COMPONENTS OF CASE WORK

Introduction

Social case work is a complex, dynamic, and evolving

phenomenon. It is complex by virtue of the varied

knowledge which feed it, the ethical commitments which

infuse it, the special auspices and conditions of its

practice, the objectives and ends which guide it, the

skills which empower it. It is complicated by the fact

that it deals with materials which are in interaction and

change among themselves and also in response to the

interaction of case work itself. As it is experienced,

practiced, or thought about, the social case work is a

living event. As such it cannot be contained within a

definition. Yet we can try to define it in a manner as it

is used by the practitioners.

Social case work is a process used by certain human

welfare agencies to help individuals to cope more

effectively with their problems in social functioning.

Case work is both social and psychological. The term

“social” implies which involves more than one person;

the term “psychological” is that which takes place within

an individual. Since the individual does not live in a

vacuum, the content of much of his inner experience is

“psycho-social.” In other words, there is no real

dichotomy between the social and the psychological.

There is an aspect of experience, however, which belongs

to and is characterized by the individual himself.

The nucleus of the case work event is this: a person

with a problem comes to a place where a professional

representative helps him by a given process. Since this

is the heart of almost any situation where a person seeks

professional help, the distinctive characteristics must

be delineated.

There are four components of case work known as the 4

P’s:

1. The Person

2. The Problem

3. The Place

4. The Process

Let us examine each, one by one

The Person

The person is a man, woman or child or anyone who

finds himself/herself, or is found to be, in need of help

in some aspect of his social-emotional living, whether

the need be for tangible provisions or counsel. As he/

she begins to receive help, he/she is called a “client”. A

client is one who seeks professional help, one who

employs the help of another or one who is served by a

social agency or an institution.

David Landy has identified the process a person goes

through in seeking help or becoming a client:

1. The help seeker must decide something is wrong.

2. The help seeker must face the probability that

family, friends and neighbours will know of his

disability.

3. The help seeker must decide to admit to a helper

he is in distress, failed or is not capable of handling

his own problem.

4. The help seeker must decide to surrender enough

sovereignty and autonomy to place himself in a

dependency role.

5. The help seeker must decide to direct his search for

help among persons and resources known to him.

6. The help seeker must decide to take time off a job

or from other responsibilities to receive help.

7. The help seeker may realize that in receiving help

relationship with others may be threatened.

The person seeking help brings to the helping situation

concerns, needs and problems. The person comes with

concerns, unmet needs and problems of social

functioning. He/She comes from a societal and cultural

milieu, a set of life experiences, and a set of transactions

with other person’s that make the person unique yet

sharing the commonalities of humankind. The client of

a social agency is like the other persons one has ever

known, but he/she is different too. In broad ways he/

she is like all other human beings; in a somewhat more

limited way he/she is like all other human beings of

his age or time or culture. But, as one moves from

understanding him/her simply as a human being to

understanding him/her as this particular human being,

one finds that, with all his/her’s general likeness to

others, he/she is as unique as his thumbprint. By

nuance and fine line and by the particular way his/her

bone and brain and spirit are joined, he/she is born

and grows as a personality different in some ways from

every other individual of his/her family, genus, or

species.

The client role calls for active participation in the helping

endeavor, which includes furnishing appropriate

information to inform the decision making process,

participation in the decision-making process to the limits

of the clients ability and capacity, and the carrying put

of the mutually agreed upon tasks.

Clients are of several types:

1. Those who ask for appropriate help for themselves.

2. Those who ask for help for another person or system.

3. Those who do not seek help but are in some way

blocking or threatening the social functioning of

another person (e.g., the neglectful parent in a child

protection case).

4. Those who seek or use help as a means to reach

their own goals or ends.

5. Those who seek help but for inappropriate goals.

Identification of clients type is the first step in the

delivery of service, for the worker-client relationship and

interaction will vary depending on the type of client and

the nature of help sought.

Felix Biestik 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 finds himself.

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

own life.

7. To help keep confidential information about self as

secret as possible.

The client is a person with both needs and a problem(s).

The problem may be related to a client. No one can ever

know the whole of another person, though may

sometimes delude himself/herself to that effect. The

reason for this lies not only in the subtle dimensions

and interlacing of any personality but also in the shift

and reorganization of new and old elements in the

personality that take place continuously just because

the person is alive in a live environment and is in

interaction with it. Nevertheless, the person is a whole

in any moment of his/her living. He/she operates as a

physical, psychological, social entity, whether on the

problem of his/her neurotic anxieties or of his

inadequate income. He/she is a product-in-process, so

to speak, of his/her constitutional makeup, his/her

physical and social environment, his/her past

environment, his/her experiences, his/her present

perceptions and reactions, and even his/her future

aspirations. It is this physical-psychological-social-pastpresent-

future configuration that he/she brings to every

life-situation he/she encounters.

The person’s behaviour has this purpose and meaning

to gain satisfaction, to avoid and dissolve frustration and

to maintain his/her balance- in- movement.

To understand a person, it is important to know his/

her parts of personality that is Id (life forces of the

individual), ego (conscious, drivers gliding our

personality forces) and superego (unconscious, ethical

values and principles) which have an important role in

governing his/her behaviour.

Whether a person’s behaviour is or is not effective in

promoting his/her well-being depends in large part

upon the functioning of his/her personality structure.

The forces of the human personality combine in three

major functions: (1) the life energies that seek

satisfactory outlets; (2) the check system, automatic or

voluntary, that halts, modifies, or re-channel these drives

to make their ends acceptable to their owner and his/

her environment; and (3) the organizing and governing

operations that controls the negotiations and balances

within the person himself/herself, as between what he/

she wants and what he/she can and ought to do, and

between himself and his/her physical environment.

Freud, a psychologist defined them as id, ego and

superego. The harmonious concerted action of these

forces in one makes for personal and social balance and

competence; their discord of faultiness is revealed in

behaviour that is personally thwarting or socially

unacceptable.

A person at any stage of his/her life is not only “a

product” of nature but is also and always “in process” of

being in the present and becoming in the future. What

happens to the individual today may be as vital to him/

her as what happened yesterday. Those physical, social

and interpersonal situations he encounters in his/her

operations today as worker, parent, spouse, student or

client will have an impact upon him/her and will respond

that can affect his/her development either morbidly or

benignly.

The persons “being and becoming” behaviour is both

shaped and judged by the expectations he/she and his/

her culture have invested in the status and the major

social role he/she carries- a man may be a father, a

son, an employee, a club member and a client of the

case worker, all in the space of a few hours. His/her

social role consists of the major function he/she carries

at a given time with broadly designated behaviour,

responsibility and rewards. His/her conflict may be

cause by his recognition of what his role calls for and

his emotional inability to meet it.

The person who comes as client to a social agency is

always under stress. Regardless of the client’s reason

for coming for help, the client brings much more than

concerns, needs or problems to the helping situation.

The client brings the total self as a biological,

psychosocial, cultural and spiritual being. This include

the resources of self and the personal environment and

also environmental constraints. What the client brings

includes perceptions of self and the situations and

patterns of coping with stress and patterns of

interpersonal relationships. The clients present need

and/or problem is affected in part by the way

developmental needs have been met and by needs

arising from the diverse aspects of the client’s lifestyle

and from the expectations of the client’s environment.

One of the major tasks of the worker is to understand

the client as a unique person in a unique situation.

There can never be total knowledge about a client; that

is impossible. The worker seeks knowledge about the

client that is needed for giving the service to be delivered.

The client is the major source of the facts used to develop

the understanding of the person in the situation.

Before a person seeks help from a social agency, he or

she has usually attempted to deal with a problem in a

way that has worked with previous problems commonly

known as “coping”. Coping results not only in solving

problems but in the reduction of tension and anxiety. If

the coping is not successful, a person may then turn to

his or her natural support system ,that is, friends,

relatives, associates etc. Thus, individuals often come to

the agency after a period of unsuccessful attempts to

deal with their problems.

The Problem

Problem, according to the America Heritage dictionary

is a “question or situation that presents uncertainty,

perplexity or difficulty”. This definition is rather

inadequate without elaboration for defining in this

chapter.

1) When does a situation become problematic?

2) When does a problematic situation become

appropriate for social work concern?

Clarification of the term becomes somewhat easier if

one looks at a problem in terms of both need and social

functioning,. Concern for and need of human systems

is the basis of the social work response. When the need

is seen as mitigating a block to social functioning, a

problem of concern to social work is said to exist. This

concern should be understood also to include potential

blocks to human functioning so as to include preventive

as well as ameliorative concerns. The perplexing situation

is then related to removal of the obstacle that blocks

need fulfillment. For problem solution, goals are related

to need fulfillment.

In order to work out a problem, one must first understand

it, comprehend it and be oriented too In the attempt to

understand any problem, there must be some analysis

of it, some translation into other familiar terms, some

sets of associations which can be brought to it. This is

the way case worker function when they are confronted

with a problem. They must come to the point where

they can see through it. The frame of reference which is

used in seeing through the problem may vary, but the

necessity to understand, it is universal. Moreover, one

must understand not only the nature of the problem,

as a social, economic or psychological entity but also

the personal context of the problem, in other words the

personalities which are involved in it. No service can be

administered effectively without such understanding.

Dimensions of how a problem arises:

1. The problem arises from some need or obstacle or

accumulation of frustrations or maladjustments and

sometimes all of these together which threatens or

has already attacked the adequacy of the person’s

living situation or the effectiveness of his/her efforts

to deal with it.

2. The social-functioning problem may rest in

interpersonal relationships; for example, the

inability of a parent to understand an adolescent

child’s need and thus, is so strict that the

relationship between parent and child is at the point

where there is open rebellion and an inability to

discuss the situation

3. The problem may rest in an inability to negotiate

with systems in the environment for e.g., a patient

in a hospital is unable to ask the doctor the questions

that are bothering the patient or to make his/her

concerns known to the doctor.

4. The problem may rest in inadequate or inappropriate

role performance; for example, the parent does not

meet the nutritional needs of the child or maintain

a suitable home for that child. May be one of

deficiency; that is, an individual does not have either

the material resources or the personal capacity

(temporary or permanent) to carry out the task

needed for coping with a situation. An older person

with a limited income and limited physical capacity

may not be able to maintain a home or fix nutritious

meals.

5. One may not have the preparation needed to carry

out a social role. For example, the mother who did

not have adequate mothering as a child and has

received no instruction in childcare may not be able

to properly care for her child because she just does

not know how to care for small children.

6. May be due to disturbances or disorder resulting

in intrapsychic turmoil, constriction or distortion.

For e.g. the person may be mentally ill or have some

perpetual difficulties which result in using

inappropriate or ineffective means for coping with

life situations.

7. May be there is discrepancies between expectations

of a person and the demands of various segments of

that person’s environment. For example, an

individual expects that food, clothing and shelter

will be provided by a social agency without work on

his/her part, but the agency can only provide

partially for those needs.

8. Problems may arise due to discrepancies between

environmental demands and personal needs. For

example, a teenage girl whose mother is ill is

expected to care for younger siblings, but she needs

time for completing her education and for

socialization with her peers.

According to Perlman, the social functioning focus of

social work began to emerge when problems were seen

not as pathological but as part of life. Problems are

frequent and unexpected in the human situation, and

solutions are usually found without professional help.

The concern of social work narrowed to those problems

in which persons cannot readily unblock the fulfillment

of need with their own resources. Problem in social work

usage refers to a social-functioning situation in which

need fulfillment of any of the persons or systems involved

is blocked or has a significant potential of blockage, and

in which the person involved cannot by themselves

remove the block to need fulfillment.

Characteristics of a client’s problem:

1. The problems within the purview of social case work

are those which vitally affect or are affected by a

persons social functioning. The problem may be

some unmet needs-economic, medical, educational,

recreational-which hampers or undermines a

person’s adequate living. Or it may be one of stresspsychological,

social, physical- which causes the

person to be ineffective or disturbed in carrying his/

her social roles.

2. The multifaceted and dynamic nature of the client’s

problem makes necessary the selection by the case

worker and client of some part of it as the unit for

work. Three main considerations enter into the

choice of problem focus: 1) what the client wants 2)

what the case worker’s professional judgment’s

points to as possible and desirable solutions and 3)

What the agency is for and can offer.

3. Problems in any part of a human beings living tend

to have “chain reaction.” This is because while in

the study of a person he/she may be

compartmentalized and analyzed as a biological or

psychological or social entity, a person lives a

dynamic interrelated whole, reacting to and upon

the dynamic whole of his/her environment.

Whatever hurts one parts of his/her living will have

its impact in other parts.

4. Any problem which a person encounters has both

an objective and a subjective significance. A problem

may be seen and understood by an onlooker; it is

felt by its carrier, and it is experienced with the

particularity of individual difference. Two aged men

unable to work and needs money. This is a simple

problem for which there is a ready solution in the

form of age old assistance, yet it may not feel simple

for the two. One may feel depressed by the problem

itself-that he is old, is found useless, and is dumped

by employers and so on. The other may accept his

ageing and feels he has a right to be “given a hand”,

but his anger and anxiety are aroused by the

solution proffered-he cannot see why he must prove

residence in his state or how he is expected to

manage on so little money. Case worker must elicit

and often deal with such feelings so that they may

implement rather than obstruct the client’s work

on his/her problem.

5. Not only do the external (objective) and internal

(subjective) aspects of the problem co-exist, but

either one may be the cause of the other. Everyone

encounters situations in ones social living that, by

his/her own momentary or chronic inability to deal

with them, create internal problem in oneself. Case

work help in problem solving, provides other things,

an intervention which breaks or modifies the causeeffect

chain of difficulties. Since this intervention

may in itself prove problematic to the client, the

social case work must seek to understand his/her

means and processes as astutely as is possible so

that he/she may facilitate rather than complicate

the client’s problem solving efforts.

The Place

The place is a social service agency or a social service

department of another kind of human welfare agency.

The place to which the person comes for help with his/

her problem is known as a social agency. The term

“agency” has a misleading American sound, but it was

used in British case work literature in the late

nineteenth century. Present day usage refers to the

institution within which the case worker practices;

sometimes it is the larger institution that is intended

(e.g. the local authority) and at other times it is the

smaller social work microcosm (e.g. the psychiatric social

work department in a mental hospital). The institutions

in which case workers practice (schools, child guidance

clinics, children’s departments of the hospitals and

courts and so on) have all been established to achieve

certain broad social purposes and case workers have a

part to play in achieving them. Its purpose is to help

individuals with the particular social handicaps which

hampers good personal or family living and with the

problems created by faulty person-to-person, personto-

group or person-to-situation relationships. This

agency’s purpose and functions come to life in the person

and professional performance of the case worker.

Social case work agencies differ one from the other in a

number of ways, but there are three major factors that

determine their classification:

1. Their source of support- public taxation (child

welfare, physical and mental health programmes etc)

or voluntary contribution.

2. Their source of professional authority – primary

agencies carry full authority and responsibility for

their social functions and secondary agencies derive

their authority and responsibility from the host

agency.

3. Their special function and area of concern- primary

agencies both public and private, may define certain

areas of social need as the particular fielding in

which they give services. Secondary, case work help

is related to the work of some other profession, such

as medicine, education or law and to its specific

knowledge and purpose.

Perlman has described some of the characteristics of

Agency:

1. The social agency is an organization fashioned to

express the will of a society or of some group in that

society. An agency embodies a society’s decision to

protect its members against social breakdowns, to

prevent their maladjustments and/or to promote the

development of better or higher levels of humans

functioning.

2. Each social agency develops a programme by which

to meet the particular areas of need with which it

sets out to deal-The agency programme consists of

the aids and activities by which its intent is

translated into provisions of help. The ways and

means which an agency programme provides will

convey its function effectively or not, depending on

a number of factors: money, the knowledge and

competency of the agency staff; the interest,

resources and support of the community; the

consistency between ascertained needs and the

proffered means.

3. The social agency has a structure by which it

organizes and delegates its responsibilities and

tasks, and governing policies and procedures by

which it stabilizes and systematizes its operationsstructure,

as it may be depicted on an organizational

chart, is the agency’s anatomy. The agency’s body

is made up of many members with different purposes

and powers, all dependent upon one another in the

body’s total working. The structure of an agency

identifies and assigns separate and joint

responsibilities, authorities and tasks to each

personnel and demarcates the relationship among

various functions in the total agency body.

4. The social agency is a living, adaptable organism

susceptible to being understood and changed, much

as other living organisms-If agency structure may

be seen as its anatomy, its operations may represent

its physiology, and the purposes, attitudes, and goal

directions of its personnel and board are its

psychology. The circumstance of its inception, the

person’s who nurtured it and the social situations

it encountered will have affected the agency’s present

behaviour.

5. Every staff member in an agency speaks and acts

for some part of the agency’s function, and the case

worker represents the agency in its individualized

problem-solving help-What a case worker can do with

and for his client derives both from his professional

commitment and skill and from the agency which

hires him/her. In order to represent the agency,

he/she must be psychologically identified with the

purpose and the policies of his/her agencies. Every

social agency banks a fund of knowledge about the

experience with the particular problems it has set

out to solve.

6. The case worker, while representing his/her agency,

is first and foremost a representative of his/her

profession-The social case worker practices in the

conviction that individual human welfare is the

purpose and the test of social policy; that his/her

attitude combine open enquiry with dedication to

the people and the person he/she serves; that he/

she maintains “social-conscience” and that he/she

conducts himself ethically in all his/her professional

transactions.

Social work is an agency-based profession. The agency

is the immediate environment of the worker-client

interaction. This interaction often takes place in an office

or building identified as the “agency”. The influence of

the agency is strong even when the interaction takes

place elsewhere in the community. As an employee, the

worker is a part of the agency system, and because of

this the worker is accountable to the agency. The form

and content of the service offered must be within the

agency’s purview and guidelines. The manner in which

the agency is structured and functions greatly influence

the nature of the worker-client interaction. The agency

also provides resources for both the worker and the

client.

The agencies are established to carry out broad social

functions as healing and rehabilitation in the case of

hospitals, ensuring good parental care in the case of

children’s department of the local authority and so on.

The worker is expected to contribute to these objectives

and to clarify and develop his/her own function within

this broad social purpose. Yet, the most important aspect

of agency function is that it constitutes the meeting

point of social worker and the client, it is what brings

them together and gives meaning and sustenance to

their continued contact. The community provides

financial and other support and sanction for the agency;

community attitudes impact the agency and its capacity

to deliver services. It also has expectations for the nature

and outcome of services. There are two kinds of

expectations: the professional and the bureaucratic. The

greater the organizations, the larger the differences.

Bureaucratic expectations call for loyalty to the

organization; acceptance of authority from achievement

of goals, on specialization and on efficiency. Professional

expectations call for commitment to professional values

and to the service of clients; ability to have a broad span

of decision-making power; collegial relationship and an

emphasis on meeting client need and allowing for client

self-determination and individualization.

Before a worker can effectively deliver service as a

professional in a bureaucratic organization, the worker

must first understand the organization. The first task

in understanding an agency is to define its boundaries.

The second task is to determine environmental factors

that influence the structure and functioning of the

agency. The third task is to understand the structure

and functioning of the agency system.

Social worker not only needs to understand the agency

in which they are employed but they also need to be

able to understand other social agencies. This is

important if the worker is to help the clients in order to

use the resources and services of other agencies.

The Process

The process, is a progressive transaction between the

professional helper (the case worker) and the client. It

consists of a series of problem solving operations carried

out within a meaningful relationship. The end of this

process is contained in its means: to influence the clientperson

that he/she develops effectiveness in coping with

his/her problem and /or to so influence the problem as

to resolve it or reduce its effects. As the social worker

develops skill in the problem-solving process, thinking

about the phenomena being confronted will begin to

take place in orderly steps. These steps appear to be

simple but are quite complex in application.

Sal Hofstein states: “Process refers to the recurrent

patterning of a sequence of change over time and in a

particular direction.” It is important to note three

qualities of this process: 1) recurrent patterning or stages

2) takes place over time 3) in a particular direction (the

process is irreversible).The problem-solving process as

used in social work has its source in the classic work of

John Dewey and in his description of the thought

process used by human beings when confronted with

difficult situations. Social work problem solving is

finding a way through feeling, thinking, and acting. It

progresses over time in a cyclical, irreversible manner

that is focused on removing blocks to need fulfillment

that individuals cannot remove with their own resources.

In order to understand what the case work process must

include in its problem-solving help, it is necessary for the

social case worker to take stock first of the kinds of

blockings which occur in people’s normal problem-solving

effort. These six are among the most common:

1. A problem cannot be solved if the necessary tangible

means and resources are not available to the person.

A client, for instance, may see and assess his/her

problem and its solution accurately and may lack

only the material provision for it.

2. Sometimes, people are unable to solve their

problems simply out of ignorance or

misapprehension about the facts of the problems or

the facts of existing ways of meeting it.

3. A problem is difficult of resolution when the person

who has depleted or drained of emotional or physical

energy. He/she needs to mobilized himself/herself-

”pull himself together’- when he/she must plan and

act according to plan.

4. When problems sets off a conflagration of feeling, a

person’s thought processes, delicately attuned as

they are to his/her emotions become clouded and

tumbled about.

5. The problem may lie within the person: i.e, he/she

may have become subject to, or victim of, emotions

that chronically, over a long time have governed his/

her thinking and action.

6. Some people find problems in solving a difficult

situation because they have never developed

systematic habits of orderly methods of thinking and

planning. So, the difficulty lies chiefly in the

person’s lack of experience in organizing his/her

power to grapple with problems.

In the case work relationship, a constant medium is

provided that is accepting, nurturing and supporting at

the same time that the stimulus of problem-solving work

is injected to promote the client’s effort to feel, to be or

to act in the ways leading to his/her better social

adjustment. The case work process sustains and fortifies

the functions of the client’s ego. The first part of the

case work process, as in all problem-solving, is to

ascertain and clarify the facts of the problem. The second

aspect of case work problem-solving grows out of and

interweaves with the ongoing eliciting of facts, it is

thinking through the facts. The conclusive phase of each

problem-solving effort in case work is the making of some

choice or decision.

Stages of Problem-solving Process

1. Preliminary statement of the problem,

2. Statement of preliminary assumptions about the

nature of the problem,

3. Selection and collection of information,

4. Analysis of information available,

5. Development of a plan,

6. Implementation of the plan, and

7. Evaluation of the plan.

1) Preliminary statement of the problem-A clear

statement of the problem is necessary before

processing to subsequent steps. Often, problem

statement tends to be vague, global, and lacking in

precision. For example, school dropouts or unwed

mothers are often referred to as problems. A more

adequate formulation in the area of unwed mothers

might be: lack of educational resources for teenage

pregnant girls. In this statement, the need of the

individual and society is education.

2) Statement of preliminary assumptions about the

nature of the problem-This step is necessary to help

make explicit the type of information needed for

understanding and planning. As the problem is

stated, implicit assumptions are made about its

nature and cause, which provide indications as to

the need in the situation and as to the block to

need fulfillment.

3) Selection and collection of information-Sources

for information should include a variety of

perspectives that may be chosen from historical,

social-psychological, biological, economic, political,

religious, and ethical understandings.

Both the facts of the problem itself and the meaning

of the problem to those concerned are important.

Skill in the collection of information also calls for

skill in communication and social interaction with

persons who are sources of the information. The

values of social work call for the client to be a primary

source. There is a need to determine and accumulate

relevant evidence about the situation, and this

evidence needs to be related to the salient features

of the situation.

4) Analysis of information available- Analysis of

information is influenced and directed by the

purpose for which the analysis is to be used. Other

purposes include determination of feasible goals and

possible outcomes and of possible plans of action,

interpretation of the meaning of the information

gathered, and evaluation. The cyclical nature of the

process becomes very apparent, for one returns to

analysis as an ingredient of each step of the process.

The carrying out of the process generates new

information.

5) Development of a plan-Information and its analysis

lead to understanding of what can be done to remove

obstacles blocking need fulfillment. A social worker

uses assessment in developing a plan of action.

Plans develop from a consideration of a variety of

possible strategies and techniques. As a plan

becomes more specific, the social worker will return

to early steps in the process to gather and analyze

new information needed for the specifics of planning.

Consideration of a variety of plans is important in

creative planning.

6) Implementation of the plan-In social work,

implementation involves interaction between people

and is interventive in nature. It is action based on

thinking that has its source in feelings about

concern or need. In addition, it is action based on

substantial knowledge from many sources that

explain and predict behaviour of persons in the

situation.

7) Evaluation of the plan-This step may result in

redefinition of the problem, expanded information

gathering and analysis, of reformulation of the plan.

If the goal has been reached, evaluation is an

appropriate and necessary climax to the process.

Regardless of the outcome of the plan, evaluation of

what happened can lead to an understanding that

can be transferred to other situations and to more

effective problem solving in those situations.

The intent of the case work process is to engage the

person himself/herself both in working on and in coping

with the one or several problems that confront him/her

and to do so by such means as may stand him/her in

good stead as he/she goes forward in living.

These therapeutic means are as follows:

1) The provision of a therapeutic relationship that

sustains the client and effects the nature of his/

her emotional relation to his/her problems;

2) The provision of a systematic, though always flexible,

way by which the client may discuss and work over

the nature of his/her problem, his/her relation to

it and its potential solutions; and

3) The provision of such opportunities and aids (those

of communication and/or resources) as will further

exercise and implement the client’s adaptive action

upon his/her problems.

Three essential operations of problem-solving process

are

1. The facts that constitute and bear upon the problem

must be ascertained and grasped. Such facts may

be of objective reality and of subjective reaction, of

cause and effect, of relatedness between the person

and his/her problems, of the solution sought and

of the actual means available;

2. The facts must be thought about. The facts must be

played upon and organized by ideas-ideas springing

from knowledge and experience and subject to the

governing aim of problem solution;

3. Some choice or decision must be made that is the

end result of the consideration of the particular facts

and that affects or has the intent of resolving the

problem.

The process can be conceptualized as having four major

components: assessment, planning, action and

termination. Although assessment precedes planning,

planning precedes action and action precedes

termination, the process is cyclical in nature.

Planning often leads to the need for new or different

understanding of the person in the situation

(assessment). Action often produces new information

for use in understanding or demonstrates the need for

additional planning. Evaluation, the assessment of what

has happened as a result of action, is ongoing in the

process and leads to new understanding and sometimes

to new plans and action. Thus, all four stages are always

present, but at various points in the work one or more

may be the focus and receive the most attention.

All four stages as well as the interactional process

constitute intervention. All can influence changes in

the transactions between clients and the systems in

their environment. All can influence the social

functioning of individuals and social systems.

The aim of case work process is to engage the client

with his/her problem and his/her will to do something

about it in a working relationship with the agency, its

intentions and special means of helpfulness. The context

of the process is a fairly constant one, and its method is

a fairly systematic one-as constant and as systematic as

a process keyed to living, feeling, changing human

beings can be-while it yet remains fluid and flexible.

Finally, for the solution or mitigation of many problems

there must exists certain material means or accessible

opportunities which are available to the needful person

and which he/she can be helped to use. Money, medical

care, nursery schools, scholarship, short-stay homes,

foster homes, recreational facilities- these are the kind

of resources that any person may need in order to resolve

a given problem in his/her daily living. The case worker

should know about these resources or know how to

become informed of them. He/She should be able to

pick the right ones imaginatively in their relation to the

client’s problem.

Conclusion

At the door of the agency, stands the person, who has a

problem. It may be simple or complex, old or new,

commonplace or peculiar, but it always has significance

to the person: it is something that he/she is experiencing

as he/she is frustrated in his/her present living

situation, and it is something that he/she finds he/she

cannot cope with unaided. The problem which the

person carries to the agency, sometimes clutches to

him/her tightly, sometimes distastefully held out at

fingers tip, hurts or incapacitates him today. The social

agency is prepared to receive and if possible to give help

to the person whose problem brings him/her to it. The

agency has a stated purpose, a special set of functions,

structures, policies and procedures, which they have

validated. In other words, the problem must be one with

which the agency is equipped to help. From the facts

regarding the problem and out of the client’s verbal and

behavioural responses, the case worker’s understanding

of the client grows. The case worker understands what

are the inner and outer resources the client brings to

the problems solving situation.

The case worker must not only be a keen listener but

also an active agent in helping the client to communicate

about his/her problem and focus his/her attention and

expand his/her understanding of the client. He/she must

also focus on the purpose of the agency and ability to

help.

Problem solving implies that both the case worker and

his/her client are simultaneously and consciously,

though differently, engaged in problem-solving from the

beginning. The clients sharing and working-through his

feelings, and the impetus and help given to him/her to

know and think about his/her attitudes, behaviour,

needs and goals are in themselves an experience and

experience of adaptation. The by-product of both these

ongoing activities yields the case worker a large part of

what becomes his/her diagnosis. And the taking of next

steps out of considered choice, the planning of action

or the internal settlement arrived at involves the executive

and integrative functions of the ego.

Three interrelated guides have been set down to achieve

and hold focus on dealing with helping the client who

comes to the agency: the selection 1) of that problem or

aspect of which the client himself feels is most important;

2) of that part of his total problem which falls within the

helping function of the agency; and 3) of that problem

which in the worker’s judgment most need and can yield

to help

The mental work of examining the parts of a problem

for th e       import of their particular nature and organization,

for the interrelationship among them, for the

relationship between them and the means to their

solution is known as a diagnostic process. Diagnosis

must result in a “design for action”. Probably no process

has been as troubling to case workers as diagnosis. The

content of case work diagnosis falls into the triangular

pattern as that of other professional design for action. It

consist of: 1) The nature of the problem brought and

the goals sought by the client, in their relationship to

2) the nature of the person who bears the problem (his

social and psychological situation and functioning) and

who seeks (or needs) help with his problem, in relation

to 3) the nature of the purpose of the agency and the

kind of help it can offer and /or make available. The

content of the case work diagnosis, then, is focused,

weighted and bounded by the purpose and means of

the client and the agency.