Summarize the micro-to-macro continuum in social work.

Answers may vary. The micro-to-macro continuum is a natural extension of helping individual clients deal with the social problems, conditions, or policies that affect their lives. Understanding this continuum is consistent with the social justice agenda of the profession and helps you to be aware of issues beyond the individual, family, or group. It is not unusual for a direct service practitioner to have observed patterns in the frequency of certain problems and conditions throughout a caseload. The work with individuals and families places a social worker in an opportune position to make the connection between micro concerns that may require macro strategies to remedy. There may be days in which a social worker might feel that with each individual client or family, he or she is working at the edge of a much larger problem, one person or one family at a time. The social worker's observations of the experience of individual clients can be the basis of the critical linkage between micro and macro practice. Micro-level observations can inform social workers of common problems and conditions that are experienced by individuals, groups, and communities.