Ecological perspective…
- **Foundational theory in social work practice
- **Conceptual framework for understanding individuals, families and communities as well as being a method of social work practice
- **Ecological perspectives is a general approach for systematically examining the reciprocal relationships between organism and their environment
Ecological Perspective definition (Barker 2014):
An orientation in social work focusing on understanding people and their environment and the nature of their transactions. Important concepts include adaptation, transactions, goodness of fit between people and their environments, reciprocity and mutuality.
Components of Ecological perspectives (5)
1) Microsystem
2) Mesosystem
3) Exosystem
4) Macrosystem
5) Chronosystem
Microsystem:
Systems that involve face to face/direct contact among system participants. The context that individuals create around them.
Mesosystem:
Network of personal settings in which we live our social lives. The way in which our multiple microsystems are interconnected.
Educational settings, social/sports clubs, work settings…
Exosystem:
Larger institutions of society that influence our personal systems/affect our lives. Systems in which an individual is not directly involved
Government institutions, educational/health administration
Macrosystem:
Larger subcultural and cultural contexts in which the microsystem, mesosystem and exosystem are located
Beliefs about social and economic systems, social and cultural norms that promote beliefs or racism, sexism, and other “isms” at individual, institutional and cultural levels
- cultural blueprint
Chronosystem:
includes consistency or change (e.g.: historical/life events) of the individual and the environment over the life course (e.g.: changes in family structure through divorce, displacement, death)
Adaptation (Germain & Bloom, 1999)
“people actively seeking the best person:environment fit possible between their needs, rights, capacities, and aspirations, on the one hand, and the qualities of sociocultural and physical environments on the other”.
**Goodness of Fit (Barker 1999):
• The degree of congruence between people’s needs, capacities, and goals and the properties of their social and physical environments
**Person:Environment
• Semi-colon used to identify the transactional nature of the relationships
• Person-In-Environment (PIE) System – a tool social workers use to describe and classify problems of social functioning; PIE system helps workers draw conclusions about the interrelated factors contributing to the clients’ problem and select interventions that might relieve or solve problems.
o PIE assessment includes social functioning, environmental, mental and physical aspects
**Reciprocity - Reciprocal causality
• Concept emphasized in E.P that views social interrelationships and transactions as occurring not in a simple linear cause-effect outcome, but with circular feedback. Cause becomes effect and effect becomes cause all around the circular loop. The individual’s problems are the consequence of people-environmental exchanges rather than the sole result of personality or environmental factors
**Mutuality
- Efforts of two or more people to act together in ultimate harmony to achieve benefits for each
- Systems theory – concept of interdependence between various subsystems, such as a social worker and client, landlord and tenant, or parents and children
Person in the environment:
- Ecological thinking focuses on the reciprocity of the person:environment exchanges, in which each shapes and influences the other over time.
- Social work occurs at the interface between the individual and environment (where the two circles meet), transactions may be positive, negative or neutral
Life model (Carel Germain and Alex Gitterman):
• Uses E.P as a metaphor for focusing on the interface between client and environment. SW using this approach views stressful problems in living (life transitions, interpersonal processes, environmental obstacles) as consequences of person-environment transactions
Life model focus (3)
- People’s strength – their innate push toward health, continued growth, release of potential
- Modification of the environment – as needed, to sustain and promote well-being to maximum degree possible
- Raising the level of person:environment fit for individuals, families, groups, communities
Tools for ecological assessment
Eco-map – A diagram of family relationships (Ann Hartman) used by s.w., family therapists, other professionals to depict a variety of reciprocal influences between the client, relevant social institutions, and environmental influences
Genograms – family tree that includes social data over several generations and can include genealogical relationships, major family events and patterns
“Risk and resilience ecological framework” for child maltreatment (Corcoran & Nichols-Casebold)
- balanced view of looking at risks and strengths while acknowledging “complexity of individual and the system in which they are nested
- define resilience as “absence of significant developmental delay or serious learning and behaviour problems, and the mastery of developmental tasks that are appropriate for a given age/culture.
- resilience is a practice objective emerging from ecological thinking
- framework reviews risk and resilience factors at the micro level, meso level, and the macro level
Risk and resilience factors are hypothesized to interact as either…
o Additive – positive counterbalances the negative factors
o Interactive – protective factors buffer the risk factors
4 or more risk factors represent a threat to adaptation
Power of resilience video
looks at protective factors within our self, our family and our environment.
** most successful interventions target both risk and resilience across the micro, meso and macro levels
Contributions of ecological perspective
- Emphasis “people in environments” has removed the focus away from the individual, and placed it at the interface [between indv an envr]
- Emphasis on growth and strength removes focus from pathologizing
practice objective from ecological perspectives
risk and resilience
