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

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task-centered and generalist practice 11 ample, the child might be truant because of conditions in the family, the school, or the neighborhood. Exploration of the truancy problem will reveal which systems are interfering with the child’s school atten- dance. Finally, the system best able to make the necessary changes must be considered. In the case of truancy, the problem location is the child. The system in which changes must occur to solve the problem might be the family. But the family conditions might be sufficiently chaotic that homemaker services are necessary. Thus the system best able to make the changes becomes the social welfare agency, which must be per- suaded to provide a homemaker. Some examples are in order. A married couple seeks help for mari- tal communication problems. In this case, the problem identifier and location of the problem, necessary changes, and problem solvers are all the same: the couple. The couple, then, becomes the primary sys- tem for work. A child is referred for truancy. On exploration, the social worker learns that the mother is keeping the child at home to provide care for younger children because the mother is temporarily incapacitated. The mother agrees to allow the social worker to help her find other alter- natives. In this case, the problem (truancy) is located in the child but changes must occur in another system (family) for the problem to be solved. It is likely the problem can be solved by the combined efforts of the family and the social worker. The primary system becomes the family. A woman complains that she cannot allow her children to play out- side because the neighborhood is too dangerous. This problem cannot be solved by the woman and the social worker alone. If community groups exist that are willing to take on the problem, then the problem location, location for change, and problem solving are all located in the same system: the community. The community groups become the pri- mary system. A community group has become concerned about the physical dete- rioration of the neighborhood. It learns that residents cannot borrow money for home repairs because of an illegal banking practice called “red-lining.” The group gathers evidence to bring this practice to the authorities’ attention. Here the problem is located in one system, the

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