Social Work Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Integrated social work is the use of a holistic approach.

The integrated (or generalist) approach grew out of dissatisfaction with treating casework, group work and community organisation as separate specialisms. It asks the worker to see the client as a whole person within family, group, community and wider social systems, and to choose whichever method or mix of methods the situation needs. That whole-person, whole-situation view is what 'holistic' means.

'Combination' describes only the mixing of methods, not the outlook behind it. The ecological and systems perspectives are theories that integrated practice draws on, but each is one lens, not the overall approach the term names.

Answer: A

The key is both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

Classical utilitarianism judges actions and policies by the total satisfaction of individual wants and preferences. Critics argue that this treats society as a collection of separate wanting individuals, so it encourages a culture in which people are defined by what they own and consume: a world of possessive individualism.

The reason states why: social values such as solidarity, justice and community were treated as secondary to producing and satisfying wants. Because that ranking is the very feature the criticism attacks, (R) explains (A). The options saying (R) does not explain (A), or that either statement is false, miss this direct link.

Answer: C

The correct matching is (a)-(iv), (b)-(iii), (c)-(ii), (d)-(i).

• Rabindranath Tagore founded the school at Shantiniketan in 1901, which grew into Visva-Bharati.
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj (as the Brahmo Sabha) in 1828.
• Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875.
• Mahatma Gandhi set up his ashram at Sevagram, near Wardha, in 1936.

Every other code pairs Tagore or Gandhi with the wrong place, or gives Raja Ram Mohan Roy the Arya Samaj, which was Dayanand's organisation, so only this code fits all four.

Answer: A

Amending laws is a macro level intervention.

Social work practice is usually divided into three levels. Micro practice works with individuals and families, mezzo (meso) practice with groups, organisations and local communities, and macro practice with policy, legislation and society-wide systems. Changing the laws that govern women's safety at the workplace alters conditions for every working woman in the jurisdiction, which is the defining feature of macro work.

Meso and micro interventions act on one organisation or one person at a time, and crisis intervention is short-term help to an individual or family in acute distress.

Answer: A

The keyed term is autonomy.

Autonomy means self-government: individuals or groups make their own decisions and are held responsible for them, instead of having choices made for them by the worker or an outside authority. In social work it underlies the principle of client self-determination, and in group and community work it is the stage at which a group runs its own affairs and answers for its own decisions.

Empowerment is close, but it names the process of gaining the power, confidence and resources to act, not the condition of deciding for oneself and being accountable for it. Team building develops cooperation within a work group, and multitasking means handling several tasks at once, so neither concerns responsibility for one's own decisions.

Answer: B

The author is Abraham Flexner.

Flexner, already famous for his 1910 report on American medical education, delivered 'Is Social Work a Profession?' at the National Conference of Charities and Correction in Baltimore in 1915. He set out criteria for a profession, such as intellectual operations, a scientific knowledge base, practical ends and an educationally communicable technique, and concluded that social work did not yet meet them. The paper pushed social work towards building its own knowledge base and training.

Mary Richmond answered the challenge with Social Diagnosis (1917). Ernest Greenwood wrote the later article 'Attributes of a Profession' (1957), which concluded that social work was a profession. Octavia Hill was a pioneer of housing reform and the Charity Organisation Society in Britain.

Answer: C

Clinical social work primarily focuses on assessment, diagnosis and treatment.

Clinical social work is the specialised practice of social work in mental health and health settings. Its central activities are the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioural disturbances, through psychotherapy, counselling and case management, usually with individuals, couples, families and small groups.

'Holistic and generalist' or 'integrated and holistic' describe the broad generalist approach to practice, which is the opposite of a specialised clinical focus. Counselling is one of its tools, but limiting it to 'only counselling' leaves out assessment and diagnosis.

Answer: D

The ecological orientation in social work is integrated, holistic and generalist.

The ecological perspective, developed by Carel Germain and Alex Gitterman in the life model, sees people and their environments as one interdependent system and looks at the fit between them. Because it attends at once to the person, the family, the group, the organisation and the community, it provides the theoretical base for integrated, holistic and generalist social work practice rather than for a single method.

Despite its name, the ecological approach is not about the natural environment, ecological balance or ecosystem management; it borrows the idea of an ecosystem as a metaphor for the transactions between people and their social surroundings.

Answer: C

The interventions are (i), (ii) and (iii): counselling, home visits and resource mobilisation.

Counselling clients and families, visiting them at home to understand their circumstances and engage the family, and mobilising resources from the agency, the community and government schemes are all routine social work interventions in casework, group work and community work.

Legal aid, meaning legal advice and representation, is provided by lawyers and legal services authorities. A social worker may refer a client to it, but providing legal aid is not part of social work practice itself, which is why options including (iv) are wrong and '(i) and (ii)' is incomplete.

Answer: A

Integrated social work practice means the use of different methods of social work simultaneously in coming up with lasting solutions.

Integrated (generalist) practice does not confine a problem to one method. The worker may use casework with an individual, group work with families in a similar situation and community organisation or social action on the underlying cause at the same time, combining methods to reach a solution that lasts.

Using techniques responsibly is a general professional standard, and trying out alternative solutions is part of problem solving in any method. Seeking interdisciplinary experts for research is collaboration, not the integration of social work methods.