Social Work Vocabulary

Freedom Riders

Civil rights activists who rode buses into the American South in the 1960's to challenge racial segregation laws and practices.

Cost Benefit Analysis

an administration and management procedure in which various goals of the organization are evaluated systematically, along with the expenses and resources required to achieve them.

Code of Ethics

an explicit statement of the values, principles, and rules of a profession, regulating the conduct of its members.

Guardian Ad Litem

an individual appointed by a judge to protect a party to litigation who is assumed to be unable to protect his or her own interests, such as a child in a custody dispute or an adult who is alleged to be incompetent. The responsibilities of the guardian ad litem are temporary and limited to the course of the litigation.

Enabler role

1 an individual who makes something possible. 2 the term is used increasingly to indicate the actions of one who facilitates the dysfunctional behavior of another. An example is a spouse who keeps alcohol around while the partner is trying to deal with alcohol addiction.

Autonomy

1 an individual's sense of being capable of independent action; the ability to provide for one's own needs. 2 Independence from the control of others.

Reliability

1 in psychosocial assessment, the individual's degree of dependability and consistency. 2 in social research, the dependability and consistency of scores on a test that is repeated over time with the same group. Researchers use three types of reliability: test-retest reliability, split-half reliability, and interrater reliability.

Advocacy

1 the act of directly representing or defending others. 2 In social work, championing the rights of individuals or communities through direct intervention or through empowerment. According to the NASW Code of Ethics, it is a basic obligation of the profession and its members.

Equifinality

1 the property of living systems that permits them to reach identical points, although by different routes. 2 a concept in systems theories stating that different behaviors by living organisms can lead to the same or "equal final" results. The opposite of equifinality is equipotentiality or multifinality.

Goal-setting

A strategy used by social workers and other professionals to help clients clarify and define the objectives they hope to achieve in the helping relationship and then to establish the steps that must be taken and the time needed to reach those objectives. The community organizer=social worker uses goal=setting by helping key members of the target population or client community define their objectives and spell out the goals they want their people to achieve.

Analysis of Variance

ANOVA - a statistical procedure commonly used in social work research for determining the extent to which two or more groups differ significantly when one is exposed to a dependent variable.

ACSW

Academy of Certifies Social Workers. An NASW credential established in 1962 to evaluate and certify the practice competence of individual social workers with advanced degrees. Social workers are eligible for ACSW membership if they have obtained an MSW, DSW, or PhD degree from and accredited school; have two years of full time or 3,000 hours of part time practice experience under the supervision of a qualified social worker; provide references from a colleague and sign an agreement to adhere to the NASW Code of Ethics and the NASW Standards for Continuing Professional Education; and successfully pass the ACSW examination.

Social Group Work

An orientation and method of social work intervention in which small numbers of people who share similar interests or common problems convene regularly and engage in activities designed to achieve certain objectives. In contrast to group psychotherapy, the goals of group work are not necessarily the treatment of emotional problems. The objectives also include exchanging information, developing social and manual skills, changing value orientations, and diverting antisocial behaviors into productive channels. Intervention techniques include, but are not limited to, controlled therapeutic discussions. Some groups also include education and tutoring; sports; arts and crafts; recreational activities; and discussion about topics such as politics, religion, sexuality, values, and goals. Although social group work draws on the theoretical perspectives of existential theory, its major theoretical perspective to describe group functioning is social systems theory. This orientation provides workers with a way to conceptualize about the effect of group dynamics and interrelationships outside the group. Social group work theorists delineate three major conceptions of group work: 1 the social goals model, 2 the reciprocal goals model, and 3 the remedial goals model.

Entitlement Programs

Government-sponsored benefits of cash, goods, or services that are due all people who belong to a specified class. Examples include the social security programs such as old age, survivors, disability, and health insurance and Medicare in the US and family allowance in many European nations.

Systems Theories

Those concepts that emphasize reciprocal relationships between the elements that constitute a whole. These concepts also emphasize the relationships among individuals, groups, organizations, or communities and mutually influencing factors in the environment. Systems theories focus on the interrelationships of elements in nature, encompassing physics, chemistry, biology, and social relationships.

Class Action Suit

a civil legal action taken by or on behalf of a group, community, or members of a social entity against an alleged perpetrator of harm to that group or some of its members.

Saul Alinsky

a community organizer based in Chicago, he developed methods for effectively mobilizing a community such as realistic goal setting and personalizing social problems by identifying scapegoats or "villains".

Activity Group

a form of group involvement, which may or may not have a specifically designed therapeutic purpose, in which the participants work on programs of mutual interest. The members engage in activities as diverse as cooking, folk singing, carpentry, or crafts. Historically, activity groups were prevalent in early social group work, especially in settlement houses and youth services organizations. Their primary orientations was not therapeutic per se, but was a means for learning social skills, engaging in democratic decision making, and developing effective relationship capacities. More recently, activity groups are found in nursing homes, mental hospitals, and recreation centers.

Problem Solving Casework

a form of social casework, developed primarily by Helen Harris Perlman. This model stresses clear delineations of the goals of the casework intervention, focused and time-limited intervention, and concern for the environmental and social forces that influence and are influenced by the client.

Broker Role

a function of social workers and community organizers in which clients are helped identify, locate, and link available community resources, and various segments of the community are put in touch with one another to enhance their mutual interests.

Cognitive Theory

a group of concepts pertaining to the way individuals develop the intellectual capacity for receiving, processing, and acting on information. Cognitive concepts emphasize that behavior is determined by thinking and goal determination, rather than primarily resulting from instinctive drives or unconscious motivations.

Almshouse

a home for poor people; a form of indoor relief prevalent before the 20th century, in which shelters funded by philanthropy were provided for destitute families and individuals. In recent decades, almshouses have largely been replaced by outdoor relief programs in which needy people are provided with money, goods, and services while living in their own homes.

Poverty Line

a measure of the amount of money a government or a society believes is necessary for a person to live at a minimum level of subsistence or standard of living. The original poverty line in the US, issued in 1962, was determined by figuring three times the cost of a subsistence food budget. Since 1989 the poverty line, or threshold, has meant the previous year's poverty line adjusted for the change in the consumer price index.

Cost of living index

a measure to determine the relative purchasing power of money at a given time in a given society. In the US, the index is calculated by weighting the average prices of the major commodities that are considered important or representative of people's overall needs.

Hawthorne effect

a phenomenon in social research in which subjects behave differently from their norm because of their awareness of being observed.

Family

a primary group whose members assume certain obligations for each other and generally share common residences. The NASW Commission on Families defined a family as two or more people who consider themselves family and who assume obligations, functions, and responsibilities generally essential to healthy family life. Child care and child socializations, income support, and other caregiving are among the functions of family life.

Adversarial Process

a procedure for reaching decisions by hearing and evaluating the presentation of opposing viewpoints. The adversarial process is most notably seen in courts of law, in which opposing attorneys present evidence and arguments in support of their respective views or clients.

Case Management

a process to plan, seek, advocate for, and monitor services, resources, and supports from different social agencies to enhance client strengths and well-being in helping them achieve their goals.

Single Subject Design

a research procedure often used in clinical situations to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention. Behavior of a single subject, such as an individual client, is used as a comparison and a control. Typically, the results of progress or change are plotted graphically. Single subject design is also known as N=1 design or singly system design.

Block Grant

a system of disbursing funds to meet a locality's health, education, and social welfare needs while permitting the recipient organizations to determine how best to distribute the money. Used mostly by the federal and sometimes state governments, the system is designed to consolidate budget itemizations and eliminate the necessity of earmarking funds for every individual and categorical program. Proponents say it increases efficiency and local control, and opponents suggest that it is a covert way of reducing expenditures for social welfare needs.

Chicano

a term sometimes used to describe American citizens of Mexican birth or ethnic heritage. Some Mexican Americans dislike the term because of its identification with political agitation and civil rights activism.

Contract

a written, oral, or implied agreement between the client and the social worker as to the goals, methods, timetables, and mutual obligations to be fulfilled during the intervention process.

Public Assistance

also known as social assistance, a government's provision of minimum financial aid to people who have no other means of supporting themselves. Funds come from the general revenues of the federal and state governments and not from any social insurance funds such as old age, survivors, disability, and health insurance. Some public assistance programs are administered at the federal level, including SSI payments, which cover the old age assistance, aid to the blind, and aid to the permanently and totally disabled programs. Other public assistance programs are administered by states and localities, sometimes with the help of federal funding. These include TANF for those ineligible for any other categorical assistance programs.

Group Leader

an individual who facilitates group processes. The leader can be an indigenous member who through charisma, skill, or other attributes, influences the others. The leader also can be external, whose position or expertise usually results in some influence over the group. Each group has a leader, but the leader may change from one meeting to the next or from one minute to the next.

Affect

an individual's expression of mood, temperament, and feelings; an individual's overt emotional state.

Group therapy

an intervention strategy for helping individuals who have emotional disorders or social maladjustment problems by bringing together two or more individuals under the direction of a social worker or other professional therapist. The individuals are asked to share their problems with other members of the group, discuss ways to resolve their problems, exchange information and views about resources and techniques for solving the problem, and share emotional experiences in a controlled setting that enables the members to work through their difficulties. A typical format in group therapy is to have six to eight members meet with a professional therapist in a facility provided by the therapist for 90 minutes once each week. Among the many variations of group therapy are closed group and open group. Group therapy is a format used by practitioners of many orientations, including behaviorism, transactional analysis, family therapy, gestalt therapy, and psychoanalysis.

Certification

an official assurance that someone or something possesses the attributes he, she, or it claims to have. Legal certification of a profession is the warranting by a state that the people certified have attained a specified level of knowledge and skill. Professional certification is such warranting by a professional association. Certification typically does not prohibit uncertified people from engaging in the specified activity, but it prevents their use of the title "certified". Certification is usually considered to be stronger form of regulation than registration but weaker than a license.

Tactics

carefully designed and implemented procedures an individual or, more often, a group uses to bring about short-term changes in another group or individual. Tactics refers to short-term or day-to-day maneuvers, whereas strategies refer to the long range approaches and ultimate goals.

Chins

children in need of supervision, a designation used in some states for young people, for those who habitually are truant, use drugs or alcohol, runaway, or are antisocially aggressive. In most instances those designated as CHINS are children who have committed offenses that would not be considered illegal if they were adults.

Common Law Marriage

cohabitation by a man and a woman who consider themselves, and are generally considered by others, to be married but who have not had a civil or religious marriage ceremony. In some jurisdictions, this marriage is recognized by law for some purposes.

Crisis theory

concepts pertaining to people's reactions when confronted with new and unfamiliar experiences. These experiences may come in the form of natural disasters, significant loss, changes in social status, and life-cycle changes. This theory suggests that when people experience crises, they tend to follow predictable patterns of response.

Mary Richmond

considered one of the principal founders of professional social work, Richmond led the Charity Organization Societies movement to develop schools to train social caseworkers. She taught volunteers and paid employees in various settings and developed some of the first teaching programs for social work. Her books were among the first to be used in training for social work. They included Friendly Visiting Among the Poor, Social Diagnosis, and What is Social Case Work.

Coercion

forcing or compelling an individual or group to perform some activity. This may occur through legal actions, government interventions, social influence, or political pressure, as well as through threats of violent harm.

Incrementalism

gradual change in policies, attitudes, and behaviors. Social welfare planners tend to use incrementalism because of public resistance to adopting comprehensive programs all at once.

Dual Relationships

in clinical social work, the unethical practice of assuming a second role with the client, in addition to professional helper, such as a friend, business associate, family member, or sex partner. Dual relationships tend to exploit clients or have long-term negative consequences for them. Workers who engage in these relationships are liable to legal as well as professional sanctions. The NASW Code of Ethics has explicitly forbidden sexual relationships since 1979; the explicit prohibition against other dual relationships was included in the 1994 code revisions. The prohibition against dual relationships has been in the code of ethics of the Clinical Social Work Federations since 1988.

Eriksonian Theory

in human psychosocial development theory, the eight stages of life as proposed by Erik Erikson. The stages are trust vs mistrust which occurs at about ages 1-2, autonomy vs shame and doubt which occurs at about ages 2-4, initiative vs guilt which occurs at about ages 3-6, industry vs inferiority which occurs at about ages 6-12, identity vs role confusion which occurs at about ages 12-18, intimacy vs isolation which occurs at about ages 18-24, generativity vs stagnation which occurs at about ages 24-54, and integrity vs despair which occurs in those older than 54.

Control Group

in research, a group of subjects who are equivalent in every possible respect with an experimental group, except that they are not exposed to the variable being tested.

Interval Measurement

in research, a level of measurement that includes the properties of nominal measurement and ordinal measurement but requires that there are equal intervals between the units of measurement. Most of the well-standardized psychological tests use interval measurement.

Variance

in research, a measure of dispersion within the distribution of events. In statistics, the square of the standard deviation. In social administration, the difference between budgeted expectations and actual results. In urban development, a legal exemption from zoning and building codes.

Correlation

in research, a mutual relation; a pattern of variation between two phenomena in which change in one is associated with change in the other. High correlations are not necessarily indicative of causality.

Validity

in social research, the concept concerned with the extent to which a procedure is able to measure the quality it is intended to measure.

Generalist

in social work, a practitioner whose knowledge and skills encompass a broad spectrum and who assesses problems and their solutions comprehensively. The generalist often coordinates the efforts of specialists by facilitating communications between them, thereby fostering continuity of care.

Educator Role

in social work, the responsibility to teach clients necessary adaptive skills. This is done by providing relevant information in a way that is understandable to the client, offering advice and suggestions, identifying alternatives and their probable consequences, modeling behaviors, teaching problem solving techniques, and clarifying perceptions. Other social work roles are identified as the facilitator role, the enabler role, and the mobilizer role.

Independent variable

in systematic research, the factors that are thought to influence or cause a certain behavior, phenomenon, or reaction. The factor that is being influenced is the dependent variable.

Dependent Variable

in systematic research, the phenomenon or reaction to be tested or measured when a new stimulus, condition, or treatment is introduced. The factor that is introduced is the independent variable.

Closed System

in systems theories, a self-contained system with rigid boundaries that is organized to resist change and maintain the status quo. For example, a closed family system is relatively uninvolved with non-family members, less tolerant of ideas that differ from the family myths, and structured to maintain its interrelationships with minimal outside interference.

Curandero

in the cultures of some Hispanic groups, a person without formal medical training who is consulted about cures for various physical, emotional, or spiritual problems.

Ventilation

in the social worker -client therapeutic relationship, the process of permitting the client to express feelings during the description of the problem situation. According to the psychosocial theorists this releases or discharges emotions that have built up and caused the individual to have internal stress and conflict. It is also referred to as catharsis. Confidentiality, a principle of ethics according to which the social worker or other professional may not disclose information about a client without the client's consent. This information includes the identity of the client, content of verbalizations, professional opinions about the client, and material from records. Confidentiality does not preclude the communication of pertinent information about the client to relevant colleagues in the worker's agency. In specific circumstances, social workers and other professionals may be compelled by law to reveal to designated authorities some information such as threats of violence, commission of crimes, and suspected child abuse that would be relevant to legal judgments.

Acute

intense conditions or disturbances of relatively short duration. For example, a mental disorder lasting fewer than six months often is considered to be acute, and one lasting more than six months is considered chronic. 2. The relatively sudden onset of a condition.

Intervention

interceding in or coming between groups of people, events, planning activities, or an individual's internal conflicts. In social work the term is analogous to the physician's term "treatment". Many social workers prefer using "intervention" because it includes "treatment" and other activities to solve or prevent problems or achieve goals. Thus it refers to psychotherapy, advocacy, mediation, social planning, community organization, finding and developing resources, and many other activities.

Family therapy

intervention by a professional social worker or other family therapist with a group of family members who are considered to be a single unit of attention. Typically, the approach focuses on the whole system of individuals and interpersonal and communication patterns. It seeks to clarify roles and reciprocal obligations and to encourage more adaptable behaviors among the family members. Variations in family therapy techniques are practiced by proponents of psychosocial, behavioral, systems, and other orientations. Some of the more influential family therapy "schools" have been influenced by Salvador Minuchin, Jay Haley, Virginia Satir and the Palo Alto Group, Murray Bowen, Carl Whittaker, Henry V. Dicks, Mara Selvini-Palazzoli, and Peggy Papp.

Jane Addams

one of the founders of social work, she was a community organizer, peace activist, and leader of the settlement house movement. With Ellen Gates Starr, she founded Hull House in Chicago, which became a prototype for other such facilities. She was corecipent of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

Impaired social worker

one who is unable to function adequately as a professional social worker and provide competent care to clients as a result of a physical or mental disorder or personal problems, or the inability or desire to adhere to the code of ethics of the profession. These problems most commonly include alcoholism, substance abuse, mental illness, burnout, stress, or relationship problems. And organization that provides confidential collegial assistance is Social Workers Helping Social Workers.

Facilitator

one who serves as a leader or catalyst for some group experience, usually to improve working relationships between members of the group. The facilitator seeks to help individuals and groups determine their own goals, develop their own solutions to problems, and coordinate their efforts to resolve conflicts. This typically occurs without imposing solutions or using formal authority, but through persuasion and nurturing.

Committee on Inquiry

permanent and ad hoc groups of professionals and others brought together to determine if any wrongdoing has been committed by or to a peer. Of particular interest to such committees are alleged violations of professional codes of ethics, illegal activities, or other disputes among professionals or between professionals and clients. These committees also exist to raise the public consciousness about mistreatment of peers by governments or political organizations. Such groups are often sponsored by professional associations, third-party organizations, or alliances of consumer. For example NASW has a national committee for dealing with violations of the NASW Code of Ethics and personnel standards, and association's standards require that each chapter maintain a committee on inquiry.

Hispanic

persons who identify themselves as coming from or being descended from people from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central America, or South America. Hispanic-origin persons may be of any race and in census statistics may be included in any one of these racial groups. The term refers to Spanish-language users, rather than any racial or ethnic identity.

Chronic

pertaining to problems, abnormal behaviors, and medical conditions that have developed and persisted over a long period. Many helping professionals consider problems that have lasted more than six months to be chronic and those that last fewer than six months to be acute.

Institutional discrimination

prejudicial treatment in organizations based on official policies, overt behaviors, or behaviors that may be covert but approved by those with power.

Charity Organization Societies

privately administered and philanthropically funded organizations that were the essential forerunners of modern social services agencies. The first COS was founded by Octavia Hill in London in 1869. The first American COS was in Buffalo, New York, in 1877 and was duplicated in most larger eastern cities soon thereafter. As more COS workers, sometimes known as friendly visitors, gradually became professionalized, they were called social workers.

Intake

procedures used by social agencies to make the initial contacts with the client productive and helpful. Generally, these procedures include informing the client about the services the agency offers; providing information about the conditions of service, such as fees and appointment times; obtaining pertinent data about the client; interviewing to get a preliminary impression of the nature of the problem; arriving at an agreement with the client about willingness to be served by the agency; and assigning the client to the social worker or social workers who are best suited to provide the needed services.

Acceptance

recognition of a person's positive worth as a human being without necessarily condoning the person's actions. In social work, it is considered one of the fundamental elements in the helping relationship.

Creaming

selection of clients, not based on their need, but on their likelihood of benefitting from the intervention. The effect is for the agency to appear to have more success than if all clients had equal access.

Extended theory

should this be extended family?

Dorthea Dix

social activist and advocate for the humane treatment of prisoners and especially for people with mental illness. Her lobbying activities led to the establishment of many public and private mental hospitals.

Jargon

special language that is used by various professional groups as a shorthand method of communicating complicated concepts, which usually seem obscure and confusing to those outside the group.

Applied Research

systematic investigations to acquire facts that can be used to solve or prevent problems, enhance lifestyles, advance technologies, or increase income. This is contrasted to basic research. Most social work research is applied research because it pertains mostly to the interactions between people and their environment, social problems, and methods for helping.

Practice Wisdom

the accumulation of information, assumptions, ideologies, and judgments that are practically useful in fulfilling the expectations of the job. Practice wisdom is often equated with "common sense" and may or may not be validated when subjected to empirical or systematic analysis and may or may not be consistent with prevailing theory.

Client System

the client and those in the client's environment who are potentially influential in contributing to a resolution of the client's problems. For example, a social worker may see a nuclear family as the client and the extended family and neighbors, teachers, and employers as making up part of the client system.

Bonding

the development by one person of attachment for another. The process begins when the individual has needs that are regularly fulfilled by the other, and his or her identity is partially shaped by the interrelationship.

Childhood

the early stage in the human life cycle characterized by rapid physical growth and efforts to model adult roles and responsibilities, mostly through play and formal education. Many developmental psychologists say this stage occurs after infancy and lasts until puberty or until adulthood. This stage is sometimes divided into early childhood and middle or late childhood.

Individualization

the ethical value in social work and other helping professions for understanding the client as a unique person or group rather than as one whose characteristics are simply typical of a class. In social work practice, the term emphasizes the needs and welfare of each and every person as identifiable and unique and focuses on that which sets the person apart from all others.

Policy

the explicit or implicit standing plan that an organization or government uses as a guide for action.

DSM IV

the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Associations.

Baseline

the frequency with which a specific behavior or event occurs in a natural state, measured before any attempts are made to influence it.

Informed Consent

the granting of permission by the client to the social worker and agency or other professional person to use specific intervention, including diagnosis, treatment, follow- up, and research. This permission must be based on full disclosure of the facts needed to make the decision intelligently. Informed consent must be based on knowledge of the risks and alternatives. One of the greatest risks in professional malpractice suits is failure to achieve informed consent.

Target System

the individual, group, or community to be changed or influenced to achieve the social work goals. This is one of the four basic systems in social work practice. Target systems and client systems are sometimes but not always identical. They are different when the client is not to be changed. For example, a client may be a poor family that is being evicted, and the social worker's target system might be the landlord. Target systems and client systems may be the same when the client wants to achieve some self-change, such as relief from symptoms of emotional distress.

In loco parentis

the legal expression referring to the circumstances in which an organizations assumes the obligations of parenting a child or other person without a formal adoption. Most commonly, such relationships exist when a child is in a residential institution such as a reformatory or boarding school.

Adolescence

the life cycle period between childhood and adulthood, beginning at puberty and ending with young adulthood. Adolescents struggle to find self-identity, and this struggle is often accompanied by erratic behavior.

Diagnosis related groups

the name applied to a federally mandated prospective payment mechanism designed to control the costs of medical and hospital care for Medicare recipients. Payments made to the hospitals caring for Medicare patients are determined in advance, based on which one of 467 discrete categories of disorder or DRG the patient has at the time of admission, as well as on the patient's age; whether surgery is necessary; and in some cases, the presence of complications. Each category, with relevant additional factors, is equated with a flat sum. If costs for care exceed the predetermined amount, the hospital is expected to bear the excess; if they are lower than the predetermined amount, however, the hospital may keep the difference.

NASW

the organizations of social workers established in 1955 through the consolidation of the American Association of Social Workers, the American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers, the American Association of Group Workers, the Association for the Study of Community Organization, the American of Medical Social Workers, the National Association of School Social Workers, and the Social Work Research Group. NASW's primary functions include promoting the professional development of its members, establishing and maintaining professional standards of practice, advancing sound social policies for the betterment of the nation, and providing other services that protect its members and enhance their professional status. The organization has developed and adopted the NASW Code of Ethics and other generic and specialized practice standards. Certification and Quality assurance are promoted through several credentials, including the Academy of Certified Social Workers, the Qualified Clinical Social Worker, the Diplomate in Clinical Social Work, and other specialty certification programs. NASW maintains a lobbying group to influence national poly and it's Political Action for Candidate Election organization. NASW also sponsors professional conferences and continuing education programs and produces journal, books, and major reference works such as The Encyclopedia of Social Work and the Social Work Dictionary.

Change Agent System

the organizations, social agencies, and community institutions that provide the auspices and additional resources through which the social worker provides service.

Action System

the people and resources in the community with whom the social worker deals to achieve desired changes. For example, the actions system for a client who is being evicted might include the other residents of the apartment building, local housing officials, and the media contacted by a social worker in an effort to change a landlord's policies.

Assessment

the process of determining the nature, cause, progression, and prognosis of a problem and the personalities and situations involved therein: the social work function of acquiring and understanding of a problem, what causes it, and what can be changed to minimize or resolve it.

Coming out

the process of self-identification as a lesbian or a gay man, followed by the revelation of one's sexual orientation to others.

Feminism

the social movement and doctrine advocating legal and socioeconomic equality for women. The movement originated in Great Britain in the 18th century.

Accountability

the state of being answerable to the community, to consumers of a product or service, or to supervisory groups such as a board of directors. An obligation of a profession to reveal clearly what its functions and methods are and to provide assurances to clients that its practitioners meet specific standards of competence.

Homeostasis

the tendency of a system or organism to maintain stability and, when disrupted, to adapt and strive to restore the stability previously achieved.

Least Restrictive Environment

the term educators use for the legal requirement to place children with disabilities in learning situations that meet their special needs while most closely approximating that of the child without disabilities.

Altruism

unselfish regard for the well-being of others, accompanied by motivation to give money, goods, services or companionship.

Categorical Assistance

welfare programs for specific groups of people identified in the social security act. Originally, the programs were old age assistance, aid to the blind, aid to dependent children, and aid to the totally and permanently disabled. Needy people in these categories could receive financial assistance from their respective states supplemented by federal grants. In 1974, responsibility for the three adult categories was assumed by the federal supplemental security income program.