OVERVIEW OF THE TEACHER’S GUIDE Introduction to the Teacher’s Guide W e have organized The Life Model of Social Work Practice: Advances in Theory and Practice, fourth edition, into three parts. In part I, we begin with the history of the social work profession and the development of its values, ethics, and knowledge base, and elaborate upon the theoretical foundation of the ecological perspective and the Life Model of Social Work Practice. We also consider the significance of cultural factors in a person’s life and the implications of culturally competent and diversity-sensitive practice and cultural humility. We conclude part I with an examination of assessment tasks common to all practice approaches, as well as underlying beliefs that are distinct to life-modeled practice. In part II, each phase of the helping process—preliminary, initial, ongoing, and ending—is discussed in detail, and we illustrate the social worker’s function, methods, and skills using vignettes usually drawn from our students’ or graduates’ practice. Part III describes how the social worker influences communities, organizations, and social policies in order to be more responsive to clients’ needs. We include case material, again drawn primarily from our students and graduates, to illustrate key points. Throughout the book, we have intentionally included examples that reflect the full range of practice settings and the diverse client populations with whom stu- dents will work. Many of these include actual dialogue and detailed descriptions of workers’ actions and are based upon process recordings and students’ descriptions of their work. In addition to drawing on their own students’ cases, instructors can consider using the ones included in this text to help students deepen their under- standing of the concepts, methods and skills that the cases illustrate. Part II of this Teacher’s Guide provides a summary of each chapter’s content, as well as suggested teaching methods and skills. The guide also identifies com- petency standards established by the Council on Social Work Education (2015) related to the content being covered.