COMPONENT OF SOCIAL CASE WORK: THE PERSON

 COMPONENT OF SOCIAL CASE WORK

INTRODUCTION

Social case work is the primary method in social work practice. In social case work, a social worker works with an individual, helps an individual who faces problem in the day-to-day functioning. This method deals with both the social and psychological aspects of an individual’s life. The term “social” implies the experiences of the individual with other people and his/her environment, and the term “psychological” implies the thoughts and feelings which occupy the mind within an individual. Thus, the social aspects deal with the interpersonal experiences of the individual and the psychological aspects deal with the intrapersonal experiences of a human being. In order to understand the individual person, it is important to understand the various components of social case work and the importance of the components in dealing with the problems of the individual.

Social case work is defined by Mary Richmond in 1915, as “the art of doing different things for and with different people by cooperating with them to achieve at one and the same time their own and society’s betterment.”

The nucleus of social case work is given by H.H. Perlman which is, ‘a person with a problem comes to a place where a professional representative helps him by a given process’. This entire phenomenon is also known as the 4P’s and is used in most of the situations where a person seeks professional help.

There are four components of casework known as the 4 P’s:

1.       The person

2.       The problem

3.       The place

4.       The process

        I.            THE PERSON

The person is any individual who is under stress or is facing problem in his/her life. The person can be a man, woman or a child. The person in social work terminology is called the ‘client’. The person may have problem due to his/her inability of adjusting to the existing situation which is created by forces which are beyond his/her control. This problem can be social, economic or psychological in nature. When confronted by a problem, an individual usually tries to solve the problem by employing solutions from his/her previous experiences. However, when the problem does not seem to resolve, an external support is needed and then the individual seeks for professional help. A person becomes a ‘client’ as soon as he starts getting professional help.

The person or the client has several unmet needs, concerns and problems. These problems are unique to his/her situation. Every person is unique and has his own set of social and cultural environment in which he/she lives which makes the person have unique social experiences. At the same time, the person is also part of the social environment and shares the commonalities of the humankind and has a set of transactions with other people. The person is unique and different from every other member of his/her family or society.

Clients are of the following types:

§  Those who seek help for themselves.

§  Those who seek help for another person.

§  Those who block or threatens the social functioning of another person (e.g., the neglectful parent in a child protection case).

§  Those who seek help for inappropriate goals.

§  Those who seek help as a means to reach their own goals or ends.

The nature of social casework will depend on identifying the type of the client and the problem he/she seeks to resolve.

Felix Biestik (1957) has identified seven needs of clients as they come to the helping situation:

1.       To be dealt with as an individual rather than a type or category.

2.       To express feelings both positive and negative.

3.       To be accepted as a person of worth, a person with innate dignity.

4.       Sympathetic understanding of and response to feelings expressed.

5.       To be neither judged nor condemned for the difficulty in which the clients find themselves.

6.       To make own choices and decisions concerning one’s own life.

7.       To help keep information confidential about self as secret as possible.

To understand a person, it is essential to understand the personality of the person. The personality structure plays an important role in determining how the behaviour of the person is affecting the social functioning of the person. According to Freud, a person’s behaviour is governed by three forces of personality structure, viz. id (life forces of the individual), ego (which is conscious and drives our personality forces) and super ego (which is unconscious and consists of ethical values and principles).

Every human being is hindered by some obstacles and tries to cope with the problem. If the coping is not successful, he / she look for outside help to solve their issues to return to regular functioning. A person seeking help not only brings innumerable concerns, needs and problems, but also brings with him/her perceptions of self, the situations and patterns of coping with stress and patterns of interpersonal relationships. The role of the social worker is to understand the client as a unique person in a unique situation. Since the social and cultural background of a person varies therefore these problems or unmet needs could be unique.