As social workers we must acknowledge and address the many challenges to human wellbeing. By working together, we can fulfill key values and ethics of the NASW Code of Ethics, which includes understanding and honoring the importance of human relationships.
In that spirit, we invite you to join us as incoming and returning Master of Social Work students to our MSW Summer Book Club. Faculty, staff and students will read and discuss a classic book by Ms. Helen Harris Perlman, one of our profession's greatest leaders in cultivating the art of human relationships. In Relationship: The Heart of Helping People, Perlman shares the very foundation for our most vital social work tool still today, the relationship.
Our doctoral students have read the book and rave about its relevance and timeliness. You will not want to miss out on this opportunity to engage with your social work colleagues in meaningful discussions to better prepare you to work toward enhancing the lives of vulnerable people through professional practice.
We look forward to you joining us!
Naomi Farber,
Associate Professor
Methodology:
Utilizing the shared inquiry seminar discussion format, facilitators will meet every other week and guide a focused exploratory discussion with small groups of students to help them gain a deeper understanding of the author’s intent and purpose of the writing.
Book Information:
Relationship: The Heart of Helping People by Helen Harris Perlman - The book can be purchased from Amazon. Used copies sell for approximately $7-$8; New copies for $23.
- ISBN-13: 978-0226660363
- ISBN-10: 0226660362
The book is also available for a free download through the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library.
About the Author:
Helen Harris Perlman (1905-2004) was the Samuel Deutsch Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus, in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. She is the author of several books, including Social Casework: A Problem-Solving Process; and Persona: Social Role and Personality.
Distinguished scholars rave about Relationship: The Heart of Helping People
"Helen Perlman teaches us the art of caring, which in essence, encompasses the responsiveness to the feeling and the needs of the seeker. It is more than a systematized program of forming and maintaining a relationship; it is the heart of helping.” - Harold M. Visotsky, M.D.
“I am so excited to get started and make a difference. I hope to really focus on the importance of relationships in their various capacities and always think back on our readings by Perlman.” - College of Social Work MSW graduate
MSW Summer Book Club Information and Schedule:
All incoming Full-time and Part-time MSW students and returning advanced year MSW students.
Students will be contacted for their preferred platform.
There will be small group discussions lasting approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Ten students will be assigned to a group with a faculty or Ph.D. student facilitator. Students will read one chapter weekly and participate in a shared inquiry method of discussion.
The MSW Summer Book Club begins the week of June 27 and runs through August 8.
- Meeting 1 (Week of June 27)
- Chapter 1: Relationship Revisited - Explaining why the concept and experience of relationship is of vital and present concern to all of us for personal, but especially for help-giving efforts and help-using efficacy.
- Chapter 2: What is Relationship? - Describing in qualities, dynamics, and uses in the development of humanness.
- Meeting 2 (Week of July 11)
- Chapter 3: The Helping Relationship - Setting for the purposes, attributes, powers, pit falls, and the principles that make for enabling transactions between helpers and those whose use of services they seek to promote.
- Chapter 4: But Can You Love Everybody? - Facing up to some common difficulties that block relating to (and thus helping) “unlikable” people and some ways of dealing with one’s self.
- Meeting 3 (Week of July 25)
- Chapter 5: Relating to the “Resister” - Suggesting and exemplifying some ways of forming relationships with people who seem to fear or reject the would-be helper and what he has to offer.
- Chapter 6: Some Myths and Misconceptions - Examining a few common misapprehensions or ambiguities about professional relationships.
- Meeting 4 (Week of Aug. 8)
- Chapter 7: Relating to More than One - Touching on working with small groups and families, with a focus upon the likeness and differences relating to individuals and groups.
- Chapter 8: Relating to Significant Others - Examining why this is important, why helpers resist it; and how it may be managed better.
- Week 9: - The Heart’s Reasons - Suggesting that all of the foregoing may hold potential rewards for the helper.