Social work practice and community health: a planning-implementation model

This paper describes the functions and roles performed by the author as a social worker in the Department of Community Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York. The material is presented within the context of current controversies in the health care field and the department's assumption of responsibility to help improve the health care delivery system. Examples are provided to illustrate ways in which social work practice can enhance the ability of an agency or institution to use its won resources to educate and encourage a community and attendant health delivery systems therein to identify needs and to work in partnership in order to solve some of the problems. Discussion of the philosophical and knowledge base from which specific principles and techniques emerge highlights the applicability of this material to urban, nonurban, and rural areas.