STRENGTH BASED

APPROACH
Done by : Kiran sree villalan
CHARACTERISTICS OF STRENGHT
BASED APPROACH

 Goal oriented :worker promoters the client to

define goals for their life.
 Systematic assessment of strengths with an
emphasis on the present.
 Environment is seen as rich resource :The
community from which the client hails is perceived
as a source of opportunities, resources etc.
 Explicit methods are used for utilizing client and
environmental strengths for goal attainment
 The relationship is hope including through an
empowering relationship
 PRINCIPLES OF STRENGTHS BASED
PRACTICE
 An absolute belief that every person has potential and
it is there unique strength and capabilities that will
determine there evolving story as well as define who
they are – not their limitations
 What we focus on becomes one’s reality –focused on
strength, not label- seeing challenges as capacity
fostering creates hope and optimism.
 The language we use creates our reality-both for the
care providers and children ,youth and their families
 Belief that change is inevitable all individuals have to
succeed to explore the world around them and to
make themselves useful to other communities .
 capacity building is a proses and a goal-a life goal
journey that is dynamic as opposed to static
EXPLORING THE STREGTHS OF THE
CLIENT

 Measuring strengths involve identifying

 What people have learned about themselves,
others on their world
 Personal qualities, traits, talent and virtues
that reside in people often displayed during
trauma and crisis
 People’s sense of pride that is survivor pride
overcoming odds
 Personal hopes and dreams of client
QUESTIONS TO IDENTIFY STRENGTHS

 How have managed to overcome are

survive the challenges that you have
faced?
 What you have learned about yourself and
your world during those struggles?
 SUPPORT QUESTIONS
 who are the people you rely on?
 Who has made you feel understood
supported and encouraged?
 POSSIBILITY QUESTONS
 What do you want to accomplish in life?
 What are your hopes for the future?
Esteem questions
What makes you proud about yourself?
What positive things do people say about
you?
Perspective questions
What do you want to accomplish in life ?
What are your hopes for you future?
Change questions
What do you think is necessary for things
it change?
VALUES IN ACTION INVENTRY: A
TOOL

 Designed by :christopher peterson

and martin seligman-positive
psychologists
 identifies characteristic strength
opposed to pathological view
 Composed of 240 items that measure
24 character strength on a five point
like scale.
 Useful in identifying strength of the
client but not measures the strengths
exhaustively.
CATEGORIES OF STRENGTHS

 Wisdom and knowledge: creativity,

curiosity, judgement,love of learning,
perspective.
 Courage: bravery, perserverance,
honesty, zest
 Humanity : love, kindness social
intelligence
 Justice :teamwork, fairness, leadership
 Temperance: appreciation of beauty and
excellence, gratitude, hope, humour and
spirituality
Recent trends in strength based
practice

 Client centered integrative strength based approach

 Introduced by min in 2011
 Aim: to assist clients to make full use of their strength
and to cope better with and exceed the problems
 Steps involved
 Discover problematic strength that is transfer the clients
problems into challenge and understand its impact on
the clients daily life so as to identify his/her strength in
the struggle against this challenge
 Find out current strengths. It might not be directly
related to the challenge but could be a daily life
strength with future prospects.
 Broaden daily life strength. This involves appraising
the clients prior successful experience, future
arrangement etc.
 Following these steps the worker can assist the client
to work on the problems also using the current daily
life strengths.
 Strengths based community mentoring
 Organization committed to living a strength based
approach can undertaken a strength based
organizational review. They can do this independently
or in collaboration with others to deepen their
collective learning .In either case it will include the
consideration of the following:
 Modeling of respective, inclusive, collaborative,
transparent practice.
 Enabling the sharing of power and responsibility for service
delivery, internal decision-making and operations
 Providing leadership in initiating, developing, and sustaining
strength based practice.
 Enabling staff participation in and shared ownership of the
visioning process.
 Focusing on the strengths and resource of staff.
 Being committed to transparent practice and accountability.
 Being clear about bottom line and accountability.
 Keeping a focus on exceptions and strength stories.
 Seeing the problem-not the person.
 Enabling the developments of a clear picture of the future
and measured goals.
 Being mindful of culture and personal constraints and how
dominant stories and ideas can constrain change.