THE USE OF THEORIES OF ACTION IN THE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL WORK WITH FAMILIES: THE CO-CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN PRACTICE

Social work with families is a specific social work field in which the social worker works in the midst of complex interactions between individuals, the family and the community. The proposed model of social work with families presented in this paper is designed for students, practitioners and academics to help them reflect on theories used in helping processes and their influences on direct practice in those instances in which social workers seek answers on how to act in complex processes of providing help to families. The model encourages the use of theoretical knowledge and offers social workers a choice of different theoretical concepts, which they can reflexively use in specific practical cases to co-create good results for families, while their members and the social worker collaborate in a unique working project of help. At the same time they all contribute to the development of a use theory for the practice of social work with families.