Previous Page Next Page 
(c)  2025 Columbia University Press. All Rights reserved.

Generalist Practice: A Task-Centered Approach, Second Edition resources

Extracted Text (may have errors)

6 Introduction themselves that a parsimonious and straightforward approach is not adequate. 1.3.0 Generalist Practice, the Task-Centered Approach, and the Ecosystems Perspective The development of generalist practitioners is obviously a highly desir- able goal. The practical problem in accomplishing this goal is that an enormous amount of time would be required if students had to learn a unique approach to practice for each system and each situation. It is our hypothesis that educating students to use TC with systems ranging from the individual to the community will produce competent beginning-level generalists within a reasonable period of time. The openness of both TC and the generalist perspective also provide a sound base for incorporat- ing other theories and intervention procedures as skill levels mature. In addition to the practical problem involved in educating generalist prac- titioners, there is a conceptual problem. This problem concerns helping practitioners to recognize the possibility and necessity of working with systems other than the most immediate ones—those that present them- selves or those to which others refer us. A solution to this problem lies in the ecosystems perspective, which enables us to see people and prob- lems in their environmental contexts and about which a large, robust literature exists. However, since the ecosystems perspective continues to evolve, there is no one description of it on which everyone agrees. Since space limits us here to only a brief description of this perspective, the reader is encouraged to consult additional sources (see, for example, Germain and Gitterman 1996; Kemp, Whittaker, and Tracy 1997; Meyer and Mattaini 1995; and Norlin and Chess 1997). The ecosystems perspective is a collage of two bodies of theory: eco- logical theory and general systems theory. It is called a “perspective” because it provides a way of thinking about people and their environ- ments rather than offering domain-specific content or a methodology for practice (Meyer 1983; Kemp, Whittaker, and Tracy 1997). Ecolog- ical theory has been borrowed from zoology, and the word ecology refers to the relationship between an animal and its environment. The fundamental proposition in this perspective is that human systems and

Help

loading