VlCERRECTORfA

EOOCACIN A DISTANClA

Educacin a Distancia
Carrera: Tecnicatura en Intervencin Sociocomunitaria.

Asignatura: Ingls Nivel 11

CHAPTER 16

ADVANCES IN THE LIFE MODEL

OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
ALEX GITTERMAN

Twenty years have passed since the first presentation of the Life Model (Gitterman &
Germain, 1976). During this relatively brief period, dramatic changes have tak:en
place in our society and profession. Social workers today deal with profoundly vul-
5 nerable populations, overwhelmed by their continua) struggles to survive economic
and psychological consequences of poverty and discrimination. Practitioners con-
front the devastating impact of AIDS, homelessness, substance abuse, chronic men-
tal disorders, child abuse, and family and community violence. Clearly, the miseries
1o and suffering in the 1990s are different in degree and substance from those encoun-
tered from the forties thiough the eighties. With the current attack on "safety net" re-
sources, for many survival is at stak:e.
Facing these biner realities, social workers are expected to do more in less time
15 with decreasing resources. Courage, vision, perseverance, creativity, and a widening
repertoire of professional methods and skills are essential elements of contemporary
practice. A revised and more fu1Iy expanded Life Model 1 attempts to respond to these
pervasive social changes through four major elaborations (Germain & Gitterman,
20 1996). First, to be responsive to oppression, social workers must develop competence
in community, organizational, and legislative inftuence and change as well as in di--
rect practice. The second edition of the Life Model specifies methods and skills to
move back and forth from helping individuals, families, and groups, to influencing
25 communities, organizations, and legislative bodies. Second, to effectively respond to
people's varied needs, social workers must practice at whatever level a particular sit-
uation begins and wherever it may lead. The expanded Life Model conceptualizes
and illustrates methods and skills distinct to various modaJities as well as continuing
to describe and specify the common base of social work practice.
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EDUCACIN A DISTANCIA

30

Third. people cope with oppression and scapegoating in many different ways.
Practitioners must be careful about blaming oppressed people for their troubles. Peo-
ple's coping styles, strengths, and resilience must be understood and supported. In
our early writing. the concept of "problems in living,. organized ideas about profes-
35
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390 1 S OC IA L. WORK TRF.ATME N T

sional assessment and interventions. Unwittingly, this fonnulation may have implied
a deficit in the individual and collectivity. In our current writing, a more neutral
stressor- stress-coping paradigm is substituted.
o
4 Finally, social workers must be sensitive to people's diverse backgrounds. Stage
models of human development assume that social and emotional development follow
in fixed, sequential, and universal stages. ln our current presentation, a "life course"
conception of human development replaces tb~ traditional "life cycle" models.

HUMAN ECOLOGY
In the revised Life Model, the ecological metaphor continues to provide the lens for
45 viewing the exchanges between people and their environments. Ecology. a biological
science, examines the relationship between living organisms and all the elements of
the social and physical environments. How and why organisrns achieve or fail to
achieve an adaptive balance with their env.ironments are the major questions of eco-
logical inquiry. Ecological theory, with its revolutionary, adaptive view, provides the
50
theoretical foundation for life-modeled practice (Germain, 1981; Germain & Gitter-
man. 1986, 1987, 1995, 1996).2

REFERENCES

Germain, C.B., & Gittennan, A. (1996). The Life Model of social work practice: Advances in
theory and practice. New York: Columbia University Press.
10
Gittennan, A., & Germain, C.B. (1981). Teaching about the environment and social work prac-
tice. Joumal of Social Work Education, 17 (Fall), 44-51.

Gitterman, A., & Gennain, C.B. ( 1976). Social work practice: A Life Model. Social Service
Revew, 50 (December), 601-610.