Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (Connecting Core Competencies)

A firm foundation for understanding empowerment-focused social work, engaging clients, conducting solution-oriented assessment, and implementing, evaluating, and stabilizing change.

This widely popular resource provides a firm foundation for understanding empowerment-focused social work, engaging clients, conducting solution-oriented assessment, and implementing, evaluating, and stabilizing change. It demonstrates a progressive practice approach that is grounded in social work research, reflective of social work values, sensitive to client diversity, and applicable to working with any level of client system including individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

General Social Work Practice gives readers a method that fully realizes core social work values, respects client competence, and activates client resources within the context of their lives, beginning with engaging clients as partners and continuing with assessing, intervening, and evaluating from a strengths perspective. Thoroughly up to date, the book includes relevant information on contemporary trends in social work practice, revisions of the popular critical thinking questions consistent with the Council on Social Work Educations’ (CSWE) current core competencies and practice behaviors, and new links to e-resources to promote student learning and assessment. The Enhanced Pearson eText features embedded videos and assessments.

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Karla Krogsrud Miley, A.M., ACSW, retired in 2009 from her appointment as professor and Chair of the Department of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Studies at Black Hawk College in Moline, Illinois, where she taught life span psychology, introductory psychology, and introductory social work. She continues to teach human behavior theory as an adjunct professor for the St. Ambrose University MSW program in Davenport, Iowa. A graduate of the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, and a licensed social worker in Illinois, Miley has experience in a variety of fields of practice, including school social work and aging services. She has extensive experience in facilitating workshops and conference sessions on generalist social work and empowerment and social justice. She has served on the editorial board of Social Work Education and on the Social Work Advisory Board for Pearson Education.  Professor Miley is a coauthor of Social Work: An Empowering Profession (8th edition), co-editor of Pathways to Power: Reading in Contextual Social Work Practice, and works collaboratively with Michael O’Melia and Brenda DuBois in writing Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (8th edition, forthcoming).

Michael O'Melia is a retired Associate Professor in the St. Ambrose University MSW Program, Davenport, Iowa. He specialized in teaching clinical social work with expertise in generalist, collaborative, and anti-oppressive methods. O’Melia is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Illinois, working for over forty years with individuals, couples, families and small groups in child welfare, delinquency prevention, family therapy, and school-based practice settings. In addition to co-authoring Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach, O’Melia is co-editor of Pathways to Power: Reading in Contextual Social Work Practice. Functioning as a community trainer and program consultant, O’Melia focuses on developing culturally competent practices, working with resistant and mandated clients, and implementing strength-based clinical strategies. He has been a member of the Social Work Advisory Board for Pearson Education, serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Rumanian Social Work Review, and contributes as a reviewer to the Journal of Progressive Human Services.

Brenda DuBois, PhD, MSW, professor emerita, was the director of the graduate School of Social work at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, Iowa.  A graduate of the University of Iowa (social work) and Illinois State University (Higher Education Administration), Dr. DuBois has been a social work educator for 35 years, in both BSW and MSW programs, with teaching specialties in generalist practice, social welfare history and policy, social justice, empowerment, and ethics. She has served on several community boards and service delivery planning groups. Additionally, as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Illinois she has extensive experience in facilitating workshops, staff development training, and conference sessions on generalist social work, empowerment social work, social justice, and social work ethics. Dr. DuBois is a coauthor with Karla Miley of Social Work: An Empowering Profession (8^th edition) and works collaboratively with Karla Miley and Michael O’Melia in writing Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (8^th edition, forthcoming).