What is the difference between a theory, model, method and approach in social work?

okay so in this film we're going to look at what's the difference in social work between a theory a model a method and an approach now if you want to use this film for your own CPD you might want to put down a few notes yourself about how confident you are about this topic and maybe just put together a couple of thoughts around what you think the difference is between a theory a model a method and an approach at this point you could pause the video to do that and then come back to it and see what I think the difference is so I think this is a really important topic some people would say to you it doesn't really matter if something's a theory or a model but I think it does matter because what it is impacts on how we use it in practice so I have a particular way for myself to think through what's the difference between a theory a model a method and an approach and that's what I'm going to take you through now so in the world of science a theory is said to do four things a theory is said to help us to describe what's happening explain why it's happening predict what will happen next and then intervene in a situation to bring about change now in many ways that actually reflects what we do as social workers think about it when we first meet somebody we're trying to work through with them to describe what's happening for them we're looking together with that person at why this situation has come about we also try to think about predictions what do we think might happen in this situation especially when there's an element of risk that we might need to consider then together with the person we should look at what can we do if necessary to work together to bring about change in the situation so in many ways as a framework this is often used to say that actually that's what a theory does and in many ways that's what a social worker does so we're using theory all of the time whether or not we're conscious of that on that first point I would definitely agree I think as social workers were using theory all of the time but very often were not really conscious about that we're maybe not making conscious thoughts around the theory that we're using but we are using theory however I do think that in social work a theory doesn't do all four of those things of course social work draws on science but it also draws on arts and humanities it's very multidisciplinary so in many ways whilst we draw on that it doesn't really work for us in social work in terms of what a theory does so in social work in fact a theory only does the first three of those things a theory helps us to describe what's happening explain why it's happening and predict what will happen next it doesn't no help us to intervene and bring about change it doesn't form our intervention but it doesn't say here's what to do and how to do it now sometimes I get the opportunity I'm really privileged to get the opportunity to work with large groups of students and I try and help them to work through this what's the difference between a theory and a model and I'll say to a group of students for example tell me about attachment what's attachment and I'll say really confidently oh that's a theory Siobhan if I say why is it a theory they'll say well it's it's called attachment see here it's not enough to rely on something being called a theory or a model there has been in the past quite a bit of confusion around this area not just in social work but in a range of disciplines and so that means that something might be called a theory or might be called a model when it isn't actually if you want to work through this just take attachment as an example attachment helps us to describe a person's behaviors it helps us to explain where those behaviors come from it helps us to predict the likely impact of those behaviors on future relationships it might inform our intervention plan but it doesn't provide us with intervention plan so it's a theory in social work a theory helps us to describe explain and predict but to do that intervene and bring about change we need a model so something like task centered practice has been around for a long time now taskcentre practice is a model it's very clearly a model of intervention taskcentre practice doesn't in any way help you when you going to see a person to describe what's happening for them to explain why it's happening or to predict what might happen next but it says look here's a really good way to work with people to bring about change so task center practice is a model so just to clarify that then a theory helps us to understand a situation whilst a model helps us to intervene that hasn't always been effectively clarified in the past so some writers have talked about models to understand our models to intervene and some writers have talked about theory to understand our theory to intervene if I'm honest in my own writing I don't think I'm always clear about that when I look back at what I've written I think the clearest way for us is to recognize that theories help us to understand a situation and models help us to intervene what about a method though I think there can be a lot of confusion in social work between a model and a method they are connected but they are different things so a method is a specific tool or technique that we might use in our practice it comes from a model all methods I think pretty much come from a model but just because you're using that particular method it doesn't mean you've used the whole model but of course as a student particularly it would be really helpful for you to know where that method comes from sometimes I go out and I do an observation of a student's practice and I'll see them do something really good and I'll say that was great where did that come from and they'll say mmm I don't know I saw somebody else do it or my friend told me about it whereas actually what I really want a students be able to say to me is well of course that method comes from this particular model of practice so try and work at that if you can do as an example I put up here gems questions is a questioning method which is drawn out of brief solution focus therapy if you're not familiar with that don't worry we'll do all the films that go through different models and methods but just as an example gems is a way of asking questions and the G stands for goal-setting questions the e is exception finding questions the M miracle questions and the S scaling questions and of course most social workers use one or two of those types of questions in any intervention with prep with service users most of us use those questions that's a particular method drawn out of brief solution focus therapy it doesn't mean though that as a social worker we're using that therapy but it means we're drawing out of that model to use particular methods so what about an approach I asked about four things a theory a model a method and an approach and I started off by talking about the difference between a theory and a model and we're concluding this almost with an approach but actually in practice we would generally start off with thinking about our approach our approaches our overall way of working how do we go about something how do we approach something the approach that we take actually impacts on everything else that we do so the approach we take will impact on the theory we choose to use to understand something or the model that we use to intervene some examples of contemporary approaches might be a strengths-based approach which focuses in on looking at people's strengths rather than deficits or we might use a relationship based up which is all about the importance of relationships in social work so we've kind of talked through what's the theory what's a model what's a method what's an approach but now I wants us to connect all of that together how do those things connect and interrelate and to help us to explore that I'm going to use an analogy I want us to think about theory as if it was the food of Social Work practice because in many ways it is theory is what gives us the essential nutrients of our practice it reflects the diversity of what we do so think about what's your favorite kind of food maybe that indicates the approach that you take to practice nobody has exactly the same meal for breakfast lunch and tea every day none of us do and if friends were coming round for dinner or if we were going out to eat somewhere we might use it or prefer a different kind of food that's the approach that you like to take I know if I had a friend coming round for tea I might choose to cook something different than I would if I was eating on my own or just with my family and that's what we do when we're working with people we think about what's their tastes what's - their taste what kind of approach do I need to take with this particular person so you could think about it as your approach is your favorite kind of food but sometimes you adapt that kind of food depending on who you're eating with we can have an individual professional approach but sometimes an approach comes from government or sometimes an approach comes from our employer so it may be that you would say to me I'll shove all my favorite kind of food it's had been it's a lovely little Italian that does its own homemade pasta I really like it there but the organization that you work for might say well that's great but we can't afford for you to eat there we can only afford for you to eat in this kind of fast food place so your approach and your employer's approach might not match together and that's a good way of thinking about approaches in practice there's not just a professional approach but there's also an organizational approach I've never met anyone who says to me do you know what Sherbourne my favorite approach to practice it's a managerial is bureaucratic approach to practice and yet many of us as social workers have to use that in our practice so let's be honest about the approach we want to take may not be the approach that we are enabled to take but now let's look at how all of this connects together so using that food analogy I want you to think about a model in Social Work as if it was a curry I know that sounds strange but it helps us to put it all back together so imagine what kind of curry you like to eat now you could go into I grew up in Manchester near to Cory Mile and there there's loads of different types of curries and you could go from one town to another town and you'd get very different kinds of curry because the spice used is different now I live near Birmingham and there it's full of bolte curries totally different kind of curry again you could go into a Thai restaurant and there you can have a whole traffic light system of curries you can have red you can have green you can have yellow curries you could have a Jamaican Jerk Cory you can go into a fish and chip shop and you can get that kind of gloopy core resource that you bore on your chips if I'm honest that is my favorite kind of Cory sauce you can go into McDonald's and you can get curry sauce that you just dip your chips into all of that is curry but its flavored by a different approach now to social workers could use the same model the curry but they flavor it completely differently because one of them has taken a Thai approach and another one has taken a fish and chip shop approach the approach you take flavors the way in which you use a model in social work so they're all very connected your theory or model your method or approach impact is all very connected in summary to demonstrate that connection an approach is your overall way of going about something how do you approach something a theory provides you with a way to understand a situation or a perspective or what's happening in a person's life the model gives you a structure to intervene in that situation it provides you with an intervention strategy and a method is a specific tool or technique that's generally drawn out of a model which of course is flavored by an approach so all of this is connected together some students find it helpful to think about the head heart hands framework that comes out of social pedagogy and this can provide a really good way of us thinking about the difference between a theory and model a method and an approach so the head heart and hands of a practitioner the head can represent the theory because that's how we understand what's going on it's the knowledge that we draw on in our practice the heart is effectively the beating heart of the practitioner what makes us tick in practice so that would represent our overall approach to practice as a social worker the hands represent the model because that's about the skills and what you're doing in practice and how you go about something whereas if you put a tool into the hands that's the method of practice because that specific tool in our hands drawn out of the model is our method so the tool in the hands can represent the method that we use in social work so I hope that this film has helped you to start to think about the difference in social work between a theory a model a method and an approach there'll be lots of other films coming up that go through different examples of those but to provide this basic framework this starting framework I think is really important for us as social workers and as students so I hope that you've enjoyed the film and I hope that you'll watch more as I develop more and put more onto the Channel please though if you want to find out more follow me on Twitter or on Facebook thanks very much for your time

Channel: Siobhan Maclean

Views: 11,106

Rating: 4.9558825 out of 5

Keywords: social work, siobhan maclean, social work theory, models of social work

Id: nE1rKczA2kk

Length: 15min 52sec (952 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020