Social Service Methods and Techniques II (2008/2009)

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with theoretical knowledge on the intervention method with people, according to the bifocal perspective of social work: person-environment interactions. Students will be given also the theoretical support necessary to adjust the territory to social workers operating and to acquire project management skills, involving the network of services and people in order to promote their development and growth.
A particular attention will be devoted to social network as a reading key and as a method to be used with the individual, with the community and with the different health and social care services of the territory.
During the lessons, students will be actively involved in workgroups on the subjects examined for further in-depth examination; they will have the opportunity to meet some social workers and some representatives of projects and social interventions so as to see theoretical concepts translated into professional practice.

The social worker and the territory
 The territory in the helping process to the person
 The historical process: from the community social services to the territorial social services

Basic elements for social work interventions on the territory
 The ecological and systemic theories

The methodological process
 Reading the operating contexts from the systemic point of view: service/organization, territory
 The intrasystem role of a social worker
 From the individual demand to the management of a collective problem
 Methodological aspects for the collaborative solution of a problem
 Elements of project management for health and social interventions: practical indications for a project definition

Social network intervention
 definition of operating aspects, net morphology, graphic representations, study fields

Network intervention models
 therapeutic orientation
 networks as offer units or as resources
 community care
 network intervention

The network intervention
 definition, basic principles
 the social worker and the network
 the project plan
 social network with people
 services within a network perspective
 the territory and the social network


Groupwork in social work
 definition of the group in the social work
 workgroup history and evolution in the social work
 workgroups types and classifications in the social work
 dimensions of social work
 workgroup: planning and management indications
 groupwork evaluation

Texts for the exam

 F. FERRARIO e G. GOTTARDI (1987) Territorio e Servizio Sociale Ed. Unicopli
 DAL PRA PONTICELLI (a cura) Modelli Teorici di Servizio Sociale , cap. C. GERMANI A.GITTERMAN Il modello Esistenziale
 A.CAMPANINI, F.LUPPI Servizio Sociale e Modello Sistemico, NIS, Roma (1988)
 F.FERRARIO Il lavoro di rete nel servizio sociale, Carocci, Roma (1999)
 V.FABBRI Il Gruppo e l'Intervento Sociale, Carocci, Roma (2006)
 E.R. MARTINI, R.SEQUI Il Lavoro nella Comunità, NIS, Roma (1988)
 G.. SERPELLONI, E. SIMEONI ( a cura) Project Management, Gestire Progetti in sanità e sociale, Cierre Grafica,Verona (2008)
 Il lavoro con i gruppi nel Servizio Sociale Professionale, Scuola Superiore di Servizio Sociale Consorzio per gli Studi di Verona (1988)

Consultation bibliography

 Maria Rosa Guerini (2005) voci “Territorio” in DAL PRA PONTICELLI (a cura) Dizionario di Servizio Sociale, Carrocci, Roma
 Lia Sanicola (2005) voci “L'intervento di rete” in DAL PRA PONTICELLI (a cura) Dizionario di Servizio Sociale,Carrocci, Roma
 Lia Sanicola, L'intervento di rete (a cura) Liguori, Napoli,1994
 M.L.Raineri, Il metodo di rete in pratica, Erickson,Trento 2004
 F.Alberoni e altri Servizio Sociale di Comunità ,Collana di Servizio Sociale, A.A.I (1965)
 M.Tirabassi Il Faro di Beacon Street, F.Angeli, Milano (1990)

The oral examination will be the educational evaluation method.