Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Theory of reflective practice
Reflective practice models
The importance of non verbal communication
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
I used rephrasing as a part of understanding the reason for the client’s visit and repeated the information in a way that we both could understand. The client was able to respond through the questions that I asked her in regards to her situation. I want to get a clear understanding without leaving out valuable information. In the three sessions my intentions were to make sure that what she gave me over the phone matches what she says in the interview. I made sure that when my client was speaking, I took notes on the new information or the information that was not covered in any of the previous sessions. Each session was based upon reflection because I had to make sure progress was being made or not. When my client began to discuss things in a way in which I could not understand, I was able to interpret the information in a way that she and I both understood and agreed upon. The moment an initial contact was made, I started giving my client information on informed consent forms, who I was and the number of years of my social work profession, policies and …show more content…
I was able to talk to my client without being visibly nervous. I am proud to say I handled my client’s problems as they came up without fear that I may say the wrong thing. In the first video, I found myself repeating things, for what reason I do not know. I can say my nonverbal skills need improving. One specific aspect of the interview was my hand gestures and motions. I really got involved with my client’s problems, and the way I tried to help her understand what I was saying and to get an understanding what she was saying, so I used my hands. I tried to keep by body in a position that would let the client know that I was using attentive listening skills. I cared about why she came to the facility for help. Each session, I adjusted my seat to make eye contact so my client could like she could trust me with her information and that I cared enough to listen to her
This communication made me aware of the few things I need to improve when I’m having a conversation with anyone. I realised that my weakness is talking to strangers and I’m often nervous which makes me so unclear when I’m clear and I speak quite fast and get it over with, Therefore one those things that I need to improve is that I should speak clearly and learn to structure my sentence well, because I cannot have eye contact with someone I should always look at their forehead as it makes it look like I’m having eye contact with them. I should also be able not speak to fast especially when speaking to an Elderly person; I should also be able to be more specific.
This essay aims to explore the characteristics that make a good quality social work assessment in child care. Martin (2010) stated that there was “no single agreed definition of social work assessment.” Coulshed and Orme (2006, p24) did not offer a formal definition but they described assessment as “…a basis for planning what needs to be done to maintain, improve or bring about change in the person, the environment or both.” According to the Maclean and Harrison (2015) good assessments must be “purposeful and timely.” This is because practitioners need to be clear about why they are carrying out assessments and what it is they wish to achieve at the end of that assessment.
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.
Captain Rob Geis agreed to be interviewed and share his experiences with the next generation of Social Workers. Native to Ohio, he graduated High School in 1979, he continued his education at Ohio State University from 1982-1986, completing his Masters in Social Work. For the past 24 years, he has served as a Social Worker in the United States Army. In his current position he is responsible for the Department of Social Work Services. Previous positions have included: two assignments as a Division Social Worker, Medical Inpatient Social Worker, Chief of Social Work, Division Chief of Mental Health, Clinical Director of Army Substance Abuse Program, Combat Operation Stress Control Commander, and General Staff Officer (Geis, 2012). Academic positions have included both, the Army Long Term Health Education and Training (LTHET) as well as the Command and General Staff College.
Social work can be very rewarding in a number of ways, but challenges do exist before the reward. One challenge I may encounter if I was to become a social worker is becoming attached to the victim. I think I would feel emotionally connected and want to save them. Before taking the class, I had the mentality that it would be easy to help people and guide them to a better life, but this class has made me realize that it is not always that easy. When speaking to victims, I could see myself feeling sorry for them and wanted to give them everything to make themselves feel better. I feel like I would allow my personal life to interfere with my work life, where I would constantly be thinking about the clients and their health instead of focusing
I learnt that the use of words or expressions such as ‘that’s brilliant’ can be misinterpreted by some clients to mean that you agree with what they have done. I often use expressions like that in conversations. I am now aware that it can be misunderstood and would like to guard against it. We watched a Youtube video, two social workers called out to a service user flat for an initial assessment. They were refused entry by a friend because he had bad experience with social workers in the past and his child was taken away.
As a social worker, I consider it an honor when people walk through my office door and even more so when they do it continuously I know it is hard to reach out when you are struggling. I have had the struggle many times in my life. As with me, I know there needs to be a sense of feeling safe in order to start the process of dealing with. why my office threshold was broken. I think Courtois and Ford (2014) hit the head on the nail when it comes to personal safety and safe relationship being critical to the process to begin working with traumatized individuals. One of the first priorities when working with someone who has experienced trauma is to make sure safety outside of the office isn’t endurance to healing. If the person is dealing with domestic violence, parents abusing them or suicidal thoughts they won’t be in learning mode but survival mode. Another consideration is creating an atmosphere in the office that the person feels safe to discussing these issues in the first place.
After watching the video tape, I realised that I was quite good at using questioning skill to help the client. The closed and open questions used in the interview were considered to be acceptable and appropriate. I believe that my personal experiences have shaped my ability to appropriately apply this skill in counselling. When I was younger, I used to listen to my grandmother talking about her past and the old tales that she had heard of. I...
There is expectation to demonstrate core communication skills and the capacity to develop them and ability to engage with people in order to build compassionate and effective relationships (The College of Social Work, 2014). Communication skills are fundamental in social work; every aspect of their role involves communication. In order to communicate effectively, social workers need to be aware of the forms of communication, i.e. non-verbal, verbal, body language and written and understand communication barriers. (Thompson, 2009). In light of this, when communication barriers occur, i.e. someone not understanding English or wanting to discuss their issues, having these skills allows social workers to overcome this, i.e. asking the right questions or putting in place an interpreter. Having effective communication within social work provides a strong base for good professional relationships. Trust is able to be built, providing confidence in both the social worker and service user in meeting, discussing and building upon solutions (Koprowska, 2005). I promoted such skill throughout the interview as I remained aware of my body language, ensuring I was open, faced the carer and remained good eye contact. I was also continuously aware of the carer’s body language, to inform me of how she was feeling. Being mindful of her eye contact, facial expressions and position of body enabled me to realise she was not being responsive in the conversation (Banks, 2006). Being able to identify this, allowed the barrier to be overcome by asking probing questions and engaging her back into the conversation. I provided active listening skills by summarising what the carer expressed, responded accordingly to what was being discussed and nodding to show ...
Working with others and improving own learning and performance are highly essential skills in social work. In this essay I will reflect on how well I have developed these two skills and what I need to do to improve them.
Being nervous was a weakness because I, as the skilled helper, felt that being nervous had led to me not giving enough eye contact. Due to the fact that I was nervous I would look at the client whilst they were talking but when it was my turn to speak I was looking away. Being nervous also had a negative effect on my confidence; I believe that the session would have been better if I was not nervous and my confidence was increased. It is important that the skilled helper is not nervous because if the skilled helper is nervous then the client may feel more worse than they already do and the session would not help the client as the skilled helper is not helping them as much as they
I was not playing with my pen or smiling during the interview. I was able to look at my client and be professional about the situation that my client was trying to explain to me. The other things that I had notice about myself during the video was, I had lead forward toward my client and was actively listening to him. I was able to give him empathy not sympathy toward his issues. The whole time I did not feels that I was not able to speak freely because the client is my family member. During the first session I was trying so hard and I was thinking that I have to have all the solution to my client. Moreover, I was able to see make my client feel comfortable and share the issue that he had with his co-worker in dept. In the end my client feels that sometime it is okay to talk about things or topic that he is not interested in as long as he feels comfortable enough to have a conversation with other on the topic. The last thing that I have notice that I did that was not okay was touching or you say playing with my hair. I did not realized it until I saw myself on the
Over the course of the semester, I have learned a variety of many things regarding social work. These things vary from learning how to help oneself to understanding how to help others. Not only were the textbooks very useful, but also the materials that furthered this textbook learning. The in class presentation, activities, and guest speakers gave us insight and a different perspective on the material we were learning. I feel like this course has given me a good foundation and prepared me as a future social worker (1).
The counseling session began with the introductions where I introduced myself as the counselor and later introduced my client. This stage is important in any counseling session since it is the time of exploration and focusing according to Gerard Egan as quoted by Wright (1998) in his essay on couselling skills. It is in this session that I was able to establish rapport and trust with my client in order to come up with a working and fruitful relationship with him. During this stage I made use of skills like questioning, where I would pose a question directly to my client, sometimes I would choose to just listen to what the client wanted to speak out while in some instances I would be forced to paraphrase the question if I felt the client did not understand the question I had asked previously. There were also other times when I would reflect through silence. During such a period, I got time to study the client and the information he had given. This being a difficult area, since some clients may not be able to volunteer information to you as the counselor, I decided to assure the client of confidentiality of any information he was willing to share with me with a few exceptions which I also told him about. Being open to him about the only times the information may not be confidential was part of my building rapport and establishing trust with him. I therefore, decided to ask the client what information he wanted to share with me and lucky enough he was ready to speak to me about different issues that he was going through.
I obtained my Masters in Social Work (MSW) degree from India in the year 2006. As with most countries around the world, the emergence of social work in India was from charity aiming to eliminate poverty. Gradually it shifted from philanthropy to rights based approach and then to organized social work. Community organization surfaced as the most central method of social work practice along with practice of casework. Although social work is much more structured in nature now, it still operates along the conventional perspective of social work. Social work is not even recognized as a profession in India. An indicator of an occupation being publicly recognized as a profession is exhibited by