LMSW Community-Level Practice 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A social worker is preparing testimony for a city council hearing on affordable housing. This activity is an example of which community practice role?
- Case manager
- Mediator
- Legislative advocate (Correct answer)
- Community educator
Correct answer: Legislative advocate
Providing testimony to legislative bodies to influence policy decisions is a core function of the legislative advocate role.
Question 2: In Rothman's classic models of community organization, which model most closely parallels the work of a United Way strategic planning committee?
- Social action
- Locality development
- Social planning (Correct answer)
- Community capacity building
Correct answer: Social planning
Social planning relies on expert-driven, data-based problem-solving and rational planning, which aligns with coordinated agency planning like United Way.
Question 3: Which ethical principle is most at stake when a social worker shares aggregate community health data publicly without first consulting affected residents?
- Beneficence
- Self-determination (Correct answer)
- Non-maleficence
- Justice
Correct answer: Self-determination
Self-determination requires that community members have meaningful input into decisions—including how data about them is collected and used.
Question 4: A social worker implementing a 'popular education' curriculum in a refugee community is drawing on which theoretical tradition?
- Behavioral conditioning
- Systems theory
- Critical pedagogy (Correct answer)
- Cognitive-behavioral theory
Correct answer: Critical pedagogy
Popular education, rooted in Freire's critical pedagogy, uses participatory learning to develop critical consciousness and collective action.
Question 5: When conducting a community capacity assessment, measuring 'bonding social capital' specifically refers to:
- Connections between community members and external institutions
- Ties among individuals within the same social group (Correct answer)
- The number of nonprofits serving the community
- Formal partnerships between government and community organizations
Correct answer: Ties among individuals within the same social group
Bonding social capital describes the dense, trusting relationships within a homogeneous group, such as close neighbors or members of the same ethnic community.
Question 6: A social worker is helping residents form a tenant association to negotiate with a landlord. The practice skill most central to this phase is:
- Grant writing
- Leadership development (Correct answer)
- Program evaluation
- Case management
Correct answer: Leadership development
Building resident capacity to organize and advocate requires identifying and developing leaders who can sustain collective action.
Question 7: The 'dual perspective' framework in community practice helps social workers understand how clients simultaneously navigate:
- Their cultural community and the dominant societal system (Correct answer)
- Federal policy mandates and state-level regulations
- Their individual needs and agency policies
- Short-term crises and long-term goals
Correct answer: Their cultural community and the dominant societal system
Norton's dual perspective recognizes that clients operate within both their immediate nurturing community and the larger, often dominant, societal system.
LMSW Community-Level Practice 3
A social worker is preparing testimony for a city council hearing on affordable housing.
This activity is an example of which community practice role?