The Cultivation of Social Workers' Hope in Personal Life and Professional Practice

Abstract

Hope writings within the social sciences literature assume that social work professionals already possess hope that they can readily draw upon to evoke change in clients. The purpose of this article is to challenge this assumption and in response, to put forth ways of assessing hope within the social worker's personal life and in educational and agency-based practice contexts. Implications for developing and nurturing professional hope through the use of the strengths perspective within social work education (i.e., using models that assert hope and client growth as normative) and within agencies (i.e., using inverted organizational hierarchies and group supervision) are discussed. doi:10.1300/J377v26n03_03

Key Words:

• Hope
• growth
• change
• social work education
• strengths perspective
• assessment
• group supervision