Mezzo and macro

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Social Work Process & Practices

Before going into suggestive intervention strategies for the case, it is important to review generalist social work processes as well as mezzo, micro and macro management. What are generalist processes? This refers to the broad domain of social work practice used by human services specialists in a host of settings from children support to domestic violence, for example. Human Services is broad, as such the approaches are broad too. This means that specialists have a host of tools and knowledge practices and resources that they can call upon when confronted with unique and particular problems. Of course, while the process, approaches follow certain specifics, they are also applied according to the unique case at hand and it requires a sense of creativity and the ability to apply 'sociological imagination' - a way of seeing how elements are related so that the big picture can be seen which in turn helps in deciding intervention approaches. According to the UK's the Open University Social Work school, there are 4 components of good social work practice and they are as follows (OU, 2011):

Knowledge - theories and collated knowledge due to experience and research is essential in social work practice.
Skills -skills in the application of knowledge as well as practical skills plus of skills in thinking - analysing, managing, reflecting and valuing as well as skills in using the senses - listening and talking, observing, understanding and expressing feelings are combined to ensure that the practitioner can is good in giving and receiving constructive feedback, interviewing, leading, negotiating, supporting. These are all essentials in becoming a good human services and social work professional.
Values and Ethics - Social work is a specialized profession that requires practitioners to value and understand the professional and ethical codes of practice. The following values are given importance in practice: Human dignity and worth, Social justice, Service to humanity, Integrity and Competence.
The Social Work Process - this component is that sequence of actions or tasks which draw upon all of the components of practice discussed thus far. The aim is to put together all the other components and put this into practice for the purpose of providing solutions to social issues, for providing social support and for ensuring that society functions despite the massive social, political, economical and moral challenges that threaten its very core.

Having discussed this, we can now look into the micro, mezzo and macro levels of social interaction. Exactly, what are these? Essentially these are the different levels of the practice of sociology, the study of society. Social work practitioners are 'sociologists' per se in that they study and explore social issues in the course of their work. These levels allow for different manners of looking into society as an entity of study. The Applied Sociology Society (2011) explains,

"To use applied sociology for our individual problems we must first look at the different ways in which societies are arranged to better understand our place in them. This will also help in breaking down the scale of the issue at hand and using applied sociology methods effectively. There are three different levels of practice in sociology; ...