Kerala Plus Two Social Work (DHSE) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Social work definition

A practice-based profession and academic discipline that promotes social change, empowerment and liberation of people, using theories of human behaviour and social systems to advance human rights and social justice.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Founded in 1936 in Bombay as India's first school of social work, it pioneered professional social work education and later became a deemed university with multiple campuses.

Client self-determination

The ethical principle that clients have the right to make their own choices and decisions; the worker informs and supports but does not coerce, except to prevent serious harm.

Social casework

A one-to-one helping method in which the worker studies the person-in-situation, diagnoses the problem, and provides a planned treatment to improve social functioning.

Tuckman's group stages

The five predictable phases of group development: forming (orientation), storming (conflict), norming (cohesion and norms), performing (productivity) and adjourning (separation).

Rothman's community organization models

Three classic models: locality development (broad participation and self-help), social planning (expert problem-solving) and social action (organised pressure for structural change and redistribution).

Process recording

A detailed narrative record of an interview including verbatim dialogue, worker feelings and reflections, and analysis, used for supervision and learning in fieldwork.

Empathy in helping

The worker's ability to understand and communicate the client's feelings and meanings from the client's own frame of reference, distinct from sympathy or personal identification.

Piaget's concrete operational stage

Ages roughly 7 to 11, when children acquire conservation, classification and reversibility of thought but still reason about concrete rather than abstract problems.

Erikson's identity crisis

The psychosocial task of adolescence (identity versus role confusion) in which the young person integrates self-image, peer expectations and vocational goals into a coherent identity.

Secure attachment

An attachment pattern in which the infant uses the caregiver as a safe base, shows distress at separation and is readily comforted on reunion, predicting healthier later relationships.

Kerala paradox

The coexistence in Kerala of high human development, literacy and low infant mortality with high suicide rates, alcohol use and educated unemployment.

Multidimensional Poverty Index

A measure of poverty across health, education and living standards using twelve indicators, capturing deprivation intensity rather than income alone.

Kudumbashree

Kerala's women-centred poverty eradication and empowerment programme built on neighbourhood groups, micro-enterprise and local self-government convergence, launched in 1998.

POSDCoRB

Luther Gulick's administration functions: planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting, applied to managing social welfare agencies.

FCRA clearance

Permission under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 2010 required for Indian voluntary organisations to legally receive foreign donations for social welfare work.

Stratified random sampling

A probability method in which the population is divided into homogeneous subgroups (strata) and random samples are drawn from each stratum to improve representativeness.

Type I error

Rejecting a true null hypothesis, also called alpha error; the probability is set by the significance level, commonly 0.05, meaning a five per cent false-positive risk.

Genogram

A diagram of a family's structure and relationships across at least three generations, showing births, marriages, deaths, illness and conflict patterns for family assessment.

Medical social work

Practice in health settings covering psychosocial assessment, discharge planning, counselling and linkage to welfare schemes for patients and their families.

Mental Healthcare Act 2017

Indian law protecting the rights of persons with mental illness, including advance directives, nominated representatives, confidentiality and decriminalisation of attempted suicide.

Participatory Rural Appraisal

A set of participatory tools such as mapping, ranking and seasonal calendars that enable communities to analyse their own situation and plan development action.

Child in need of care

Under the JJ Act 2015, a person under eighteen who is abused, abandoned, trafficked, disabled or otherwise vulnerable and requires protection and rehabilitation.

UNCRC principles

Four guiding principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: non-discrimination, best interests of the child, survival and development, and respect for the child's views.

PWDVA 2005

India's Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, defining physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse and providing protection officers, shelter and maintenance remedies.

RPwD Act 2016

India's Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, recognising twenty-one specified disabilities and mandating accessibility, inclusive education and four per cent reservation in government employment.

Maintenance and Welfare of Parents Act

India's 2007 law obliging children and relatives to maintain senior citizens, establishing maintenance tribunals and provisions for old age homes and protection of life and property.

Social action

An organised method using campaigns, lobbying, advocacy and confrontation to press for structural change and redistribution of power and resources on behalf of disadvantaged groups.

Individualisation principle

The casework principle that each client and situation is unique and must be understood and helped according to its particular circumstances rather than by uniform prescription.

Confidentiality limits

Client information is protected except when disclosure is legally mandated or necessary to prevent serious harm, such as child abuse reporting or suicide risk.

Monitoring versus evaluation

Monitoring continuously tracks outputs and activities during implementation, whereas evaluation periodically judges outcomes, efficiency and impact against objectives.

Range and standard deviation

Dispersion measures: range is the difference between highest and lowest scores; standard deviation is the square root of average squared deviation from the mean.