Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Social workers are important members of multidisciplinary mental health
teams and formulation is a core skill in mental health practice. However, there is little published
guidance about what strong social work formulation looks like. As a group of mental health
social workers, including Māori and tauiwi (non-Māori), experienced and recent graduates, we
identified a discrepancy between the importance of a social work perspective on formulation and
the lack of guidance available to us. We propose some key principles for social work formulation
in Aotearoa New Zealand. This theoretical article is designed to encourage our mental health
social work colleagues, new and experienced, to engage in formulation that is informed by
social work values and knowledge.
APPROACH: As a group of mental health social workers, we approached this task with a mix
of theory and practice. We conducted a literature review of both social work formulation and
Māori formulation, then discussed how these approaches align with the social work knowledge
base in Aotearoa New Zealand, social work core competencies, and our experience of mental
health practice. From this approach, we identified six key principles for social work formulation
in Aotearoa New Zealand.
CONCLUSIONS: Strong social work formulation has a tangata whenua or bicultural lens, is
collaborative, strengths-based, ecological, has a social justice lens and is whānau-inclusive.
