From Concepets to Practice

Social work has a number of broad conceptual models, but the difficulty lies in translating them into concrete categories that reflect the student's or practitioner's experience in the field. This paper presents a middle-range conceptualization which works both deductively from the conceptual models and inductively from practice experiences. The conceptual frame is made up of three dimensions: (a) levels of intervention; (b) phases of the problem-solving model; and (c) components involved in each step of the intervention. In each cell of the framework one can specify relevant practice activities. The topic of engagement is discussed as an example of how the model works. Finally, the paper describes how this middle-level conceptualization can be taught to graduate school students.