According to Siegel in Debate 17 the social work profession has drifted away from the

person-in-environment way of thinking. She states that we have focused so much on the
theories of individual, family, and small group dynamics that we have come to pay insufficient
attention, in comparison, to the societal dynamics that create, sustain, and exacerbate peoples
miseries. I do agree that most of the social work classes that I have taken focus more on
individuals and theory but do not cover must about how the environment effects our clients and
what we can do to help them. I personally believe that HBSE is necessary to teach in the social
work program but I do feel that there should be more focus on the actual environment and how it
effects our clients. I would like to be taught what I can do to help clients who are experiencing
certain hardships because of the environment, in order to better help them complete whatever it
is that I am asking of them.
In debate 20 Does HBSE Teach Students to Do Anything? I found this article to be
interesting. The article starts off with explaining how HBSE can teach social workers to do
things like assessments which are used in almost any social work profession. They give an
example of how assessment is used when looking at a suicidal man and deciding if he needs to
be hospitalized or what other treatment program would work best for him. These assessments are
learned from theories that social workers are being taught in the HBSE classes. The next person
in the article goes on to debate why he believes that HBSE does not do anything for students. As
I have stated above, I do believe that HBSE does help students learn about theory and people but
I also believe that assessment processes can be thought in other classes such as practice method
classes.
The second article I read was Debate 26 From case to Cause: My Name Is Jess Overton
by Donna McIntosh. I found this to be a very interesting article to read and I was very interested

in the policies and how they effected Jess. It was hard to read that Jess would face so many
issues when she was trying to do the right thing for her family by leaving her abusive husband. I
feel like she was targeted because she was leaving her husband even though it was best for her
and her children. First thing that happened was Jesss eldest son whom was 15 was not allowed
to be placed in the same shelter with his family. This would be a very difficult decision for a
mother to make at such a difficult time in her life but I am glad that she allowed Nick to live in a
host familys home while she stayed in the shelter. Then she faced problems getting her youngest
son Marty enrolled in a school and having them accept his disability. The school fought back and
refused to give him the services he was receiving in his previous school and conducted an IEP on
their own. They found the IEP was not necessary and put him in regular classrooms. There were
many other issues Jess had to face even though she was already going through such a difficult
time trying to get away from the domestic violence that was occurring in her home for more than
15 years.