Social workers' orientations toward community mental health concepts.

Relations between ideological priorities in social work and community mental health were examined by a Likert-type questionnaire containing statements representing Caplan's Conceptual Models in Community Mental Health. Seventy social workers were sampled, with equal subsamples representing the five largest fields of practice in social work. This sample appeared to be highly representative of the national social work population by fields of personal service. By analyses of variance and correlation, significant differences were found between levels of approval for respective models by the total sample, but no significant differences were found by fields of practice, or any other professional or demographic attribute. This indicates a consensual integrity in the social work profession's community mental health orientation, and strong mutuality between social work and community mental health value orientations.