean ignoring
challenges, or spinning struggles into strengths.
 Practitioners working in this way have to work in
collaboration - helping people to do things for
themselves. In this way, people can become co-
producers of support, not passive consumers of
support.
 The evidence for strengths-based approaches is
difficult to synthesize because of the different
populations and problem areas that are examined in
the literature.
Cont…

9.  The strengths approach to practice has broad
applicability across a number of practice settings and a
wide range of populations.
 There is some evidence to suggest that strengths-
based approaches can improve retention in treatment
programs for those who misuse substances.
 There is also evidence that use of a strengths-based
approach can improve social networks and enhance
well-being.
What is Strengths-Based Practice?

10. Seven Important Principles Of
The Strengths Perspective
 People are recognized as having many strengths and have
the capacity to continue to learn, grow and change.
 The focus of intervention is on the strengths and
aspirations of the people we work with.
 Communities and social environments are seen as being
full of resources.
 Service providers collaborate with the people they work
with.
 Interventions are based on self-determination.
 There is a commitment to empowerment.
 Problems are seen as the result of interactions between
individuals, organizations or structures rather than deficits
within individuals, organizations or structures.

11. Rapp, Saleebey and Sullivan
(2008)
 Six standards for judging what constitutes a strengths-
based approach.
1. Goal orientation
2. Strengths assessment
3. Resources from the environment
4. Explicit methods are used for identifying client and
environmental strengths for goal attainment
5. The relationship is hope-inducing
6. Meaningful choice

12. Bottom Up Approach
 The approach was started in UK in 1980s.
 It is a client centered approach.
 Social development theory is considered the conceptual scheme
underpinning the bottom-up model (Rubin & Babbie, 1993; Midgley,
1993; David, 1993; Billups,1990).
 The authoritative mode of intervention is considered as top down
approach while the negotiated mode of intervention is considered as
bottom up approach.
 Bottom up approach allows the local community and local players to
express their views and to help define the development course for
their area in line with their own views, expectations and plans.
 The bottom-up approach means that local actors participate in
decision-making about the strategy and in the selection of the
priorities to be pursued in their local area.

13. Bottom Up Approach
 People do not need programs to improve their lives. Programs
are an artificial construct developed in the dance between grantors
and grantees to help nonprofits re-package themselves to ensure
continued funding. What people need are an increasing number
of positive relationships and activities to help them become
producers of their own and their community’s well-being. The
best work nonprofits can do is to help the people they serve build
relationships, especially in the neighborhood or community were
they live and work to remove barriers so the people they serve have a
real opportunity to become producers and not just program
recipients. We need everyone’s gifts to build strong communities not
more programs (Duncan .D)

14. Bottom Up Approach
 It provides a platform to introduce key
issues, and widens the scope for
participants and practitioners to discuss
issues with open mind. It helps identify
local problems, and chalks out local
innovative strategies and methods to
mitigate these. This approach taps the
indigenous knowledge bases and local
expertise. It synthesizes and systematizes
the lessons learned and disseminates

15. Seven strategies outlined by the US
economist Blanchard (1988)
Comprehensive community
participation.
Motivating local communities.
Expanding learning opportunities.
Improving local resource
management.
Replicating human development.
Increasing communication and

16. Conclusion
The concepts described earlier also underlie what has been
termed the strengths-based perspective. “the strengths
perspective looks to the power of people to overcome and
surmount adversity (Rapp, 1998; Saleebey, 1999).” The
Bottom-up approach provides a platform to introduce key
issues, and widens the scope for participants and
practitioners to discuss issues with open mind. It helps
identify local problems, and chalks out local innovative
strategies and methods to mitigate these. This approach taps
the indigenous knowledge bases and local expertise. It
synthesizes and systematizes the lessons learned and
disseminates those among the masses. (Panda B. 2010)

17. Reference
 Saleeby, D. (2006), The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice
(4th ed.), New York.
 http://www.academia.edu/8034618/- 25/10/2015
 https://sustainingcommunity.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/what-is-the-
strengths-perspective/-25/10/2015
 http://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/strengths-based-approaches-
working-individuals- 25/10/2015
 O’Connor. I, Hughes. M, Turney.D, Wilson. J & Setterlund. D (2006),
Social Work and Welfare Practice. 5th ed., London: Sage Publications.
 Larrison R. C.(1999), A Comparison of Top-down and Bottom-up
Community Development Interventions in Rural Mexico: Practical and
Theoretical Implications for Community Development Programs,