Describe the assessment process as related to individuals and families.
Walden University
SOCW 6101: Essential Skills for Social Work Practice | Week 08
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SOCW 6101: Essential Skills for Social Work Practice
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Week 8: Engagement and Assessment in General Practice
Do you feel ready to engage a client? What if that client was a family, group, organization, or community rather than an individual? What skills do you need to develop to be ready to enter the field and work with real clients?
In a social worker’s desire to fix, they may jump to intervention prematurely. Before a client is ready to participate in the change process, a social worker must engage clients through relationship building; before a social worker knows what intervention is best, they must have a complete and accurate assessment of the client and problem.
You will face challenges and unclear situations, but your practice skills provide the map for making client engagement and assessment a thoughtful and deliberate process.
This week, you compare the skills needed to practice at the micro or macro levels in the Discussion. You also practice and demonstrate your engagement skills through a video assignment.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
Compare and contrast assessment between micro and macro levels
Analyze social work skills for working with reluctant client systems
Role-play a social work interaction that demonstrates engagement skills
Learning Resources
Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.
Required Readings
Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, G. H., Jr. (2018). Understanding generalist practice (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Chapter 5, “Engagement and Assessment in Generalist Practice” (pp. 175–223)
Graybeal, C. (2001). Strengths-based social work assessment: Transforming the dominant paradigm. Families in Society, 82(3), 233–242. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1606/1044-3894.236
Document: Client Systems Role-Play Script Template (Word document)
Note: You will use this document to develop your role-play script.
Discussion: Assessment at the Micro and Macro Levels
Assessment is a structured approach to gathering and analyzing information about the client system and their story. How is the assessment process different when the client system is an individual or family versus a community made up of individuals and families?
Assessment involves gathering the needed information in order to determine appropriate intervention. Thorough assessment allows social workers to identify the problems that need to be addressed. Complex social problems often mean that both the micro and macro level factors contribute to social work cases.
In this Discussion, you compare differences in the assessment stage at different practice levels.
By Day 3
Post:
Describe the assessment process as related to individuals and families.
Briefly identify the types of information it is important to gather.
Compare how assessment at the macro level is similar and dissimilar than at the micro level.
Explain how you would gather the needed information at the macro level.
Identify a situation where a client system (micro or macro) may be reluctant to engage in the assessment process.
Support your post with APA citations to the course text and any other resources used to respond to this discussion. Demonstrate that you have completed the required readings, understand the material, and are able to apply the concepts. Include a full reference of resources at bottom of post.
By Day 6
Respond to at least two colleagues:
Recommend specific skills your colleague may use to engage individuals or communities who may be reluctant to accept social work services or participate in the assessment process.
Answer preview to describe the assessment process as related to individuals and families.
APA
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