The Strengths Model
The strengths model was born over a quarter century ago as a demonstration project at a Lawrence, Kansas Community Mental Health Center. The idea was to provide outreach and community-based services with persons we now refer to as suffering from severe and persistent mental illnesses. Staffed by students (who were not given any diagnostic information), the Resource Acquisition model was established using principles previously applied in the Child Welfare system in Illinois. The two basic premises of the models – - as outlined by William Davidson and Charles Rapp — were that behavior is, in part, a function of the resources available to people and, second, that our society values equal access to resources. An understanding of these principles is vital, because from the beginning this model has focused on the person in environment perspective, and has underscored the vital role of advocacy for disenfranchised populations.
The strengths model has certainly enjoyed wide application in clinical practice – at times this practice is consistent with the basic tenants of the model – sometimes not. Too often strengths-based practice is viewed as a creative way to address the problems consumer’s face, rather than a collaborative method to help people work towards the goals they define as important to their life. Many children and adults must confront significant challenges to reach their goals. The challenges are far ranging, from those rooted in biophysical processes, to others that are the result of social forces like stigma, or discrimination. In the most tragic cases hope has been replaced with despair. Hope and life goals are intertwined – goals suggest a forward view, and their accomplishment inevitably pivots on the recognition and use of individual and environmental strengths.
Strengths practice begins at the first encounter with an individual or family. The process of the strengths assessment — or strengths discovery — should be decidedly different than a standard intake or diagnostic process. Here the effort is to determine those facets of an individual’s past and present that have helped them to survive to this point, interests either dormant or active that provide a sense of satisfaction and meaning, and those abilities and aspects of human capital that can be nurtured or developed. Likewise, the environment should be scanned for community collaborators, resources that all citizens use, and naturally available supports. Too often helping focus solely on the deficits and problems people face, and likewise, their surrounding environment is viewed as toxic to their well-being. When helping springs from this worldview it is inevitable that individual needs will be met with a specialized social service. In the end people ended up labeled, sequestered, and segregated and, in the end, effectively excluded, emotionally and spatially from community life. From the strengths perspective the intent is to meld individual and community strengths. The focus is on inclusion, not exclusion – and it is wholeheartedly felt that communities are stronger with the table is enlarged.
This work requires professionals who take consumers seriously – and recognize that those seemingly the most compromised will recover, grow, and develop when they are afford more, not less choice in their life. It requires the basic recognition that goals most people hold dear are the very goals that most people value: a home, a work and activities, friends and family. Most of all, it takes practitioners who truly care.
- Patrick Sullivan, Professor, Indiana University School of Social Work
