As an advanced practitioner, you must be able to articulate your theoretical orientation to your clients, interns, and staff confidently. As a leader in the social work field, you will use your theoretical orientation to help drive programs and policies on behalf of your clients and agency. You began understanding the use of theory to help explain behaviors in context in your foundation courses, gaining the ability to apply various theories, perspectives, and models to the populations that you served. Over time you developed an understanding that certain theories are more aligned to your practice than others and you immersed yourself in understanding the application of those theories to the situations your clients brought to you.
Now it is time to take ownership of a theoretical orientation further. Your text and articles for this week introduce the concept of discourse, the social conversation that influences how we think about and discuss social work issues. These issues include service user needs and our profession’s response in light of dominant discourses, social science-behavioral discourses, and alternative discourses. As you consider your theoretical orientation, you must also place it in the context of the larger discourses, including those related to diversity and inclusion, informing your practice.
