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Community and Human Services

Community and Human Services provides
students embarking on a career in a range of helping
professions with the essential concepts and strategies
for effective and innovative practice. Written by experts
across the community and health services sector, the book
combines theory, practical exercises, and case studies to help
transition new practitioners into complex, challenging and
satisfying careers as knowledgeable, competent, and creative
professionals.
Community
The authors equip students to practise in contemporary
contexts by connecting theory with practice and providing
insights into social and community issues, why these occur,
and how they can be addressed. Students are given a
and Human
solid background in the diversity of human experience and
relationships in the field, and are introduced to an array of
occupational and organisational settings. Further, the authors
Services
• Teach students skills in cultural awareness and cultural
competence
PR AC TICE
CONCEPTS FOR
• Encourage students to reflect on developing their identity
as a professional
• Highlight the importance of self-awareness and self-care
within potentially traumatic and violent work environments.
Karen Crinall is Associate Dean, Research in the Faculty of
CONCEPTS FOR
Education and Arts at Federation University, Australia. PRACTICE
Lynda Berends is Director of TRACE Research and Visiting
Fellow with the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at
the University of New South Wales. Edited by
Karen Crinall | Lynda Berends
BERENDS
CRINALL
ISBN 978-0-19-030291-7
9 780190 302917
visit us at: oup.com.au or
contact customer service: [email protected]
CRI_CHS_02917_CVR_SI.indd 1 cyan magenta yellow black 2/08/2017 3:22 PM

VI FOREWORD
Anyone studying to become a professional community work practitioner will benefit

enormously from this comprehensive, accessible book. It is both interesting and easy to
read and will keep readers engaged throughout. As the community work role becomes
more challenging in response to new funding models for services, changing public
policies and demographics, and a yet to be imagined world of technological change, there
is one thing that remains constant. A skilled community services workforce ensues as
a result of practitioners synthesising theory, practice, self-reflection, and career-long
learning.
It is our hope that educational institutions continue to produce skilled, qualified,
community work practitioners whose work is responsive to community need and
is based on the kind of knowledge encapsulated in this book. Community and Human
Services: Concepts for Practice will help transition those enthusiastic students into
knowledgeable graduates whose careers will be effective, meaningful and fulfilling.
Sha Cordingley
Chief Executive Officer
Australian Community Workers Association
00_CRI_CHS_02917_Prelims_SI.indd 6 2/08/2017 1:26 PM

CONTENTS
Foreword v
Preface ix
Author profiles xv
Acknowledgements xviii
Abbreviations xx
List of figures xxi
List of tables xxii
SECTION 1: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS ..................... 1

CHAPTER 1: CHOICE, CHALLENGE AND CHANGE ........................................ 3
Karen Crinall and Lynda Berends
CHAPTER 2: COMMUNITY AND HUMAN SERVICES:

PAST AND PRESENT ....................................................................................... 27
Jennifer Martin, Jane Miller and Linette Hawkins
CHAPTER 3: CLIENTS AND WORKERS ......................................................... 45

Christina Sadowski and Staci Ratcliffe
SECTION 2: IDENTITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS .........65

CHAPTER 4: KEY ACTORS AND STAKEHOLDERS ...................................... 67
Margaret Pack
CHAPTER 5: SELF AND OTHERS ................................................................... 86

Debra Manning and Karen Crinall
CHAPTER 6: FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES ............................................. 117

Joanie Smith

VIII CONTENTS
SECTION 3: PRACTICES AND SETTINGS ................. 143

CHAPTER 7: ENGAGING AND CHANGING.................................................. 145
Myfanwy Maple and Linda Turner
CHAPTER 8: ORGANISATIONS AND LOCATIONS .....................................165

Lynda Berends and Karen Crinall
CHAPTER 9: FIELDS OF PRACTICE ............................................................. 191

Lynda Berends and Karen Crinall
SECTION 4: KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE

AND ACTION ............................................................... 221
CHAPTER 10: CULTURES AND BELIEFS .....................................................223
Tracie Mafile’o
CHAPTER 11: EXPLORING, EXPLAINING AND KNOWING....................... 247

CHAPTER 12: ACTING AND RESPONDING ................................................275

Jane Cowie
CHAPTER 13: CONCEPTS IN PRACTICE .....................................................309

Glossary 336
Index 344

PREFACE
The community and human services sector represents a vast, dynamic and constantly
changing amalgamation of fields of practice, occupations and professional bodies. Areas
of employment occur within private, public and government and non-government
organisations, ranging from community-based programs to large bureaucracies.
Added to this mix is the array of social issues and problems that workers and programs
respond to, together with the rich diversity among the people and communities that
comprise the client base, which is, in effect, the entire population. As if this is not enough
to come to terms with for those new to the sector, practitioners are trained and qualified
by private providers and by vocational and higher education institutions through
various post-secondary qualifications at certificate, undergraduate and post-graduate
levels. These educational programs range from specific fields of practice, such as youth
work, aged care and disability support, to generalist degrees in social work, community
development and human services. The complexity, which spans every dimension of
the community and human services, is well recognised. Our motivation in bringing this
book together is to provide newcomers to community and human services study with
clear messages about essential components and requirements of the work involved,
while not shying away from challenging concepts and critical insights.
The well-being of our communities depends on community and human services
(ABS 2011). At some time in our lives, every one of us accesses a service, perhaps on
multiple occasions, for many reasons. It is one of the fastest-growing workforces in
Australia—in the ten years between 2004 and 2014, the community services workforce
increased by 54%. This expansion has, unsurprisingly, led to a shortage of qualified
workers (AIHW 2015; Healy and Lonne 2010).
Fourteen authors from Australia, Canada and New Zealand provide educator
and practitioner perspectives on the realities of the current practice context and the
requirements of professional and ethical practice. They share their own practice
experiences, wisdom and insights, guiding you through foundational values, theory,
knowledge and skills. Case examples weave the voices of clients and other stakeholders
into the discussion.
PURPOSE AND AIMS

The purpose of this book is to prepare future practitioners for the vibrant, challenging,
often perplexing and always rewarding arena of the community and human services
sector. Our aims are to clarify key concepts, by outlining the knowledge base of practice,

X PREFACE
communicating essential value positions and encouraging critique, while developing

self-awareness, reflection and practice skills. The book aims to equip emerging
community and human services professionals for practising in an environment where
traditional boundaries are being undone, redrawn and reinvented.
APPROACH
The text engages readers as active learners. Key concepts provide focus, structure
and coherence. Pedagogical features such as reflection exercises, case and practice
examples, review questions and group activities underline your learning. ‘Think and
link’ triggers help you navigate the content of the discussions. Additional readings
and weblinks are included at the end of each chapter. Authors bring local, national and
international perspectives to the discussion.
Four sections organise and signpost the chapter topics: Concepts and Contexts;
Identities and Relationships; Practices and Settings; and Knowledge, Culture and Action.
Drawing on key concepts, the chapters within each section engage with the history,
theory and knowledge base, fields of practice, organisational contexts, practice models
and frameworks for community and human services.
Throughout, authors adopt an accessible, reflexive and student-centred approach,
introducing and examining key concepts and practice frameworks by focusing on self-
awareness, values and ethics, and power within helping relationships. While foundational
sources of the knowledge, skills, practices and attributes necessary for working
successfully with various client populations are studied, there is also recognition of new
and emerging ideas and frontiers of practice. Future practitioners are encouraged to
expand, extend and engage with understandings of community and human services
work beyond conventional contexts and approaches.
CHAPTER OVERVIEWS
Section 1: Concepts and Contexts
Section 1: Concepts and Contexts consists of three chapters. These establish the
conceptual and practical domains of community and human services by introducing the
what, why, when, who and how of the practice field.
In Chapter 1, Choice, Challenge and Change, Karen Crinall and Lynda Berends
define what is meant by ‘the community and human services’, introduce the diversity
of employment and career options, and explore the foundational concepts of ‘choice’,
‘challenge’ and ‘change’. You are encouraged to reflect on what it means to make the
choice to study and work in community and human services, and the opportunities
that this presents. Characteristics of the workforce, challenges that are likely to be
encountered, and the central role of change, in practice and in relation to the current
service system environment, are discussed. The concept of the relationship between the
individual and society is introduced, and the ecological model for bringing about change
and the ‘social problem process’ are outlined.

PREFACE XI
Chapter 2, Community and Human Services: Past and Present, written by

Jennifer Martin, Jane Miller and Linette Hawkins, establishes the historical context
and antecedents of contemporary community and human services work. Links and
disconnections between charity society organisations, the Settlement House movement,
and contemporary policy and practice are explored. The challenges of balancing care,
control and protection, together with the concept of the welfare state, are discussed. The
authors prompt you to consider underlying issues and challenges experienced by those
who use community and human services.
Chapter 3, Clients and Workers, ends Section 1 and leads into Section 2: Identities and
Relationships. Christina Sadowski and Staci Ratcliffe explore the context of the client–
worker relationship. In so doing, they unpack the meanings that we ascribe to these
subjective positions by encouraging you to examine the concepts and consequences
of labelling and objectification. Negative and positive aspects of power dynamics in the
client–worker relationship are reflected upon, and five types of power are discussed:
reward, legitimate, coercive, expert and referent. You are encouraged to incorporate
power-sharing into your practice framework. Current approaches in community and
human services work, including service user involvement and marketisation, are
highlighted. You are invited to virtually experience accessing a community and human
services organisation from the perspective of a client.
Section 2: Identities and Relationships

The three chapters in this section are primarily concerned with the various relationships,
both formal and informal, that occur in community and human services practice,
together with the formation of identities within those relationships.
In Chapter 4, Key Actors and Stakeholders, Margaret Pack draws on Australasian
examples to discuss the range of actors and stakeholders, and the relationships between
them, in the various contexts of community and human services. The differing functions
of workers, depending on organisational type and culture, are discussed in relation to
statutory, private, non-government and community-based services. You are invited to
reflect on the challenges of reconciling competing agendas between professional and
organisational values and practices. Pack describes the essential role of case managers,
and the importance of holistic, coordinated and culturally responsive services.
Chapter 5, Self and Others, written by Debra Manning and Karen Crinall, encourages
you to reflect on developing your identity as a community and human services
professional. The function and value of professional organisations in forming a
professional self is discussed. The meaning and effects of othering are explored, and
the authors delve into the reasons for and importance of undoing unmerited privilege.
A theme of the chapter is preparation for working self-reflexively with communities and
clients from different cultural orientations, in a diversity of locations and contexts. You
are encouraged to develop skills in self-awareness through case examples and practical

XII PREFACE
exercises. Maintaining self-integrity and self-care for effective practice is promoted, and
exercises are provided to assist you to develop these skills.
In Chapter 6, Families and Communities, Joanie Smith explores changing
understandings of the family in contemporary society, extending this into a discussion
on the definition, nature and role of communities. Positive and negative aspects of
relationships within the family system and environment are explored with specific
focus on changing family compositions and family violence. Smith describes a number of
established approaches for working with families and communities, including strengths-
based, family-centred, systems theory and community development, and encourages
reflection on practices of the self and the use of power in the client–worker relationship.
This chapter provides the background for Section 3, Practices and Settings.
Section 3: Practices and Settings

The focus of the three chapters in this section is the occupational and organisational
settings in which community and human services take place. Attention is also directed
to principles and processes for effective engagement and intervention within fields of
practice.
Chapter 7, Engaging and Changing, by Myfanwy Maple and Linda Turner, draws
attention to the significance of how we communicate and engage with clients and
communities for positive change. Maple and Turner review understandings of power
and encourage reflection on its many dimensions, advocating for the fundamental
importance of building skills in ‘practice power’. Four core principles for effective
intervention are outlined: respect for self-knowledge, commitment to the right for self-
determination, enabling maintenance of integrity and the sharing of power. The authors
provide practical guidance for engaging with clients through three actions: asking,
affirming and actualising. They outline how engagement supports the five skill pillars
of intervention towards desired change: assessment, focusing, generating, refocusing
and evaluating.
In Chapter 8, Organisations and Locations, Lynda Berends and Karen Crinall revisit
concepts of community and explore what is meant by ‘sense of community’. The diversity
of community and human services organisations and their policy and operating
environments are reflected upon. Impacts of geography on the functioning of services
are discussed in relation to regional and rural settings. Virtual communities of practice,
as an emerging practice setting, are considered. Local, place-based and collaborative
and partnership approaches are discussed, as are current and emerging service
system strategies. The chapter adopts a practical focus, engaging you in exploring and
developing core skills for working in organisations.
Chapter 9, Fields of Practice, by Lynda Berends and Karen Crinall, guides you
through areas of practice and career choices in community and human services. Fields
of practice are outlined in terms of context, principles, settings and tasks. Using case

PREFACE XIII
examples, you are invited to engage with the nature of the work involved in major areas
of employment, including alcohol and other drugs, family violence, disability, housing,
civic and social integration, natural disaster prevention and response, youth work and
aged care. Generalist areas of practice, involving case work, community development
and policy and advocacy are also detailed. You are reminded of the importance of
attending to career directions and invited to complete a career development plan.
Section 4: Knowledge, Culture and Action

The four chapters in this final section focus on connecting theory with practice, to
equip you with essential knowledge for practising in contemporary contexts. Our
responsibility to be self-aware, knowledgeable, skilful and culturally competent for
working with diverse client groups continues to be a foundational theme. Key concepts
for practice discussed throughout previous chapters are drawn together.
In Chapter 10, Cultures and Beliefs, Tracie Mafile’o draws on culturally inclusive
models of practice in Aotearoa New Zealand to explore cultural competency as a body
of knowledge and a conceptual framework for practice. In reflecting on the meanings
and effects of culture, Mafile’o encourages you to develop insight into how worldviews
are formed and internalised at personal and institutional levels. The influence of cultural
heritage and belief systems in shaping organisational practice and culture is explored.
You are encouraged to challenge your own cultural perspectives and beliefs, and
learn how to advocate for change when structures and processes are discriminatory,
disrespectful or damaging.
Chapter 11, Exploring, Explaining and Knowing, written by Karen Crinall and Lynda
Berends, unpacks the knowledge base of community and human services practice.
This chapter aims to demystify theory and research, which are often challenging areas
for entry-level students. Key elements of and interconnections between research,
knowledge-building and practice are explored. The four dominant knowledge paradigms
in community and human services—objectivism, subjectivism, constructionism and
pragmatism—are explained. Key theoretical traditions and perspectives, which have
informed community and human services policy and practice, are discussed, and a
timeline is included. This chapter provides the background to Chapter 12, which details
practice approaches and models.
In Chapter 12, Acting and Responding, Jane Cowie provides a comprehensive
exploration of practice theories, models and approaches for bringing about positive
change. She reviews previously discussed methods and introduces new practice
approaches. The roles and functions of community and human services professionals
are detailed and explored, together with essential skills and strategies for successful
practice. Cowie articulates the distinctions and connections between theory, perspective
and practice models. The chapter discusses the generalist practice model, problem-
solving models, the task-centred approach, solution-focused practice, the ecosystems

XIV PREFACE
perspective and life model, anti-oppressive practice, empowerment-based practice,

strengths-based practice, motivational interviewing, cognitive therapies, narrative
therapy and the crisis intervention model.
Chapter 13, Concepts in Practice, concludes the book. Karen Crinall and Lynda
Berends draw together and reflect on the key messages and concepts from each chapter,
and discuss the emerging practice concepts of collective impact and co-design. The role
of creativity is explored by considering how art and science intersect in practice. You are
encouraged to consolidate your learning and to reflect on preparing and positioning for
future practice.
CLOSING COMMENTS
As stated at the beginning of the preface, the broad goal of this book is to help prepare
you for working in the vibrant and complex environment of community and human
services. The authors offer their practice wisdom, their expertise as academics and
educators, and cultural knowledge. In so doing they provide invaluable insights and
knowledge for those entering this exciting and challenging area of work. We hope that
more voices from the field, especially from clients and communities, are able to join the
critical discussions that have been started in the chapters here, commencing with your
reflexive practices throughout your studies and in your future practice.
REFERENCES
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2011) Community Service Workers. www.abs.gov.au/
AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features30Sep+2011.
AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2015) Australia’s Welfare 2015. Australia’s
Welfare Series No.12, Cat. No. AUS189. www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset
.aspx?id=60129552260.
Healy, K. & Lonne, B. (2010) The Social Work and Human Services Workforce: Report from a
National Study of Education, Training and Workforce Needs. Australian Council of Learning
and Teaching.

AUTHOR PROFILES
Lynda Berends is a health services researcher specialising in the study of alcohol

and drug service delivery and system development, across primary and acute health
settings. She is the Director at TRACE Research, a private consultancy, and Visiting Fellow
at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Lynda
has extensive policy and research experience in the community health sector, having
worked in government, clinical and academic research settings. She has undertaken
many reviews of alcohol and other drug services and systems in Australia, New Zealand
and the People’s Republic of China. Lynda’s research work and her role as policy advisor
and sector leader contribute to practice and policy development by creating and applying
knowledge to minimise and address problems associated with social disadvantage.
Jane Cowie lectures in the Bachelor of Social Work Program at the Whyalla Campus
of the University of South Australia, University of South Australia. Prior to becoming a
lecturer in social work in 2013, Jane was employed in the field as a social work practitioner
in domestic violence, youth homelessness, and generalist and school counselling. Jane’s
research interests include youth transitions and aspirations, particularly for young
people from regional and remote areas.
Karen Crinall has over thirty-five years’ experience as a practitioner, educator and
researcher in community and human services. Karen’s academic appointments
have included lecturing in community welfare and counselling, and human services
management and leadership roles as discipline head, and deputy and acting head of
school at Monash University, Gippsland. Karen’s most recent appointment was Associate
Dean Research in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Federation
University Australia. Karen engages in creative, participatory research and evaluation
in human services program implementation and management, the prevention of men’s
violence against women and their children, safety and self-determination in disability
services, and community-based initiatives for challenging family violence. With Dr
Lynda Berends, Karen is the co-author of Management and Practice in Health and Human
Service Organisations (2014), Oxford University Press.
Linette Hawkins is Coordinator of undergraduate Social Work Field Education at

RMIT University. Her experience as practitioner, project worker and educator has
spanned social work, welfare studies, community and international development. The

XVI AUTHOR PROFILES
participatory action research approach has guided her research with others in areas
such as the labour market and education for professional expertise in community and
human services. With Dr Jennifer Martin, she co-edited Information Communication
Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery: Concepts and Cases (2010).
Tracie Mafile’o is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work, Massey University,
New Zealand. She has social practice experience in child and family, women’s refuge,
counselling and youth work and has researched, presented and published in indigenous
Pacific social work, youth development in Papua New Guinea, HIV prevention and Pacific
research strengthening. Her professional career has involved work in New Zealand,
Australia and Papua New Guinea. Tracie is of Tongan and Pakeha New Zealand heritage.
Debra Manning has been a counsellor, case manager, community development worker
and human services manager across a range of social welfare and social work fields.
An academic at Monash University and now Federation University, she teaches and
researches in the community and human services field. Debra worked in community
development in a rural village in Botswana and draws extensively from her experiences
of difference as a euro-Australian in Africa. Reflexivity is central to her endeavours to
recognise and respect different ways of knowing in and about the world in her teaching,
welfare practice and research approaches.
Myfanwy Maple is Professor of Social Work and Chair of Research at the University
of New England, NSW, Australia. Her research interests focus on suicide, bereavement
and trauma. She works closely with the suicide prevention sector nationally and
internationally and has a particular interest in young people with multiple and complex
needs as an upstream approach to suicide prevention.
Jennifer Martin is Associate Professor of Social Work at RMIT University and is the
author of Mental Health Social Work (2017) and Conflict Management and Mediation (2015).
She is co-editor of Cross-cultural Social Work: Local and Global (2014) and Information
Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery: Concepts and
Cases (2010) with Linette Hawkins. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief for the book series
Advances in Human Services and Public Health, with IGI Global, New York. Jennifer
consults, teaches, practises and researches in mental health and well-being, conflict
management and mediation, social justice and human rights.
Jane Miller AM is a retired social work practitioner with over forty years’ experience in
hospital social work and in senior policy and management roles in the Victorian public
service. She has published articles on topics such as women’s issues, disabled rights
and social work expertise. She is a Life Member of the Australian Association of Social
Workers, is currently the President of the University of Melbourne Social Work Alumni
Association and is writing a book on the American influence on the establishment of
Australian social work education.

AUTHOR PROFILES XVII
Margaret Pack is a registered social worker, academic and health researcher.

With over twenty-five years’ experience in the health and social services sector, she
now works in private practice as an educational consultant and supervisor of theses
and clinical practice. Her research interests include theories of practitioner self care
and resilience when working with trauma. Her recent book, Self-help for Trauma
Therapists: A Practitioner’s Guide, explores how social service workers navigate complex
organisational systems when dealing with traumatic material from their clients.
Staci Ratcliffe is an experienced social worker with over ten years’ experience in the
field, specifically working with children, young people and families. She is a lecturer at
Federation University in both community and human services and social work, and
is currently working on the completion of her PhD, entitled ‘How parents manage the
care of their children post ASD (autism spectrum disorder)’. It focuses on increasing
understanding for professionals, families, and parents of the gaps and potential supports
required following a diagnosis of ASD.
Christina Sadowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Masters of Social Work (Qualifying)

program at Federation University Australia. She is also the Research Coordinator of
the Central Highlands Children and Youth Area Partnership Research Collaboration,
overseeing a Higher Degree by Research initiative of industry-funded research projects
which aim to reduce child and youth vulnerability. Christina’s research interests include
children’s and parents’ experiences of family separation, welfare and social work
education, learning processes in higher education, and supporting children and families
with complex needs. She currently teaches social work research. Prior to commencing
her academic career, Christina worked in a diverse range of welfare and social work
positions in metropolitan Melbourne, regional Victoria, Old Mapoon and Cooktown Shire
(Cape York, Far North Queensland), Northern Territory and Brooklyn, New York.
Joanie Smith has over thirty years’ experience working, researching and teaching
in social and community welfare, particularly in family violence, youth housing and
homelessness services. Joanie has undertaken a number of research projects into
family violence and homelessness. Joanie’s qualifications bridge the social welfare,
social sciences, and social work and education fields with undergraduate qualifications
in welfare, history/politics and teaching. Her PhD research was in family violence, with
the University of Melbourne. Joanie is currently teaching at Federation University in
Gippsland, Victoria. Her latest research involvement is with Fathering after Violence and
Youth Behaviour Change Programs.
Linda Turner’s career as a social worker has included teaching social work for fifteen
years, including serving as an Associate Professor at the University of New England in
Armidale, NSW, and at three Canadian Schools of Social Work. Her PhD in social work
focused on creativity in social work practice. She lives in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada and
practises as a community social worker with seniors’ health and palliative care programs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the culmination of the efforts, skills and expertise of many players. We
are deeply grateful to all the authors, who have generously shared their insights and
knowledge. We have learned and gained much from working with each and every
one. Working successfully and effectively in community and human services requires
a commitment to collaboration and self-reflection, and every chapter in this text is a
testament to the authors’ capabilities in these areas.
We would like to acknowledge and thank the ‘hidden’ contributors—the clients, service
users, workers, communities and organisations—that appear in case examples and are
the inspiration behind the many practice insights and reflections shared by the authors.
Relatedly, we extend gratitude to the researchers and authors of other publications,
whose work provided the theoretical concepts, observations and exemplary practice
frameworks and models on which we drew. We are particularly thankful to those who
gave permission for their work to be reproduced.
For a number of reasons this project took longer than initially expected, and Debra
James, as our publishing editor, provided wise guidance and unerring support while
gently moving us forwards. Throughout this time we also benefited from the support
of Laura Wright, Samantha Brancatisano, Melpo Christofi and Geraldine Corridon from
Oxford University Press.
Special gratitude is extended to our families and loved ones, who never faltered in
their encouragement and interest. Ultimately, we thank our patient partners, Will and
John, whose gentle and wise advice was given when sought, and who gave us time and
space when we needed to focus on writing.
Karen and Lynda
The author and the publisher wish to thank the following copyright holders for
reproduction of their material.
Baker Academic for Hiebert, Paul, G. 1986, A Model of a Worldview, in Anthropological

Insights for Missionaries, p. 46. Used by permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker
Publishing Group; Brandon University for extract from Langin, R., & Ensign, G. (1988).
Ways of working in a community: Reflections of a former community development
worker. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 8, 131–146; Commonwealth of Australia,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XIX
CC BY 4.0. for extract from AIFS (Australian Institute of Family Studies) (2015) History of
Child Protection Services. https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/history-child-protection-
services; Informa UK Limited for table from From Mastery to Accountability: Cultural
Humility as an Alternative to Cultural Competence by Marcie Fisher-Borne, Jessie
Montana Cain, Suzanne L. Martin, Social Work Education Vol. 34, Iss. 2, 2015; Ministry
of Social Development, New Zealand for Fofola e fala kae talanoe e kaingā. A Tongan
Conceptual Framework for the prevention of and intervention in family violence in New
Zealand. – Fāmili lelei. March 2012, p.10. This diagram has been reproduced under the
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license. Copyright of these materials is
held by the Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand; Oxford University Press for
Mason Durie, Whaiora: Māori health development. Auckland: Oxford University Press,
1998, pp. 68–74; Pearson Australia for table from Jones , A. and May, J., Working in
Human Service Organisations © 192, Pearson Australia, page 296, Table 8.5. Reproduced
with permission; Routledge for extract from Bennett, B., Zubrzycki, J. and Bacon, V. (2011)
What do we know? The experiences of social workers working alongside Aboriginal
people. Australian Social Work 64(1), 20–37 reprinted by permission of the publisher
Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com.
Every effort has been made to trace the original source of copyright material contained
in this book. The publisher will be pleased to hear from copyright holders to rectify any
errors or omissions.

ABBREVIATIONS
AASW Australian Association of Social Workers

ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics
ACWA Australian Community Workers Association
AIFS Australian Institute of Family Studies
AIHW Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
ANZASW Aotearoa/New Zealand Association of Social Workers
ATSI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
AVI Australian Volunteers International
CASA Centre Against Sexual Assault
CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
CEHL Community Equity Housing Ltd
COS Charity Organisation Society
DHHS Department of Health and Human Services
FACS Families and Children’s Services
FaHCSIA Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
IGCYAP Inner Gippsland Children and Youth Area Partnership
LGBTI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Intersex
PCP Primary Care Partnership
PHO Primary Health Organisations
TAFE Technical and Further Education
UNESCO United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization
VCAT Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal
VCOSS Victorian Council of Social Services
VET Vocational Education and Training
WHO World Health Organization
YACWA Youth Affairs Council of Western Australia

LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Key components of the community and human services sector 8

1.2 Concepts in community and human services 8
1.3 WHO ecological model for addressing interpersonal violence 19
1.4 The social problems process showing phases and associated
actions—from individual issue to social policy 22
5.1 Gibbs’ reflective cycle (1988) 103
5.2 Relationships between self and practice 107
7.1 The five skill pillars of intervention 158
8.1 Principles of a community of practice 181
10.1 Model of a worldview 225
10.2 Māori health te whare tapa whā model 237
10.3 Fofola e fala kae talanoa e kaingā, Tongan framework for addressing
family violence 238
10.4 A practice framework for culturally respectful work with Aboriginal people
and communities 240
11.1 Theorising in community and human services 252
11.2 Interconnections between theory, research, practice and knowledge 259
12.1 Relationship between theoretical elements informing practice 288
12.2 Stages in the generalist practice process 289
13.1 Creative problem-solving model for community and human services
practice 325

LIST OF TABLES
1.1 Examples of community and human services occupations 12

3.1 Levels of intervention in child welfare 50
3.2 British Poor Laws classifications, 1563 53
3.3 Types of power 57
5.1 Sensory pleasures and dislikes 110
8.1 Outline of the rationale for place-based approaches 174
8.2 Challenges and responses to inter-professional care 178
9.1 Framework for categorising domains of work and fields of practice in
community and human services 193
9.2 Key practice principles and elements for success in provision of services
to clients with disabilities and complex needs 199
9.3 Framework for developing a personal organisational plan 215
10.1 Individual and organisational questions to assess cultural humility 236
11.1 Overview of theoretical trends influencing community and human services
theory and practice 256
11.2 Knowledge framework in community and human services theory and
research 264
12.1 Stages of task-centred practice 292

section 1
CONCEPTS AND
CONTEXTS
CHAPTER 1: CHOICE, CHALLENGE
AND CHANGE 3
CHAPTER 2: COMMUNITY AND HUMAN

SERVICES: PAST AND
PRESENT 27
Jennifer Martin, Jane Miller
and Linette Hawkins
CHAPTER 3: CLIENTS AND

WORKERS 45
Christina Sadowski and Staci
Ratcliffe
01_CRI_CHS_02917_CH01_SI.indd 1 2/08/2017 1:26 PM

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BELIEF, WHETHER VOLUNTARY?
‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.’
It is an axiom in modern philosophy (among many other false

ones) that belief is absolutely involuntary, since we draw our
inferences from the premises laid before us and cannot possibly
receive any other impression of things than that which they naturally
make upon us. This theory, that the understanding is purely passive
in the reception of truth, and that our convictions are not in the
power of our will, was probably first invented or insisted upon as a
screen against religious persecution, and as an answer to those who
imputed bad motives to all who differed from the established faith,
and thought they could reform heresy and impiety by the application
of fire and the sword. No doubt, that is not the way: for the will in
that case irritates itself and grows refractory against the doctrines
thus absurdly forced upon it; and as it has been said, the blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the Church. But though force and terror may
not be always the surest way to make converts, it does not follow that
there may not be other means of influencing our opinions, besides
the naked and abstract evidence for any proposition: the sun melts
the resolution which the storm could not shake. In such points as,
whether less an object is black or white, or whether two and two
make four,[61] we may not be able to believe as we please or to deny
the evidence of our reason and senses: but in those points on which
mankind differ, or where we can be at all in suspense as to which
side we shall take, the truth is not quite so plain or palpable; it
admits of a variety of views and shades of colouring, and it should
appear that we can dwell upon whichever of these we choose, and
heighten or soften the circumstances adduced in proof, according as
passion and inclination throw their casting-weight into the scale. Let
any one, for instance, have been brought up in an opinion, let him
have remained in it all his life, let him have attached all his notions of
respectability, of the approbation of his fellow-citizens or his own
self-esteem to it, let him then first hear it called in question and a
strong and unforeseen objection stated to it, will not this startle and
shock him as if he had seen a spectre, and will he not struggle to
resist the arguments that would unsettle his habitual convictions, as
he would resist the divorcing of soul and body? Will he come to the
consideration of the question impartially, indifferently, and without
any wrong bias, or give the painful and revolting truth the same
cordial welcome as the long-cherished and favourite prejudice? To
say that the truth or falsehood of a proposition is the only
circumstance that gains it admittance into the mind, independently
of the pleasure or pain it affords us, is itself an assertion made in
pure caprice or desperation. A person may have a profession or
employment connected with a certain belief, it may be the means of
livelihood to him, and the changing it may require considerable
sacrifices or may leave him almost without resource (to say nothing
of mortified pride)—this will not mend the matter. The evidence
against his former opinion may be so strong (or may appear so to
him) that he may be obliged to give it up, but not without a pang and
after having tried every artifice and strained every nerve to give the
utmost weight to the arguments favouring his own side, and to make
light of and throw those against him into the back-ground. And nine
times in ten this bias of the will and tampering with the proofs will
prevail. It is only with very vigorous or very candid minds, that the
understanding exercises its just and boasted prerogative and induces
its votaries to relinquish a profitable delusion and embrace the
dowerless truth. Even then they have the sober and discreet part of
the world, all the bons pères de famille, who look principally to the
main-chance, against them, and they are regarded as little better
than lunatics or profligates to fling up a good salary and a provision
for themselves and families for the sake of that foolish thing, a
Conscience! With the herd, belief on all abstract and disputed topics
is voluntary, that is, is determined by considerations of personal ease
and convenience, in the teeth of logical analysis and demonstration,
which are set aside as mere waste of words. In short, generally
speaking, people stick to an opinion that they have long supported
and that supports them. How else shall we account for the regular
order and progression of society: for the maintenance of certain
opinions in particular professions and classes of men, as we keep
water in cisterns, till in fact they stagnate and corrupt: and that the
world and every individual in it is not ‘blown about with every wind
of doctrine’ and whisper of uncertainty? There is some more solid
ballast required to keep things in their established order than the
restless fluctuation of opinion and ‘infinite agitation of wit.’ We find
that people in Protestant countries continue Protestants and in
Catholic countries Papists. This, it may be answered, is owing to the
ignorance of the great mass of them; but is their faith less bigoted,
because it is not founded on a regular investigation of the proofs, and
is merely an obstinate determination to believe what they have been
told and accustomed to believe? Or is it not the same with the
doctors of the church and its most learned champions, who read the
same texts, turn over the same authorities, and discuss the same
knotty points through their whole lives, only to arrive at opposite
conclusions? How few are shaken in their opinions, or have the grace
to confess it! Shall we then suppose them all impostors, and that they
keep up the farce of a system, of which they do not believe a syllable?
Far from it: there may be individual instances, but the generality are
not only sincere but bigots. Those who are unbelievers and
hypocrites scarcely know it themselves, or if a man is not quite a
knave, what pains will he not take to make a fool of his reason, that
his opinions may tally with his professions? Is there then a Papist
and a Protestant understanding—one prepared to receive the
doctrine of transubstantiation and the other to reject it? No such
thing: but in either case the ground of reason is preoccupied by
passion, habit, example—the scales are falsified. Nothing can
therefore be more inconsequential than to bring the authority of
great names in favour of opinions long established and universally
received. Cicero’s being a Pagan was no proof in support of the
Heathen mythology, but simply of his being born at Rome before the
Christian era; though his lurking scepticism on the subject and
sneers at the augurs told against it, for this was an acknowledgment
drawn from him in spite of a prevailing prejudice. Sir Isaac Newton
and Napier of Marchiston both wrote on the Apocalypse; but this is
neither a ground for a speedy anticipation of the Millennium, nor
does it invalidate the doctrine of the gravitation of the planets or the
theory of logarithms. One party would borrow the sanction of these
great names in support of their wildest and most mystical opinions;
others would arraign them of folly and weakness for having attended
to such subjects at all. Neither inference is just. It is a simple
question of chronology, or of the time when these celebrated
mathematicians lived, and of the studies and pursuits which were
then chiefly in vogue. The wisest man is the slave of opinion, except
on one or two points on which he strikes out a light for himself and
holds a torch to the rest of the world. But we are disposed to make it
out that all opinions are the result of reason, because they profess to
be so; and when they are right, that is, when they agree with ours,
that there can be no alloy of human frailty or perversity in them; the
very strength of our prejudice making it pass for pure reason, and
leading us to attribute any deviation from it to bad faith or some
unaccountable singularity or infatuation. Alas, poor human nature!
Opinion is for the most part only a battle, in which we take part and
defend the side we have adopted, in the one case or the other, with a
view to share the honour or the spoil. Few will stand up for a losing
cause or have the fortitude to adhere to a proscribed opinion; and
when they do, it is not always from superior strength of
understanding or a disinterested love of truth, but from obstinacy
and sullenness of temper. To affirm that we do not cultivate an
acquaintance with truth as she presents herself to us in a more or
less pleasing shape, or is shabbily attired or well-dressed, is as much
as to say that we do not shut our eyes to the light when it dazzles us,
or withdraw our hands from the fire when it scorches us.
‘Masterless passion sways us to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes.’
Are we not averse to believe bad news relating to ourselves—forward

enough if it relates to others? If something is said reflecting on the
character of an intimate friend or near relative, how unwilling we are
to lend an ear to it, how we catch at every excuse or palliating
circumstance, and hold out against the clearest proof, while we
instantly believe any idle report against an enemy, magnify the
commonest trifles into crimes, and torture the evidence against him
to our heart’s content! Do not we change our opinion of the same
person, and make him out to be black or white according to the
terms we happen to be on? If we have a favourite author, do we not
exaggerate his beauties and pass over his defects, and vice versâ?
The human mind plays the interested advocate much oftener than
the upright and inflexible judge, in the colouring and relief it gives to
the facts brought before it. We believe things not more because they
are true or probable, than because we desire, or (if the imagination
once takes that turn) because we dread them. ‘Fear has more devils
than vast hell can hold.’ The sanguine always hope, the gloomy
always despond, from temperament and not from forethought. Do
we not disguise the plainest facts from ourselves if they are
disagreeable. Do we not flatter ourselves with impossibilities? What
girl does not look in the glass to persuade herself she is handsome?
What woman ever believes herself old, or does not hate to be called
so: though she knows the exact year and day of her age, the more she
tries to keep up the appearance of youth to herself and others? What
lover would ever acknowledge a flaw in the character of his mistress,
or would not construe her turning her back on him into a proof of
attachment? The story of January and May is pat to our purpose;
for the credulity of mankind as to what touches our inclinations has
been proverbial in all ages: yet we are told that the mind is passive in
making up these wilful accounts, and is guided by nothing but the
pros and cons of evidence. Even in action and where we still may
determine by proper precaution the event of things, instead of being
compelled to shut our eyes to what we cannot help, we still are the
dupes of the feeling of the moment, and prefer amusing ourselves
with fair appearances to securing more solid benefits by a sacrifice of
Imagination and stubborn Will to Truth. The blindness of passion to
the most obvious and well known consequences is deplorable. There
seems to be a particular fatality in this respect. Because a thing is in
our power till we have committed ourselves, we appear to dally, to
trifle with, to make light of it, and to think it will still be in our power
after we have committed ourselves. Strange perversion of the
reasoning faculties, which is little short of madness, and which yet is
one of the constant and practical sophisms of human life! It is as if
one should say—I am in no danger from a tremendous machine
unless I touch such a spring and therefore I will approach it, I will
play with the danger, I will laugh at it, and at last in pure sport and
wantonness of heart, from my sense of previous security, I will touch
it—and there’s an end. While the thing remains in contemplation, we
may be said to stand safe and smiling on the brink: as soon as we
proceed to action we are drawn into the vortex of passion and
hurried to our destruction. A person taken up with some one purpose
or passion is intent only upon that: he drives out the thought of every
thing but its gratification: in the pursuit of that he is blind to
consequences: his first object being attained, they all at once, and as
if by magic, rush upon his mind. The engine recoils, he is caught in
his own snare. A servant-girl, for some pique, or for an angry word,
determines to poison her mistress. She knows before hand (just as
well as she does afterwards) that it is at least a hundred chances to
one she will be hanged if she succeeds, yet this has no more effect
upon her than if she had never heard of any such matter. The only
idea that occupies her mind and hardens it against every other, is
that of the affront she has received, and the desire of revenge; she
broods over it; she meditates the mode, she is haunted with her
scheme night and day; it works like poison; it grows into a madness,
and she can have no peace till it is accomplished and off her mind;
but the moment this is the case, and her passion is assuaged, fear
takes place of hatred, the slightest suspicion alarms her with the
certainty of her fate from which she before wilfully averted her
thoughts; she runs wildly from the officers before they know any
thing of the matter; the gallows stares her in the face, and if none
else accuses her, so full is she of her danger and her guilt, that she
probably betrays herself. She at first would see no consequences to
result from her crime but the getting rid of a present uneasiness; she
now sees the very worst. The whole seems to depend on the turn
given to the imagination, on our immediate disposition to attend to
this or that view of the subject, the evil or the good. As long as our
intention is unknown to the world, before it breaks out into action, it
seems to be deposited in our own bosoms, to be a mere feverish
dream, and to be left with all its consequences under our imaginary
control: but no sooner is it realised and known to others, than it
appears to have escaped from our reach, we fancy the whole world
are up in arms against us, and vengeance is ready to pursue and
overtake us. So in the pursuit of pleasure, we see only that side of the
question which we approve: the disagreeable consequences (which
may take place) make no part of our intention or concern, or of the
wayward exercise of our will: if they should happen we cannot help
it; they form an ugly and unwished-for contrast to our favourite
speculation: we turn our thoughts another way, repeating the adage
quod sic mihi ostendis incredulus odi. It is a good remark in ‘Vivian
Grey,’ that a bankrupt walks the streets the day before his name is in
the Gazette with the same erect and confident brow as ever, and only
feels the mortification of his situation after it becomes known to
others. Such is the force of sympathy, and its power to take off the
edge of internal conviction! As long as we can impose upon the
world, we can impose upon ourselves, and trust to the flattering
appearances, though we know them to be false. We put off the evil
day as long as we can, make a jest of it as the certainty becomes more
painful, and refuse to acknowledge the secret to ourselves till it can
no longer be kept from all the world. In short, we believe just as little
or as much as we please of those things in which our will can be
supposed to interfere; and it is only by setting aside our own
interests and inclinations on more general questions that we stand
any chance of arriving at a fair and rational judgment. Those who
have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and he is
the truest philosopher who can forget himself. This is the reason why
philosophers are often said to be mad, for thinking only of the
abstract truth and of none of its worldly adjuncts,—it seems like an
absence of mind, or as if the devil had got into them! If belief were
not in some degree voluntary, or were grounded entirely on strict
evidence and absolute proof, every one would be a martyr to his
opinions, and we should have no power of evading or glossing over
those matter-of-fact conclusions for which positive vouchers could be
produced, however painful these conclusions might be to our own
feelings, or offensive to the prejudices of others.
DEFINITION OF WIT
Wit is the putting together in jest, i.e. in fancy, or in bare

supposition, ideas between which there is a serious, i.e. a customary
incompatibility, and by this pretended union, or juxtaposition, to
point out more strongly some lurking incongruity. Or, wit is the
dividing a sentence or an object into a number of constituent parts,
as suddenly and with the same vivacity of apprehension to
compound them again with other objects, ‘wherein the most distant
resemblance or the most partial coincidence may be found.’ It is the
polypus power of the mind, by which a distinct life and meaning is
imparted to the different parts of a sentence or object after they are
severed from each other; or it is the prism dividing the simplicity and
candour of our ideas into a parcel of motley and variegated hues; or
it is the mirror broken into pieces, each fragment of which reflects a
new light from surrounding objects; or it is the untwisting the chain
of our ideas, whereby each link is made to hook on more readily to
others than when they were all bound up together by habit, and with
a view to a set purpose. Ideas exist as a sort of fixtures in the
understanding; they are like moveables (that will also unscrew and
take to pieces) in the wit or fancy. If our grave notions were always
well founded; if there were no aggregates of power, of prejudice, and
absurdity; if the value and importance of an object went on
increasing with the opinion entertained of it, and with the surrender
of our faith, freedom, and every thing else to aggrandise it, then ‘the
squandering glances’ of the wit, ‘whereby the wise man’s folly is
anatomised,’ would be as impertinent as they would be useless. But
while gravity and imposture not only exist, but reign triumphant;
while the proud, obstinate, sacred tumours rear their heads on high,
and are trying to get a new lease of for ever and a day; then oh! for
the Frenchman’s art (‘Voltaire’s?—the same’) to break the torpid
spell, and reduce the bloated mass to its native insignificance! When
a Ferdinand still rules, seated on his throne of darkness and blood,
by English bayonets and by English gold (that have no mind to
remove him thence) who is not glad that an Englishman has the wit
and spirit to translate the title of King Ferdinand into Thing
Ferdinand; and does not regret that, instead of pointing the public
scorn and exciting an indignant smile, the stroke of wit has not the
power to shatter, to wither, and annihilate in its lightning blaze the
monstrous assumption, with all its open or covert abettors? This
would be a set-off, indeed, to the joint efforts of pride, ignorance, and
hypocrisy: as it is, wit plays its part, and does not play it ill, though it
is too apt to cut both ways. It may be said that what I have just
quoted is not an instance of the decomposition of an idea or word
into its elements, and finding a solid sense hid in the unnoticed
particles of wit, but is the addition of another element or letter. But it
was the same lively perception of individual and salient points, that
saw the word King stuck up in capital letters, as it were, and like a
transparency in the Illuminated Missal of the Fancy, that enabled
the satirist to conjure up the letter T before it, and made the
transition (urged by contempt) easy. For myself, with all my blind,
rooted prejudices against the name, it would be long enough before I
should hit upon so happy a mode of expressing them. My mind is not
sufficiently alert and disengaged. I cannot run along the letters
composing it like the spider along its web, to see what they are or
how to combine them anew; I am crushed like the worm, and
writhing beneath the load. I can give no reasons for the faith that is
in me, unless I read a novel of Sir Walter’s, but there I find plenty of
examples to justify my hatred of kings in former times, and to
prevent my wishing to ‘revive the ancient spirit of loyalty’ in this!
Wit, then, according to this account of it, depends on the rapid
analysis or solution of continuity in our ideas, which, by detaching,
puts them into a condition to coalesce more readily with others, and
form new and unexpected combinations: but does all analysis imply
wit, or where is the difference? Does the examining the flowers and
leaves in the cover of a chair-bottom, or the several squares in a
marble pavement, constitute wit? Does looking through a microscope
amount to it? The painter analyses the face into features—nose, eyes,
and mouth—the features into their component parts: but this process
of observation and attention to details only leads him to discriminate
more nicely, and not to confound objects. The mathematician
abstracts in his reasonings, and considers the same line, now as
forming the side of a triangle, now of a square figure; but does he
laugh at the discovery, or tell it to any one else as a monstrous good
jest? These questions require an answer; and an evasive one will not
do. With respect to the wit of words, the explanation is not difficult;
and if all wit were verbal, my task would be soon ended. For
language, being in its own nature arbitrary and ambiguous; or
consisting of ‘sounds significant,’ which are now applied to one thing,
now to something wholly different and unconnected, the most
opposite and jarring mixtures may be introduced into our ideas by
making use of this medium which looks two ways at once, either by
applying the same word to two different meanings, or by dividing it
into several parts, each probably the sign of a different thing, and
which may serve as the starting-post of a different set of associations.
The very circumstance which at first one might suppose would
convert all the world into punsters and word-catchers, and make a
Babel and chaos of language, viz. the arbitrary and capricious nature
of the symbols it uses, is that which prevents them from becoming
so; for words not being substantive things in themselves, and utterly
valueless and unimportant except as the index of thought, the mind
takes no notice of or lays no kind of stress upon them, passes on to
what is to follow, uses them mechanically and almost unconsciously;
and thus the syllables of which a word may be composed, are lost in
its known import, and the word itself in the general context. We may
be said neither to hear nor see the words themselves; we attend only
to the inference, the intention they are meant to communicate. This
merging of the sound in the sense, of the means in the end, both
common sense, the business of life, and the limitation of the human
faculties dictate. But men of wit and leisure are not contented with
this; in the discursiveness of their imaginations and with their
mercurial spirits, they find it an amusement to attend not only to the
conclusion or the meaning of words, but to criticise and have an eye
to the words themselves. Dull, plodding people go no farther than the
literal, or more properly, the practical sense; the parts of a word or
phrase are massed together in their habitual conceptions; their rigid
understandings are confined to the one meaning of any word
predetermined by its place in the sentence, and they are propelled
forward to the end without looking to the right or the left. The
others, who are less the creatures of habit and have a greater
quantity of disposable activity, take the same words out of harness,
as it were, lend them wings, and flutter round them in all sorts of
fantastic combinations, and in every direction that they choose to
take. For instance: the word elder signifies in the dictionary either
age or a certain sort of tree or berry; but if you mention elder wine
all the other senses sink into the dictionary as superfluous and
nonsensical, and you think only of the wine which happens to bear
this name. It required, therefore, a man of Mr. Lamb’s wit and
disdain of the ordinary trammels of thought, to cut short a family
dispute over some very excellent wine of this description, by saying,
‘I wonder what it is that makes elder wine so very pleasant, when
elder brothers are so extremely disagreeable?’ Compagnons du lys,
may mean either the companions of the order of the flower-de-luce,
or the companions of Ulysses—who were transformed into swine—
according as you lay the emphasis. The French wits, at the
restoration of Louis XVIII., with admirable point and truth, applied it
in this latter sense. Two things may thus meet, in the casual
construction and artful encounters of language, wide as the poles
asunder and yet perfectly alike; and this is the perfection of wit,
when the physical sound is the same, the physical sense totally
unlike, and the moral sense absolutely identical. What is it that in
things supplies the want of the double entendre of language?—
Absurdity. And this is the very signification of the term. For it is
only when the two contradictory natures are found in the same
object that the verbal wit holds good, and the real wit or jeu d’esprit
exists and may be brought out wherever this contradiction is obvious
with or without the jeu-de-mots to assist it. We can comprehend how
the evolving or disentangling an unexpected coincidence, hid under
the same name, is full of ambiguity and surprise; but an absurdity
may be written on the face of a thing without the help of language;
and it is in detecting and embodying this that the finest wit lies.
Language is merely one instrument or handle that forwards the
operation: Fancy is the midwife of wit. But how?—If we look
narrowly and attentively, we shall find that there is a language of
things as well as words, and the same variety of meaning, a hidden
and an obvious, a partial and a general one, in both the one and the
other. For things, any more than words, are not detached,
independent existences, but are connected and cohere together by
habit and circumstances in certain sets of association, and consist of
an alphabet, which is thus formed into words and regular
propositions, which being once done and established as the
understood order of the world, the particular ideas are either not
noticed, or determined to a set purpose and ‘foregone conclusion,’
just as the letters of a word are sunk in the word, or the different
possible meanings of a word adjusted by the context. One part of an
object being habitually associated with others, or one object with a
set of other objects, we lump the whole together, take the general
rule for granted, and merge the details in a blind and confused idea
of the aggregate result. This, then, is the province of wit; to penetrate
through the disguise or crust with which indolence and custom ‘skin
and slur over’ our ideas, to move this slough of prejudice, and to
resolve these aggregates or bundles of things into their component
parts by a more lively and unshackled conception of their
distinctions, and the possible combinations of these, so as to throw a
glancing and fortuitous light upon the whole. There is then, it is
obvious, a double meaning in things or ideas as well as in words
(each being ordinarily regarded by the mind merely as the
mechanical signs or links to hold together other ideas connected with
them)—and it is in detecting this double meaning that wit in either
case is shown. Having no books at hand to refer to for examples, and
in the dearth of imagination which I naturally labour under, I must
look round the room in search of illustrations. I see a number of stars
or diamond figures in the carpet, with the violent contrast of red and
yellow and fantastic wreaths of flowers twined round them, without
being able to extract either edification or a particle of amusement
from them: a joint-stool and a fire-screen in a corner are equally
silent on the subject—the first hint I receive (or glimmering of light)
is from a pair of tongs which, placed formally astride on the fender,
bear a sort of resemblance to the human figure called long legs and
no body. The absurdity is not in the tongs (for that is their usual
shape) but in the human figure which has borrowed a likeness
foreign to itself. With this contre-sens, and the uneasiness and
confusion in our habitual ideas which it excites, and the effort to
clear up this by throwing it from us into a totally distinct class of
objects, where by being made plain and palpable, it is proved to have
nothing to do with that into which it has obtruded itself, and to
which it makes pretensions, commences the operation of wit and the
satisfaction it yields to the mind. This I think is the cause of the
delightful nature of wit, and of its relieving, instead of aggravating,
the pains of defect or deformity, by pointing it out in the most glaring
colours, inasmuch as by so doing, we, as it were, completely detach
the peccant part and restore the sense of propriety which, in its
undetected and unprobed state, it was beginning to disturb. It is like
taking a grain of sand out of the eye, a thorn out of the foot. We have
discharged our mental reckoning, and had our revenge. Thus, when
we say of a snub-nose, that it is like an ace of clubs, it is less out of
spite to the individual than to vindicate and place beyond a doubt the
propriety of our notions of form in general. Butler compares the
knight’s red, formal-set beard to a tile:—
‘In cut and die so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;’
we laugh in reading this, but the triumph is less over the wretched
precisian than it is the triumph of common sense. So Swift exclaims:
—
‘The house of brother Van I spy,
In shape resembling a goose-pie.’
Here, if the satire was just, the characteristics of want of solidity, of

incongruity, and fantastical arrangement were inherent in the
building, and written on its front to the discerning eye, and only
required to be brought out by the simile of the goose-pie, which is an
immediate test and illustration (being an extreme case) of those
qualities. The absurdity, which before was either admired, or only
suspected, now stands revealed, and is turned into a laughing stock,
by the new version of the building into a goose-pie (as much as if the
metamorphosis had been effected by a play of words, combining the
most opposite things), for the mind in this case having narrowly
escaped being imposed upon by taking a trumpery edifice for a
stately pile, and perceiving the cheat, naturally wishes to cut short
the dispute by finding out the most discordant object possible, and
nicknames the building after it. There can be no farther question
whether a goose-pie is a fine building. Butler compares the sun rising
after the dark night to a lobster boiled, and ‘turned from black to
red.’ This is equally mock-wit and mock-poetry, as the sun can
neither be exalted nor degraded by the comparison. It is a play upon
the ideas, like what we see in a play upon words, without meaning. In
a pantomime at Sadler’s Wells, some years ago, they improved upon
this hint, and threw a young chimney-sweeper into a cauldron of
boiling water, who came out a smart, dapper volunteer. This was
practical wit; so that wit may exist not only without the play upon
words, but even without the use of them. Hogarth may be cited as an
instance, who abounds in wit almost as much as he does in humour,
considering the inaptitude of the language he used, or in those
double allusions which throw a reflected light upon the same object,
according to Collins’s description of wit,
‘Like jewels in his crisped hair.’
Mark Supple’s calling out from the Gallery of the House of Commons
—‘A song from Mr. Speaker!’ when Addington was in the chair and
there was a pause in the debate, was undoubtedly wit, though the
relation of any such absurd circumstance actually taking place,
would only have been humour. A gallant calling on a courtesan (for it
is fair to illustrate these intricacies how we can) observed, ‘he should
only make her a present every other time.’ She answered, ‘Then come
only every other time.’ This appears to me to offer a sort of
touchstone to the question. The sense here is, ‘Don’t come unless you
pay.’ There is no wit in this: the wit then consists in the mode of
conveying the hint: let us see into what this resolves itself. The object
is to point out as strongly as can be, the absurdity of not paying; and
in order to do this, an impossibility is assumed by running a parallel
on the phrases, ‘paying every other time,’ and ‘coming every other
time,’ as if the coming went for nothing without paying, and thus, by
the very contrast and contradiction in the terms, showing the most
perfect contempt for the literal coming, of which the essence, viz.
paying, was left out. It is, in short, throwing the most killing scorn
upon, and fairly annihilating the coming without paying, as if it were
possible to come and not to come at the same time, by virtue of an
identical proposition or form of speech applied to contrary things.
The wit so far, then, consists in suggesting, or insinuating indirectly,
an apparent coincidence between two things, to make the real
incongruity, by the recoil of the imagination, more palpable than it
could have been without this feigned and artificial approximation to
an union between them. This makes the difference between jest and
earnest, which is essential to all wit. It is only make-believe. It is a
false pretence set up, or the making one thing pass in supposition for
another, as a foil to the truth when the mask is removed. There need
not be laughter, but there must be deception and surprise: otherwise,
there can be no wit. When Archer, in order to bind the robbers,
suddenly makes an excuse to call out to Dorinda, ‘Pray lend me your
garter, Madam,’ this is both witty and laughable. Had there been any
propriety in the proposal or chance of compliance with it, it would no
longer have been a joke: had the question been quite absurd and
uncalled-for, it would have been mere impudence and folly; but it is
the mixture of sense and nonsense, that is, the pretext for the request
in the fitness of a garter to answer the purpose in question, and the
totally opposite train of associations between a lady’s garter
(particularly in the circumstances which had just happened in the
play) and tying a rascally robber’s hands behind his back, that
produces the delightful equivoque and unction of the passage in
Farquhar. It is laughable, because the train of inquiry it sets in
motion is at once on pleasant and on forbidden ground. We did not
laugh in the former case—‘Then only come every other time’—
because it was a mere ill-natured exposure of an absurdity, and there
was an end of it: but here, the imagination courses up and down
along a train of ideas, by which it is alternately repelled and
attracted, and this produces the natural drollery or inherent
ludicrousness. It is the difference between the wit of humour and the
wit of sense. Once more, suppose you take a stupid, unmeaning
likeness of a face, and throwing a wig over it, stick it on a peg, to
make it look like a barber’s block—this is wit without words. You give
that which is stupid in itself the additional accompaniments of what
is still more stupid, to enhance and verify the idea by a falsehood. We
know the head so placed is not a barber’s block; but it might, we see,
very well pass for one. This is caricature or the grotesque. The face
itself might be made infinitely laughable, and great humour be
shown in the delineation of character: it is in combining this with
other artificial and aggravating circumstances, or in the setting of
this piece of lead that the wit appears.[62] Recapitulation. It is time
to stop short in this list of digressions, and try to join the scattered
threads together. We are too apt, both from the nature of language
and the turn of modern philosophy, which reduces every thing to
simple sensations, to consider whatever bears one name as one thing
in itself, which prevents our ever properly understanding those
mixed modes and various clusters of ideas, to which almost all
language has a reference. Thus if we regard wit as something
resembling a drop of quicksilver, or a spangle from off a cloak, a little
nimble substance, that is pointed and glitters (we do not know how)
we shall make no progress in analysing its varieties or its essence; it
is a mere word or an atom: but if we suppose it to consist in, or be
the result of, several sets and sorts of ideas combined together or
acting upon each other (like the tunes and machinery of a barrel-
organ) we may stand some chance of explaining and getting an
insight into the process. Wit is not, then, a single idea or object, but it
is one mode of viewing and representing nature, or the differences
and similitudes, harmonies and discords in the links and chains of
our ideas of things at large. If all our ideas were literal, physical,
confined to a single impression of the object, there could be no
faculty for, or possibility of, the existence of wit, for its first principle
is mocking or making a jest of anything, and its first condition or
postulate, therefore, is the distinction between jest and earnest. First
of all, wit implies a jest, that is, the bringing forward a pretended or
counterfeit illustration of a thing; which, being presently withdrawn,
makes the naked truth more apparent by contrast. It is lessening and
undermining our faith in any thing (in which the serious consists) by
heightening or exaggerating the vividness of our idea of it, so as by
carrying it to extremes to show the error in the first concoction, and
from a received practical truth and object of grave assent, to turn it
into a laughing stock to the fancy. This will apply to Archer and the
lady’s garter, which is ironical: but how does it connect with the
comparison of Hudibras’s beard to a tile, which is only an
exaggeration; or the Compagnons d’Ulysse, which is meant for a
literal and severe truth, as well as a play upon words? More generally
then, wit is the conjuring up in the fancy any illustration of an idea
by likeness, combination of other images, or by a form of words, that
being intended to point out the eccentricity or departure of the
original idea from the class to which it belongs does so by referring it
contingently and obliquely to a totally opposite class, where the
surprise and mere possibility of finding it, proves the inherent want
of congruity. Hudibras’s beard is transformed (by wit) into a tile: a
strong man is transformed (by imagination) into a tower. The
objects, you will say, are unlike in both cases; yet the comparison in
one case is meant seriously, in the other it is merely to tantalize. The
imagination is serious, even to passion, and exceeds truth by laying a
greater stress on the object; wit has no feeling but contempt, and
exceeds truth to make light of it. In a poetical comparison there
cannot be a sense of incongruity or surprise; in a witty one there
must. The reason is this: It is granted stone is not flesh, a tile is not
hair, but the associated feelings are alike, and naturally coalesce in
one instance, and are discordant and only forced together by a trick
of style in the other. But how can that be, if the objects occasioning
these feelings are equally dissimilar?—Because the qualities of
stiffness or squareness and colour, objected to in Hudibras’s beard,
are themselves peculiarities and oddities in a beard, or contrary to
the nature or to our habitual notion of that class of objects; and
consequently (not being natural or rightful properties of a beard)
must be found in the highest degree in, and admit of, a grotesque
and irregular comparison with a class of objects, of which squareness
and redness[63] are the essential characteristics (as of a tile), and
which can have, accordingly, no common point of union in general
qualities or feeling with the first class, but where the ridicule must be
just and pointed from this very circumstance, that is, from the
coincidence in that one particular only, which is the flaw and
singularity of the first object. On the other hand, size and strength,
which are the qualities on which the comparison of a man to a tower
hinges, are not repugnant to the general constitution of man, but
familiarly associated with our ideas of him: so that there is here no
sense of impropriety in the object, nor of incongruity or surprise in
the comparison: all is grave and decorous, and instead of burlesque,
bears the aspect of a loftier truth. But if strength and magnitude fall
within our ordinary contemplations of man as things not out of the
course of nature, whereby he is enabled, with the help of
imagination, to rival a tower of brass or stone, are not littleness and
weakness the counterpart of these, and subject to the same rule?
What shall we say, then, to the comparison of a dwarf to a pigmy, or
to Falstaff’s comparison of Silence to ‘a forked radish, or a man made
after supper of a cheese-paring?’ Once more then, strength and
magnitude are qualities which impress the imagination in a powerful
and substantive manner; if they are an excess above the ordinary or
average standard, it is an excess to which we lend a ready and
admiring belief, that is, we will them to be if they are not, because
they ought to be—whereas, in the other case of peculiarity and defect,
the mind is constantly at war with the impression before it; our
affections do not tend that way; we will it not to be; reject, detach,
and discard it from the object as much and as far as possible; and
therefore it is, that there being no voluntary coherence but a constant
repugnance between the peculiarity (as of squareness) and the object
(as a beard), the idea of a beard as being both naturally and properly
of a certain form and texture remains as remote as ever from that of
a tile; and hence the double problem is solved, why the mind is at
once surprised and not shocked by the allusion; for first, the mind
being made to see a beard so unlike a beard, is glad to have the
discordance increased and put beyond controversy, by comparing it
to something still more unlike one, viz., a tile; and secondly,
squareness never having been admitted as a desirable and accredited
property of a beard as it is of a tile, by which the two classes of ideas
might have been reconciled and compromised (like those of a man
and a tower) through a feeling or quality common (in will) to both,
the transition from one to the other continues as new and startling,
that is, as witty as ever;—which was to be demonstrated. I think I see
my way clearly so far. Wit consists in two things, the perceiving the
incongruity between an object and the class to which it generally
belongs, and secondly, the pointing out or making this incongruity
more manifest, by transposing it to a totally different class of objects
in which it is prescriptively found in perfection. The medium or link
of connexion between the opposite classes of ideas is in the
unlikeness of one of the things in question to itself, i.e. the class it
belongs to: this peculiarity is the narrow bridge or line along which
the fancy runs to link it to a set of objects in all other respects
different from the first, and having no sort of communication, either
in fact or inclination, with it, and in which the pointedness and
brilliancy, or the surprise and contrast of wit consists. The faculty by
which this is done is the rapid, careless decomposition and
recomposition of our ideas, by means of which we easily and clearly
detach certain links in the chain of our associations from the place
where they stand, and where they have an infirm footing, and join
them on to others, to show how little intimacy they had with the
former set.
The motto of wit seems to be, Light come, light go. A touch is
sufficient to dissever what already hangs so loose as folly, like froth
on the surface of the wave; and an hyperbole, an impossibility, a pun
or a nickname will push an absurdity, which is close upon the verge
of it, over the precipice. It is astonishing how much wit or laughter
there is in the world—it is one of the staple commodities of daily life
—and yet, being excited by what is out of the way and singular, it
ought to be rare, and gravity should be the order of the day. Its
constant recurrence from the most trifling and trivial causes, shows
that the contradiction is less to what we find things than to what we
wish them to be. A circle of milliner’s-girls laugh all day long at
nothing, or day after day at the same things—the same cant phrase
supplies the wags of the town with wit for a month—the same set of
nicknames has served the John Bull and Blackwood’s Magazine ever
since they started. It would appear by this that its essence consisted
in monotony, rather than variety. Some kind of incongruity however
seems inseparable from it, either in the object or language. For
instance, admiration and flattery become wit by being expressed in a
quaint and abrupt way. Thus, when the dustman complimented the
Duchess of Devonshire by saying, as she passed, ‘I wish that lady
would let me light my pipe at her eyes,’ nothing was meant less than
to ridicule or throw contempt, yet the speech was wit and not serious
flattery. The putting a wig on a stupid face and setting it on a barber’s
pole is wit or humour:—the fixing a pair of wings on a beautiful
figure to make it look more like an angel is poetry; so that the
grotesque is either serious or ludicrous, as it professes to exalt or
degrade. Whenever any thing is proposed to be done in the way of
wit, it must be in mockery or jest; since if it were a probable or
becoming action, there would be no drollery in suggesting it; but this
does not apply to illustrations by comparison, there is here no line
drawn between what is to take place and what is not to take place—
they must only be extreme and unexpected. Mere nonsense,
however, is not wit. For however slight the connexion, it will never
do to have none at all; and the more fine and fragile it is in some
respects, the more close and deceitful it should be in the particular
one insisted on. Farther, mere sense is not wit. Logical subtilty or
ingenuity does not amount to wit (although it may mimic it) without
an immediate play of fancy, which is a totally different thing. The
comparing the phrenologist’s division of the same portion of the
brain into the organs of form and colour to the cutting a Yorkshire
pudding into two parts, and calling the one custard and the other
plum-cake may pass for wit with some, but not with me. I protest (if
required) against having a grain of wit.[64]

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(eBook PDF) Community and Human

Services Concepts for Practice

Community and Human Services

CRI_CHS_02917_CVR_SI.indd 1 cyan magenta yellow black 2/08/2017 3:22 PM

Anyone studying to become a professional community work practitioner will benefit

Chief Executive Officer

Australian Community Workers Association

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SECTION 1: CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS ..................... 1

CHAPTER 2: COMMUNITY AND HUMAN SERVICES:

CHAPTER 3: CLIENTS AND WORKERS ......................................................... 45

SECTION 2: IDENTITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS .........65

CHAPTER 5: SELF AND OTHERS ................................................................... 86

CHAPTER 6: FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES ............................................. 117

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SECTION 3: PRACTICES AND SETTINGS ................. 143

CHAPTER 8: ORGANISATIONS AND LOCATIONS .....................................165

CHAPTER 9: FIELDS OF PRACTICE ............................................................. 191

SECTION 4: KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE

CHAPTER 11: EXPLORING, EXPLAINING AND KNOWING....................... 247

CHAPTER 12: ACTING AND RESPONDING ................................................275

CHAPTER 13: CONCEPTS IN PRACTICE .....................................................309

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PURPOSE AND AIMS

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communicating essential value positions and encouraging critique, while developing

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Chapter 2, Community and Human Services: Past and Present, written by

Section 2: Identities and Relationships

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Section 3: Practices and Settings

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Section 4: Knowledge, Culture and Action

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perspective and life model, anti-oppressive practice, empowerment-based practice,

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Lynda Berends is a health services researcher specialising in the study of alcohol

Linette Hawkins is Coordinator of undergraduate Social Work Field Education at

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Margaret Pack is a registered social worker, academic and health researcher.

Christina Sadowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Masters of Social Work (Qualifying)

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Karen and Lynda

Baker Academic for Hiebert, Paul, G. 1986, A Model of a Worldview, in Anthropological

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AASW Australian Association of Social Workers

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1.1 Key components of the community and human services sector 8

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1.1 Examples of community and human services occupations 12

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CHAPTER 2: COMMUNITY AND HUMAN

CHAPTER 3: CLIENTS AND

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‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.’

It is an axiom in modern philosophy (among many other false