Empowerment Model in Social Work

📄 Other By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated October 15, 2026

Quick answer: the empowerment model treats clients as partners with strengths and helps them regain control over their lives through dialogue, discovery and development phases.

Contents

1. Concept and background
2. Three levels
3. Practice phases (Miley, O'Melia & DuBois)
4. Worker roles
5. Limits
6. References

Concept and background

Barbara Solomon's Black Empowerment (1976) framed empowerment as helping oppressed groups overcome powerlessness. It arose against pathology-based models and rests on Saleebey's strengths perspective and the ecosystems view.

Three levels

Personal: self-efficacy and sense of control
Interpersonal: skills to influence others and supportive ties
Political: resource access and collective action

Practice phases (Miley, O'Melia & DuBois)

Dialogue: build partnership, articulate the situation, define direction
Discovery: identify strengths, assess resources, frame solutions
Development: activate resources, create alliances, expand opportunities, recognise success

Worker roles

Workers act as partners, brokers, educators, advocates and facilitators, respecting self-determination.

Limits

The concept is hard to measure and can individualise structural oppression or shift responsibility onto clients in crises.

References

Solomon, B. B. (1976). Black Empowerment: Social Work in Oppressed Communities. Columbia University Press.
Miley, K. K., O'Melia, M., & DuBois, B. (2017). Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach (8th ed.). Pearson.
Saleebey, D. (Ed.). (2013). The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice (6th ed.). Pearson.
Gutiérrez, L. M. (1990). Working with women of color: An empowerment perspective. Social Work, 35(2), 149-153.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

There are no materials dedicated to this theory yet, but you can search related reports in the CampusDown library (Korean).

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This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.