Feminist Practice: Case Study

9.1 Feminist Practice

Tanya’s situation could benefit from an application of a feminist approach. In this question I will be drawing from the information from in our textbook (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010) for information regarding liberal, radical, and socialist feminist approaches and how they could be applied to Tanya. First of all, a liberal feminist approach would be solution-focussed, mainly addressing Tanya’s individual problems as a mother and emphasizing her access to public services, ensuring that her ability to do so is equal to a man’s. Furthermore, I would adopt the liberal feminist viewpoint in my work with Tanya to empower her and let her know that her individual choices are important and valued and by having the ability to make choices, she will be the best mother she can be. As a feminist social worker, I would lobby for better access to childcare so Tanya can work and have respite as necessary.

A radical feminist approach would look at how the patriarchy and male-dominated institutions affect women and how domination and power over women is normalized. Moreover, in my application with Tanya, I would partake in

Personally, I think the holistic nature of Aboriginal approaches should be adopted into all social work. Specifically, wholeness and balance in contrast to the problem-solving approach. While Aboriginal social workers still must help their clients solve problems, the problem-solving approach is rooted in a western individualism. It aims to ‘diagnose’ clients with a problem, solve it, and then disregard them. Wholeness and balance are more slow-paced and long term. They focus on individual and family needs but also examine the impact of social work decisions on the community and on the earth. Furthermore, this is beneficial because it reflects Aboriginal collectivism and the vitality of community health for the wellbeing of