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Communication skills in social care
Effective communication in social work
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As a social worker it is important to have basic communication skills in order to connect with clients. There are six basic and four advanced skills that are used in direct practice to make communication more effective. The basic skills include reflection of feelings, paraphrasing, open ended questions, closed ended questions, clarification and attending behaviors. Advanced skills consist of summarization, information giving, interpretation and confrontation. Not only is it important to know what these skills are, it is also important to know what the appropriate and inappropriate uses are. It is also important to self-reflect on your use of these skills, and whether it is a strength or something to continue to work to improve on.
Paraphrasing is a skill that is used to restate a client’s message using your own words. In this way a social worker can check to see if
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I am afraid that I will misread a clients’ emotions and upset them further. This is one of the skills that I feel that it going to take practice and time to fully get a grasp on it for I do not upset a client further.
Open ended questions are a way that a social worker can receive more detailed response from a client. Open ended questions allows for open communication with a client. This type of question allows the client to bring to the conversation what is important to them. A social worker does not want to use open ended questions when it is irrelevant, a leading question or ask too many questions at once. Open ended questions are particularly useful for inviting or encouraging a client to elaborate and opening a session (Cummins, Sevel, Pedrick, p.93-95). I think open ended questions are one of the skills that I am most comfortable with. I just have to be careful not to use why questions too much in an interview because a client may not know why or it can make them feel blamed for something. Other than that I think it is relatively easy to
During this session, the skills that I utilized were listening skills, observing verbal and nonverbal communication and paraphrasing. Being an attentive listener is very important, I was trying to perceive important information without missing any. I observed the client body language and the tone in her voice. Also, using the paraphrasing skills allowed clarity to see if I was following the client story accurately.
121). Close-ended questions are usually asked as a first response to an emergency situation and are essential in dangerous situations (p. 121). Open-ended questions are advantageous when the interviewer wants to create a free flowing dialogue (p. 121). These questions are generally more effective than close-ended questions because they allow for more elaborate responses from the interviewee and they can direct the conversation however they wish (p. 121). Interviewers generally find it natural to ask close-ended questions, but they do not draw as much information from interviewees and often cut interviews short (p. 121).
The one skill that I used more of was empathy; I wanted the client to know that I understood her situation as well her feelings. At the end of our conversation, I summarized everything that we talked about, especially her want to open up to her parents and express herself to them. She mentioned that she wants them to fell empathy towards her, because the lack of parental empathy that she felt when she was younger, has even affected her in her adult life (Kilpatrick,2005).
Interviewing and research skills are needed within the social work profession. Effective communication skills are one of the most crucial components of a social worker’s job. Every day, social workers must communicate with clients to gain information, convey critical information and make important decisions (Zeiger, 2017). This interview experience was an opportunity to explore the daily challenges and rewards of a licensed social worker. I was excited for the opportunity to interview a social worker in the gerontology sector as this is a specialty I am considering. This meeting allowed me to explore the educational steps of being a social worker, practices of the agency, the clients who are served, and the challenges the agency has.
The communication skills I currently use in the field of social work are as follows:
According to Brenda Rush and Joan Cook (2006), Professors from the University of Nottingham School of Nursing, one of the most important aspects of being a “good nurse,” identified by patients, is effective communication (as cited in Astbury, 2008). As explained by Fakhr-Movahedi, Salsali, Negarandeh, and Rahnavard (2011), professors from Tehran University of Medical Sciences, strong communication skills are essential to posses in a career as a nurse to assist in “prevention, treatment, therapy, rehabilitation, education, and health promotion” (as cited in Kourkouta and Papathanasiou, 2014, p. 65). Nurses must master verbal, nonverbal, and written communication skills to be able to provide the best care for their patients. It is imperative
Today’s skills session on social work interviewing skills covered the uniqueness of social work interviewing in comparison to interviews conducted in professions such as the police, doctors, employers, etc. It covered also different types of questioning and how to paraphrase. Another area covered was, what to avoid when interviewing a service user and the use of silence. I leant that interview skills are fundamental in social work and social work interviewing is unique. Social workers empathize with clients because of their knowledge of the client group and the need of help to alleviate their problems. Empathy however does not equate accepting that the client is right in what they have done or that the social worker is condoning their actions. Empathy relates to the issue of ‘trusting’ and ‘believing’ the client. In as much as a social worker should seek to establish trust in the relationship, this does not necessarily mean they should believe
These skills included having the ability to communicate well with their clients. Active listening is another skill that is very important. Social workers need to have ability to understand people’s reactions, and service orientation. Critical thinking, complex problem solving, judgement and decision making and monitoring are amongst those essentials skills that all social workers should have ( carreeronestop.org nd ). Another important quality that is specifically important for child, family,and school social workers is the ability to feel empathy for their clients, interpersonal skills, and being patience (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics
Key words such as closed and open questions are very well explained. Differentiating when to use each type of question is described and useful for facilitating an interactive dialogue. It is important to understand how to assist the patient in relaying important details and to ensure that what the patient has expressed is understood.
A few of my strengths are having Empathy and activing listening skills and using social perspectives and being organized. As a social worker empathy is very important, empathy is the ability to identify with or vicariously experience another person’s situation. Empathizing is both an intellectual and emotional process that makes it far easier to understand and help others solve their problems. Active Listening is another aspect that I believe I am personally gifted in. The ability to listen carefully, ask pertinent questions and retain verbally transmitted information is vital to the counseling aspect of social work. It’s how we establish trust, open doors and discover valuable details about the individuals who seek our help in understanding their unique circumstances. Using Social perspectives is also another major part of social work, I believe receiving and processing verbal information, a social worker must be sensitive to body language, social cues, implications and cultural patterns of behavior. While some clients may clearly state their needs and work toward solutions in a focused manner, many others will find it more challenging to express themselves verbally, requiring a perceptive social worker to “read between the lines” in order to interpret the thoughts and feelings being held
The first question I asked was “How are you today?” and other examples of open-ended questions were “What, if any, negative experiences have you had with the medication that you currently take, or have taken in the past?” and others like “How has your treatments or medications hindered your ability to do the things you enjoy?” Some open-ended questions presented themselves like a series of open ended like “Tell me about your family” to “How do they support you with your medical conditions?” to “What types of support have they given through all of this?” Using these serial open-ended questions allowed me to control the direction of the conversation before it begun, because my patient liked to talk for 2-3 minute intervals and would usually get off topic or move onto a new topic in the
The verbal communication goal is to encourage the client to fully express the changes and wants of set outcomes established. Both verbal and non- communication can have an impact on the client once interaction is met. Non-verbal communication consists of body language, facial expressions, closeness, and eye contact (Schore, 2008). If a client senses the listener is uninterested or showing signs of discomfort due to their diagnosis or disability, it can cause one to be unengaged in the conversation. Verbal communication can also result in the same disengagement due to the social worker/ therapist tone of voice. Social workers are to be mindful and educated on the background of the client being served to be aware of the different approaches to take when engaging with the individual. The social work intern effective of non-verbal communication skills as the client continued to discuss her life before her recent hospitalization. The social work intern ensured to make steady eye contact, in which the client was receptive of. The social work intern also created a posture that created empathic body language, allowing the client to be more open during
It is best not to sugarcoat or exaggerate skills. Stating a limitation does not deviate from legal or ethical practices. The social worker has the ability to obtain the skills needed or enlist the assistance of someone who has the knowledge needed. An element of surprise in the counseling relationship is not suitable. The planned change process is agreed upon between the worker and the client.
Always ask open-ended questions to obtain deep, meaningful, and thoughtful answers. Examples of open-ended questions are included in the
Communication is one of the most important factors in our lives. It dictates the relationships formed with the individuals in personal and professional lives. Effective communication provides a foundation for trust and respect to grow. It also helps better understand a person and the context of the conversation. Individuals often believe that their communication skills are much better than what they actually are. Communication appears effortless; however, much of what two people discuss gets misunderstood, thus leading to conflicts and distress. To communicate effectively, one must understand the emotion behind the information being said. Knowing how to communicate effectively can improve relationships one has at home, work and in social affairs. Understanding communication skills such as; listening, non-verbal communication and managing stress can help better the relationships one has with others.