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Social Work vocabulary · Practice Approaches

Empowerment

Meaning in social work, with examples

/ɪmˈpaʊəmənt/nounCore term

In social work, empowerment means: The process of helping people gain more control over their own lives, decisions and resources, and the confidence to act for themselves.

In Turkish: güçlendirme, yetkinleştirme

How it is used

A central value in social work theory and community work. Practice that empowers people involves them in decisions instead of doing things for them. The verb is empower and the adjective empowering.

Example sentences

  1. The group is about empowerment: the women run the meetings themselves.

  2. Real empowerment means young people speak for themselves at their own reviews.

Common collocations

  • promote empowerment
  • community empowerment
  • women's empowerment
  • empowerment approach
  • advocacySpeaking up for people, or helping them speak up for themselves, so that their views are heard and their rights are respected.
  • strengths-based approachA way of working that starts from what people can do, their skills, relationships and resources, rather than only from their problems.
  • self-determinationA person's right to make their own choices and decisions about their life, even when others might disagree with them.
  • anti-oppressive practiceAn approach that recognises how power, discrimination and inequality affect people's lives and works to challenge them, both in the system and in the worker's own practice.

More terms: Practice Approaches

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