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The Importance Of A Generalist Social Worker Essay

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Within the past couple of decades, the social work field as a whole has grown and broadened to incorporate case work, group work, and integrating the community. Joining these expanded ideas all together resulted in the National Association of Social Work, or the NASW. A leader of the NASW, Harriet Bartlett wrote a well-known book, The Common Base of Social Work Practice. She said that "all social workers need knowledge about individuals, groups and the community that is related to their social functioning but not limited to particular interventive measures". Bartlett called for social work to lift out this knowledge from the specialized methods and reorganize it to make it "visible and available within the profession 's overall body of knowledge" (p. 115). (Schatz, 2013, 219). Having the skills to be able to work in a variety of situations from individual to community is the purpose of a generalist social worker. Being a diverse social worker makes them more functional and adaptable, able to solve more problems, and gives them the ability help more people (Schatz, 2013, 218-220).
Having a generalist approach allows social workers to come alongside families and form a partnership by assisting them in areas where they might be struggling. There is much more involved with a family than what is seen on the outside. Families are much like individuals in the fact that they have a background and a wide range of experiences, as well as the ability to grow, change and improve.

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