Blackwell Reference Online

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Dennis Saleebey, DSW, born August 29, 1936, is Professor Emeritus at the School of Social Welfare, University of Kansas, and perhaps best known for his work on the strengths perspective in social work. Saleebey coined this term through various publications, most notably The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice , currently available in its fourth edition. Saleebey started his professional career as a mental health social worker for the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s in San Antonio, and advanced to Chief Social Worker in the Child Diagnostic Clinic of Wilford Hall Hospital. He received his doctorate from the University of California – Berkeley in 1972, and began his academic career at the University of Maine. Saleebey's interests soon shifted away from the individual and pathology-focused approach he had encountered in clinical social work toward those factors that made people, families, and communities stronger, more resilient, and more hopeful. Particularly inspired by Ernest Becker's scholarship on how humans construct and revise meaning for their lives, Saleebey began to ask how people are capable of overcoming the most difficult of circumstances, and how some are not merely coping but at times even thriving in the face of adversity. After 17 years at the University of Texas at Arlington, Saleebey, by then a widowed father of four children, joined the faculty of the University ... log in or subscribe to read full text