Social Work Practice: A Generalist Approach

by Louise C. Johnson, Stephen Yanca

This generalist social work practice text uses a strong theoretical framework for social work practice with diverse populations in both urban and rural settings. The authors blend ecosystems and client-centered empowerment to develop a model to working with diverse populations. By using this model, students will learn how to effectively work with diverse individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. The text incorporates CSWE requirements for learning the knowledge, skills, and values that are the foundation of social work practice at every level of practice. The two companion texts, Generalist Social Work Practice with Families and Generalist Social Work Practice with Groups also use the same model to present more in-depth content. The group text includes generalist practice with organizations and communities. Thus, the trilogy of texts covers the entire generalist social work practice curriculum using the Johnson/Yanca model.

480 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Selmoore Codfish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a text book for an advanced level course in Social Work written by Johnson et. al. The book is an explanation of how to do the everyday work of the practice. The book assumes that the reader or student understands sociology, psychology, and social work through policy analysis. Other courses in biology or anthropology would also be useful. Despite these requirements, the text was not full of technical language. Any interested person should be able to understand a fair amount of the writing.
I am reviewing the Canadian version. The authors have adapted the book for use by readers in Canada by providing basic review of relevant aspects of culture, bringing up issues of bilingual speakers, and making it relevant to politics, policies and changes occurring in Canada.
Each chapter has several examples of client cases. This is the best part of the text. The cases are insightful and related to the themes of the chapters. A few of the cases follow through the chapters and between chapters. This builds understanding of how each case evolves.
Some disadvantages of text are that it is very repetitive and often rambling. The receptiveness is partly necessary as the authors look at several phenomena from many different perspectives. However , that makes the reading tiring. Many times while reading this I felt that the authors should get to the point more quickly rather than rambling. Also, at times it seemed like they were providing too many lists. Working the lists into the narrative more would help make the reading flow.
Lastly, I felt the authors were very open the contribution that faith and religion could have. They specifically mentioned how it could be valuable, and many times vaguely talked of how “natural” (meaning community) systems could help.

[Ehab Atef]

good