The Importance Of Engagement In Social Work

Engagement
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.
Rationale
Most successful sessions of engagement are completed through using open-ended questions.

Reflective listening gives the client a sense of importance due to them currently having the floor and a moment to express themselves. Reflective listening is orchestrated through acts of showing empathy towards understanding the perspective of one’s feelings. Through this method, the listener does not offer their opinion or perspective while the client speaks. Adding eye contact can also be beneficial or uncomfortable due to client’s background. For example, one’s culture can believe that is it disrespectful not to make eye contact while another may not participate in that activity. During completing the initial assessment with Gwinda, the social work intern participated by allowing her to discuss the need for services. Gwinda further discussed how she is unsure of how the treatments will go and expressed how fearful she was to undergo these different changes. With uncertainty lingering, the social work intern sat next to Gwinda’s bedside ensuring during that moment the client had a listening

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