Supplementary Reading

Material ----I UNIT 4 RELEVANCE OF SOCIAL WORK

METHODS IN INDIAN CONTEXT
Dr. Leena Metha*

Introduction
This paper attempts to describe the issues of social work concerns as foreseen by the
visionaries in the nineteen eighty’s. The ‘prospects’ of eighties have become the realities
of the late ninety’s and as we are living through the first decade of the 21st century, an
attempt is made to assess the relevance of the three traditional methods of social work
as well as the newer intervention approaches of social policy and planning, integrated
methods of social work and the generalist perspective of social work practice. Since
the participants mostly consist of social work educators and practitioners, the author
does not see the need to define the well established methods, but has tried to assess in
general the relevance of these methods in light of the changing socio-political scenario.
In the end, she narrates her own experience of practicing generalist approach with one
of the most vulnerable groups in relation to Gender and HIV i.e. women victims of
trafficking.
Social Work Concerns
The broad concerns for social work profession are equity, social justice, harmony and
peace mainly directing the activities to support the guest of the marginalized groups to
meet their needs (UGC model social work curriculum, 2001). Social workers are
expected to respond to the social realities of the contemporary society. The impact of
communication has made the world a global village.
Today no society can remain uninfluenced, interventionist has to design the intervention
strategies which are best suited to the socio-politico-economic realities and has to
keep in mind the developments at national and international level and its influence at
local level.
Fortunately, with their wisdom and foresight the social work visionaries in India had
sounded the social work professionals with the upcoming social economic and political
trends and its impact on the role of social work professional. It would be interesting to
review their predictions.
Predictions of Visionaries
In early eighties it was visualized that “Development and social changes are ultimately
carried forward by releases of political impulses. For such development to favor the
poor it is important that the majority of them are able to participate with vigor in this
political process (UNRISD, 1983). Peoples’ participation, thus, was necessarily seen
as a precondition for and also an indicator of development. This included the “basic
rights” as well as the “acquired rights” depending on the prevailing ethnicity or subculture.
According to Nanavatty (1997), “social rights have to be an integral part of social
development to ensure social justice for humanity, (and) it is in this context that social
work education has to find their revised role in the twenty first century”. One can
clearly see that this statement gave indication to social work to redesign their
intervention strategies from the empowerment perspective.

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44 * Department of Social Work, M.S. University, Baroda

Earlier, in 1981, Desai while writing on “The social work education in India: Retrospect Relevance of Social
Work Methods in
and prospect” drew attention of social work educators and parishioners to the goal of Indian Context
“Growth with social justice”. She felt that social work curricula of that time lacked
response to the Indian realities and over-emphasized the remedial, rehabilitative, residual
model which focused on problems of pathology i.e. micro level disfunctioning of the
individual, families and communities rather than problems of individual and society in
the context of development. Citing the earlier UGC report, Desai’s suggestion for our
“prospects of the future” reinforced the suggestion to respond to current social realities
and need for a bold attempt to make a break with the past even if they involve a total
system change..”.

Her contemporary Mirza Ahmed (1981) too, while writing on New Dimension in social
work education said “Consumerism, conservationism, youth unrest and unemployment,
advocacy for the cause of the underprivileged… in relation to SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT should now form the major concern for social work in the changed
social context”.

In short, with regard to strategy following change were required:

1) Shifting from welfare to developmental and social rights orientation, thus shifting
focus from only attending to problems of pathology to addressing to the needs of
development….and promoting the empowerment of the vulnerable.

2) Reduce over emphasized on micro level intervention strategies and give equal, if
not more, attention to the causative factors of social disfuntioning at macro level .
In other words, increase application of skills/methods to influence social policy
and planning in favour of development.

3) Reducing dependence on western models and evolve indigenous models of

professional framework to make the intervention process more culture specific
and effective.

4) Keeping constant watch on the changing social, economic and political realities at
local, national and international level so that professionals can respond to the
changing needs of the clientele.

5) Promote people’s participation in decision making for ensuring protection of rights

of victims of injustice.

Today, when we are making an effort to assess how far we have responded to the tips
of visionaries, one would admit that while we have achieved success in some areas, we
do lag behind in some others. We have satisfactorily revised our training curricula to
make it development and ‘rights’ oriented through the conscious and organised efforts
of ASSWI (Encyclopedia of social work, 1985).

We have been able to adopt analytical and problem solving skills to counter systemic
problems and to challenge inequitable structure of society through Mezzo and Macro
level interventions.

The latest model curriculum, (2001) further indicates inclusion of social rights and
empowerment perspective especially with reference to participatory and holistic
approaches to integrated social work practice.

The eight course (2001) which form the content of “social work profession: Methods
and strategies” include the following: 45
Supplementary Reading 1) Integrated Social Work Practice
Material ----I
2) Working with Communities

3) Work with Groups

4) Work with Individuals and Families

5) Social Work Research

6) Management of Development and Welfare Services

7) Communication: An Introduction to Audio Visual Media; and

8) Social Work Personnel – Training and Development.

Thus, in current context one can at least see conscious efforts being made to update
and modify the theoretical framework with changed orientation. At practice level, we
may see its visible impact after few years.

Two areas, wherein we still lag behind are:

1) Creating, indigenous literature-Production of indigenous literature is possible

after indigenization of our practice. Experimenting with newer practice models in
the first place and systematic documentation of such experiments with a critical
analysis of its success or limitation only can enables us to produce culture specific
indigenized practice modules and methodology. Dissemination of such documented
experiments is equally important.

2) Secondly, our researches too, need to be more utility oriented in order to be

socially relevant. Gupta (2002) quoting Mahajan writes that “research is incomplete
and unfair until its findings benefit the people; on one hand, advanced technology
is throwing up very sophisticated means of research and on the other, this very
advancement is increasing the gap between basic research and its awareness and
application in society”

Methods of Social Work

According to Siporin, Method refers to “the how’ of helping, to purposefully planned,

instrumental activity through which tasks are accomplished and goals can be achieved.
.. the societal task functions of social work are realized through the “how” of methodic
action, in an application of knowledge, attitude skills”. (Quoted by Macmohan 1996).
While the traditional methods of social work intervention at individual, group, institution
and community level continue to retain their value and relevance in Indian society for
the problem solving and welfare/development purpose, the empowerment orientation
is gaining more and more acceptance among the lay people, the civil society and the
helping professionals in true spirit and among the policy makers and bureaucrats at
least in letter if not in spirit.

Fortunately despite being a government wing, the Judiciary in India so far has continued
to enjoy its credibility by its pro active efforts in operationalising the human rights with
full vigor and will.

This necessitates that when it comes to Macro Practice, the social work professionals
must master the political skills like advocating, lobbying, campaigning, bargaining,
publicizing and demonstrating.
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I see a good potential for social work interventionists as the concept of therapeutic Relevance of Social
Work Methods in
jurisprudence is becoming increasingly popular. While courts are there to give “legal Indian Context
justice” social workers can assist in giving “holistic justice” where the law recognizes
their role e.g. probation. The social workers also can play a vital role in ‘‘Alternative
Dispute Redressal Mechanism” with their unique insight, helping skills by drawing
techniques from different methods of social work.

In recent years many issues of social concern which were conveniently ignored so far,
have successfully been intervened by the judiciary, may be at the initiative of a lay or
trained social worker. e.g. problems of domestic violence, custodial violence, workplace
violence, problems of victims of disasters and riots, environment pollution, victims of
immoral trafficking.
Social work professionals have a vast scope for case or class advocacy role by activating
the judicial process and materialize the empowerment goals.
Needless to say, an interventionist is required to employ more than one method to be
effective.
Integration of Methods
Mirza Ahmed (1981) advocating the need for integration of methods, wrote “social
work has to align itself with the national goals and must strive to promote the ideals of
democracy and socialism”. Integrated interventionist approach, bringing together the
knowledge regarding the range of interceptive approaches in social work was necessary
so as to influence social change at micro and macro levels. This of course was a global
realization as Perman (1966) is noted to have said” the notion of social worker prepared
to use a single method no longer conformed to the changing picture.
Bartlett (1970) commenting on the expanding role of social work professionals too
noted that “the traditional three methods were now found to cover only a portion of the
professional social workers action. Growing numbers of social workers were acting as
consultants and others were developing new approaches in the area of social policy
and social planning”.
The General Method
In responding to the need to play the varied roles while working at various levels social
work parishioners are required to create their unique combination of skills, professional
knowledge and personal qualities. Personal qualities differ from person to person and
can not be taught through professional education. A person, however, can be trained
to identify his unique strengths which can add value to his professional practice.
However, professional training can prepare generalist practitioners. Machmohan (1996)
descries a generalist practioner as one who has acquired a generic foundation for social
work and has integrated this foundation consisting of basic components that are rooted
in the identity of all social workers.
Generalists draw from foundation components and apply generalist theory and
methodology as they practice holistically in diverse environment.
She describes the essential elements of generalists’ perspective as.
1) An ecological systems perspective
2) A problem/(purpose) focus
3) A multilevel approach 47
Supplementary Reading 4) An open selection of theories and intervention
Material ----I
5) A problem solving process.
She suggests that the ‘General Method’ may be seen as common to all methods and a
basic method consisting of a purposeful procedure ordered according to six major
stages viz. Engagement,
l Data collection
l Assessment
l Intervention
l Evaluation
l Termination
These stages may overlap, but they serve as guidelines to the worker interacting at
various levels with diverse systems. The stages can occur simultaneously. The General
Method is a process composed of clusters of skills according to stages.
It can be used with target, action or client system. It is essentially based on holistic base
of knowledge.
In my humble opinion, social workers in India, barring in few exceptionally specialized
settings, have been practicing with the generalist orientation. The uniquely diversified
culture and the thick social fabric of Indian Society rather makes it impossible for any
sensitive practioner to stick to any single method or theory, or restrict intervention only
at one level – micro mezzo or macro. Holistic approach is inbuilt in Indian philosophy.
Hence, if supported by theoretical input, General Method may work best in Indian
context. Rather story of any successful social work practioner would prove that practically
all the elements of generalist perspective are woven into his/her intervention strategy.
General Perspective applied in specific client system of victims of Trafficking.
The author at present is actively engaged at policy and planning at state level in working
out intervention model for the victims of Immoral Trafficking. Her suggested model
draws heavily from the generalist perspective, having multiple goals such as preventive,
remedial and rehabilitative and suggests multi level interventions micro, mezzo and macro.
While this is just one specific problem area, it is mentioned here because it is relevant
closely to the theme of HIV/Gender as the commercial sex workers demanding justice
from the state government belong to the vulnerable gender and comprise one of the
HIV related High Risk Behavior Groups.
To conclude one can say that the on lies on us social work educators to prepare a new
cadre of practioners who are well equipped with sufficient training inputs to be able to:
i) Contribute in policy formulation and planning so as to facilitate the process of
social development.
ii) Activate the judicial process and take up advocacy role on behalf of the
disadvantaged groups.
iii) Take up research studies which are socially relevant and which can actually feed
the system with the critical analysis of the impact of newer policy at grass root
level.
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REFERENCES Relevance of Social
Work Methods in
Indian Context
Desai, Armaity (1981), Social Work Education in Indian: Retrospect and Prospect.
Desai, Armaity (1981), Encyclopedia of Social Work in India.
Nair, T. Krishnan (1981), Social Work Education and Social Work Practice in India-
Asswl, Madras.
Namrothy M.C. (1997), Social Issues in Development, Uppal Publishing House,
New Delhi.
Mc.Mahan (1984), The General Methods of Social Work Practice, Allyn & Bacon,
Massachusetts.
Mehta Leena S. (2000), Lifestyle of Prostitutes Social Work Perspective- Doctoral
Thesis.
V.U.C. (2001), Model Curriculum Social Work Education, New Delhi.

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