Student’s Name: Lecture’s Name: Course: Date: As a clinical social worker, how can you distinguish the professional relationship with clients from the personal relationship? It is possible to distinguish the professional relationship with clients from the personal relationship. Even though there are various challenges, one can put up measures with the aim of ensuring that the difference is very clear. In most cases, social workers are always able to separate their professional work from personal lives since they do not socialize or become friends with the clients. The first challenge in relationship is always building of friendship. The moment the social worker becomes friends with the client, there is high chances that the relationship will …show more content…
Clients have their reservations when it comes to culture. Latinos, Caucasians, Hispanic and blacks have their own cultures. In addition there are certain personal cultural background that should always be observed in a relationship. It is always imperative for the clinical social worker to be aware of his own cultural experiences, attitudes, values background and biases that have the capability of influencing his ability to help clients from diverse cultural populations. It is vital that one should correct any prejudices that one may have regarding different cultural groups. Without the appropriate knowledge of the client’s background, the professional social worker can hurt feelings or create an initial impression to the client. Issues such as racism and discrimination have dominated the media and the public gallery. Most clients are always very sensitive of such issues and hence may feel offended if the professional social worker uses certain language. A client from a different background (black) may feel very offended if the clinical social worker uses certain language that sounds to abuse or degrade the black people. For instance, the black may feel offended if referred to as an African. It is always very imperative for the clinical worker to study and comprehend social, cultural economic differences of the client before involving in the counselling
In the social work practice, social workers should abide by and respect the protocol of their particular organization. The first ethical standard I would like to discuss is that a social worker having cultural competence and social (NASW, 1999). A social worker must possess the knowledge of values, customs, tradition and history just to name a few in order to have success with clients that may identify as something other than their own identity. Culture directs impacts human behavior. Within this case study, due to Mrs. Sanchez’s culture, she struggled to assimilate with the American culture and this included her being able to learn the English language. Her culture was very important to her and I respect that. As a social worker, I would have
Counselors today face the task of how to appropriately counsel multicultural clients. Being sensitive to cultural variables can be conceptualized as holding a cultural lens to human behavior and making allowances for the possibility of cultural influence. However, to avoid stereotyping, it is important that the clinician recognize the existence of within-group differences as well as the influence of the client’s own personal culture and values (Furman, Negi, Iwamoto, Shukraft, & Gragg, 2009). One’s background is not always black or white and a counselor needs to be able to discern and adjust one’s treatment plan according to their client.
Standard 1.09 of the NASW code of ethics says that social workers should not engage in sexual relationships with current clients. The difference between this standard and the question is current and former clients. However, if standard 1.09 is saying social worker as a general term, then I also believe that the same ethical standards regarding sexual relationships with formal clients should be applicable to all social workers. In situations like this, I do not see a difference between a social worker and a clinician. They are still people who work with clients and should not engage in sexual relationships. In order to determine if a social worker is a clinician, it would depend on the type of work that is being done. If a social worker has a therapeutic relationship with a client, I would consider this to be a clinician. If a social worker is solely providing information and linking resources to the client, this would not be considered a therapeutic relationship. Regardless of whatever job the social worker does, it is never appropriate to engage in sexual activity with a
There is a pressing need for a high level of worker/client boundary identification when working within a client population, however realizing a conflict of interest scenario is vitally important when facing a dual relationship with a client. There are so many issues that are faced by a human service professional, explaining all of them may be difficult. In this field there are issues such as burnout, secondary trauma, compassion satisfaction, dual relationships, and boundary issues. (Reamer, F. (2012). As human services professional or social workers there is a code of ethics. In statement 6 of the code of ethics, it states human services experts must be mindful that in their associations with customers/clients power and status are unequal. Accordingly they distinguish that double or various relationships might build the danger of damage to, or abuse of, customers, and may debilitate their expert judgment. In any case, in a few neighborhoods and circumstances it may not be achievable to escape social or other nonprofessional contact with customers. Human service professional experts...
It is important to include cultural issues in the helping process to be more effective. We also need cultural competence because the U.S. is becoming more diverse. Therefore with diversity comes different beliefs, norms, and values. Eurocentric values dominate sciences and began cultural universals which puts the clash of dominate and non-dominate cultural behaviors in motion. In 1996 the NASW Code of Ethics increased the recognition of cultural competence. It is important to know diversity exist within ethnic and cultural groups because social workers need to know that relationships between helping professionals and clients may be strained. This happens because of the distrust between groups. Another important aspect is that the professional realizes their own values, biases, and beliefs. The reason for this is because they must value diversity to start with and understand the dynamics of difference. Culturally competent practitioners have to go through developmental process of using their own culture as a starting point to meet all behaviors. Striving for cultural competence is a long term process of development. The literature on cultural competence is theoretical and conceptual. They have not been evaluated in a systematic way. Roughly there are 2 million Native americans in the U.S. Which survive decimating disease, over-repressed in child welfare system, suffer from health problems, and are among the poorest people in the United States. Working with them clearly falls within the social work clearly mandate to serve vulnerable and oppressed clients. However, we do not know how many people from this group is actually receiving help from social workers. Even though it is important to train social workers to provide care in th...
A professional helping relationship doesn’t stem from a social relationship. This type of relationship is “formed for a specific purpose and for a finite amount of time” (Mandell & Schram, pg. 107). There are “five qualities that are distinct about a professional helping relationship” (Mandell & Schram, pg. 107). The helping relationship between client and therapist is formed as a necessary component of the therapeutic process (Mandell & Schram, pg. 107). A friendship is formed only because two people are interested in spending time together, like each other and want to be in each other’s
Cultural Competence Understanding culture is an important aspect of being a social worker; this does not mean learning common cultural traits is of great significance to the social work profession. “Consider the second-generation Japanese-American social worker whose practice consists of Mexican-American and African-American families. Memorizing national traits or cultural rituals would be interesting and informative, but ultimately these would be an inaccurate basis on which to “know” these particular families” (Dorfman, 1996, p. 33). When understanding cultural competence, it is important to learn from the client about their culture in order to serve them in the most helpful and efficient way possible. There is a major drawback to memorizing information, and that is, this information will not give you a real understanding of who your client is and what life experiences they have personally faced.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing a therapist can do with their client is to establish some sort of dual relationship. Essentially, a dual relationship is born through multiple roles between that of a client and a therapist (Zur 2014). These various roles can be seen through the lens of business, sexual connection, friendship, communal and even on an online setting. While not all dual relationships are necessarily bad, the clear majority can crush the trust or will to change that the client has. Dual relationships can demolish years of work that both the client and psychotherapist have worked so hard to obtain.
In Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence, Nancy Summers (2010) provides a list of “The Differences between a Professional Relationship and a Friendship” (p. 192). The very first item on the list states that a professional relationship puts the client first; whereas in a friendship, “each friend gives the support to the other” (p. 192). Hepworth, et al. (2013) also supports this by stating that professional boundaries intend to make “the client’s interest the primary focus” (p. 71). From my perspective, this is the main difference between a professional and personal relationship. As my field instructor has pointed out, in a professional relationship, it’s about the client’s needs. As social workers, we should not try to get anything
As a social work professional, you must take into account your own personal values before you can be an effective worker in this field. Social workers sometimes need to put their own values aside when working with clients who don’t share their same ideals. Clients are diverse and are not going to always have the same values that the worker has. Social workers need to be professional and adhere to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) guidelines when working with any client.
A social worker must present themselves as a learner and understand clients from all experts of their own experiences. To show your respect to the clients as a social worker you must be able to show that you understand complexity of cultural identity. Cultural competence targets social workers knowledge of development, focusing on culturally specific demographics, characteristics, values, and intravenous technique. When dealing with cultural sensitivity a worker’s genuine appreciation of the client’s uniqueness and universalistic respect for the client’s humanness is needed. To have success in multicultural practice, cultural responsiveness come in to play, which means to be culturally responsive, social workers use dialogue skills that place the client’s construction of reality at the center of the
A part of a social worker’s task is to enhance the life of an individual through advocacy, educating, and engagement. Positive influence is benefited through the engagement of the client such as building rapport with the individual. By doing this, the social worker develops trusting ground for the individual delivering the message. Engagement is reported to be an establishment of a professional relationship with a client (Langer & Lietz, 2014). If the process of engagement is not established through security of the client, then therapy cannot begin (Bowlby, 1988). This process is the first encounter you have with the social worker.
In social work, a social worker has to come to the client’s level and start from there. The client does not have to come to the social workers level. In order for this to happen the social worker has to know the importance of culture, race, gender, sexual, diversity and other forms of diversity to make the best decision for choosing a type of intervention. Understanding the client’s culture, race, gender, sexual diversity and other form of diversity is important because they affect each person differently. An example, Roberto is Latino and in their culture they believe in machomism, so this is something his social worker needs to know when addressing Roberto or someone of the Latino culture. Hispanic women bring machomism
While many people wants better lives and become healthier in their lives. Social workers are here to save the day! When being a social worker you can’t show your emotions because you have to be strong but some social workers can’t take it and just quit. Social worker are trained professionals to help people become stronger. Social worker help people emotionally, spiritually, and physically to become a better person and health.
Social Work is a profession that prides itself on the ability to cultivate positive relationships with people who may be very different from us. There may be differences in age, race, personality, gender, socioeconomic status, health, sexual orientation, rank, power, and privilege, as well as beliefs regarding religion and politics. The experience of these differences can cause a Social Worker to feel emotionally and cognitively disturbed. The ability to become aware of and consciously attend to these internal disturbances can positively affect the quality of relationship we are able to