Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the task-centred and crisis intervention approaches for anti-discriminatory, social work practice, and identify one or more situations from your own experience where the use of either approach may have been h...

The first 200 words of this essay...

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the task-centred and crisis intervention approaches for anti-discriminatory, social work practice, and identify one or more situations from your own experience where the use of either approach may have been helpful.

Both task-centred and crisis intervention approaches are popular and widely used methods of social work practice. Although these two approaches have different origins they have some common features. In order to focus on the advantages and disadvantages of task-centred and crisis intervention approaches for anti-discriminatory practice, I intend to look at the key features of each approach.

Discrimination occurs when individuals or groups of people receive unequal or unfair treatment on account of prejudice. There are many forms of discrimination which include racism, sexism and ageism. Almost by definition, a large proportion of people seeking help from, or referred to, social services (or similar organisations ) belong to groups which are frequently discriminated against in our society e.g. people with disabilities and older people. As Thompson states-

"We live in a society characterised by various forms of inequality. As a result of this, certain groups in society have less access to resources, fewer opportunities or 'life-chances', less power and