Professional social work practice involves the social worker's ability to provide a clearly articulated rationale for her/his choice of intervention strategy in any of the diverse client systems with which he/she engages. As such, the different perspectives that are used to understand, explain, guide, intervene and predict likely outcomes require careful analysis and evaluation. In addition, the theoretical foundation of social work practice with people of the Caribbean diaspora is to a large extent Euro American and culture specific, consequently there is an urgent need to deconstruct, reinterpret, reconstruct and contextualize existing theories and ground them not only in the repertoire of Caribbean practice techniques, but also in a development framework
This course is designed to examine, from a generalist and development perspective, current social work theories which underpin social work practice across systems of different sizes: individuals, families, groups, communities and organizations. The course will also give students in the different specializations in the graduate programme the opportunity enhance theory building skills and apply their understanding of theory development across all the modalities of social work practice.