Critical Case Critical Review: Ben Carniol

To begin, Case Critical is a sixth edition book that gives readers deep insight on the history, the challenges and the possibilities in the Canadian social services and social justice domain. The author Ben Carniol is a social work professor at Ryerson University and has over forty years of experience, which has helped contribute to social work education. Carniol discusses social services and social justice starting from the early 1400’s until the 20th century. This book is definitely educational and a good read. The author was very honest in his writing and gave thorough examples to elaborate on what was being discussed. Personally, the most important part about this authors writing style was how he took on the role of both those who

He explains that there can be a lot of negative aspects in social work but it is the positive things that make it all worthwhile (Carniol, 2010, p. 93). Taking into consideration that this is likely to be a mutual feeling in many different professions, it is interesting to see why Carniol feels this way about social work. One barrier that is discussed in the book is social class. A reason the author sees social class as a barrier is due to clients feeling like their social worker cannot relate to what they are going through because they have never experienced it (Carniol, 2010, p. 81). It is certainly possible for a social worker to be insensitive towards a client’s situation, but to challenge the author’s perspective, it only seems fair to consider that a social worker will never have experienced the same situation as each of their clients. Being sensitized to the client’s situation and respecting them as an individual will allow the social worker to understand and have compassion towards the client, which in result could relieve a social class barrier. Secondly, the author also mentions that advocating against those in positions of power or with money can have an effect on social services and social justice

The first idea was to consider different perspective when dealing with a client. For example, he states that “ How will services providers treat people of all sexual orientations with respect if social service agencies continue to privilege heterosexuality as the only form of “normal” sexuality?” (Carniol, 2010, p. 83). This statement was so incredibly refreshing to read, allowing the mind to think in this perspective is incredible and truly inspiring. The following suggestion given my Carniol for a positive effect on society was to take part in and support social movements. He argued that it should not be forced upon people to take part in social movements but it should be because they want to see the changes that are being fought for (Carniol, 2010, p. 154). This is something that anybody can take part in and in agreeable with the author, it should be done because the changes need to be made or should be made to benefit members of society. With all the injustices we experience participating and supporting the things we believe in allows us to have some justice. The final way the author suggested a positive contribution to society was through charity. He discussed how in 1869 the Charity Organization Society offered to advocate for the needy by reviewing application for charity,