SOCW 6530 wk 6 peer responses
Respond to the blog posts of three colleagues in one or more of the following ways:
Validate an idea in your colleague’s post with your own experience.
Make a suggestion to your colleague’s post.
MUST RESPOND TO EACH ONE SEPARATELY CITE EVERYTHING AND FULL REFERENCES
PEER 1 Alicia Gomez
Intervention barriers I have overcome within my field experience have been clients who shut down and give minimal to no engagement and clients who would not practice any skills and shut down any and all suggestions. For clients who gave minimal information I strongly utilized my active listening skills with open ended questions and motivational interviewing techniques. Guiding the client to reflect on their statements and process on their own provides them with the ability to problem solve on their own and provides a sense of fulfillment when they do overcome their own barriers. For clients who did not engage their skills outside of session to cope I adjusted the treatment plan to do all skills in session and support the client in identifying their own support systems outside of the office who can hold them accountable so they have more follow through. I found it is important to assess the process consistently, this means assessing not just at intake and transition planning but also frequently at a monthly basis completing such assessments. A field experience goal of mine is to learn more about the varying assessments that pertain to the assigned diagnosis to provide clients and ensure I am providing informed care.
PEER 2 Candise Mitchell
There are very few guarantees in life. This applies to the implementation and outcome of interventions we create for clients. Challenges can arise consisting of difficulties with follow through, availability, commitment, or they may change their mind regarding complying with the intervention. Within my field placement, there has been a few cases where the client was not committed to the internship due to time or feeling as though what is the point of continuing. An example of this would be a case for a couple working though their marriage. They were hoping to work through their communication issues but were not receptive to completing the intervention outlined. There was always an excuse regarding time, procrastination, or it being the other person’s fault. The intervention was great and was supported by my supervisor; however, if the client does not commitment to their interventions, then there will be no success. This is an ultimate challenge for a social worker; creating an effective intervention but the client just refusing to participate yet want the positive outcome regardless.
Successful implementation in practice requires knowledge of the context and the social mechanisms and processes through which an intervention works (Hansen & Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, 2016). This is just an eloquent way to say that it is important to understand the interventions we create and how this intervention can be applied and tailored to the clients. That is how I approach every intervention I give to my clients because it is important that they feel and know that the effect I put into their work is for their individual benefit
References
Hansen, H. P., & Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, T. (2016). Meeting the Challenges of Intervention Research in Health Science: An Argument for a Multimethod Research Approach. The patient, 9(3), 193–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-015-0153-9
PEER 3 Seshna Ritchie
As a social worker, we must view interventions on a micro and macro level. The profession of social work examines social problems from an ecosystems perspective, understanding the interplay between micro and macro factors in terms of developing a social problem (Garthwait, 2016, p. 88). In my field experience, I have had the opportunity to engage with clients during assessment and intervention. I have not, however, had much opportunity to engage with intervention at the community level. As social workers, we must learn to recognize and address social problems that affect our clients (Garthwait, 2017). Some challenges I do come across often is engaging my clients in practice. This is largely in part, in hospice social work, the clinician is called upon to solve a variety of client problems involving micro and mezzo levels but at times, interactions with the actual patient are limited due to terminal illness and the patient’s declining health leading to limited comprehension. I try to address challenges in intervention and engagement, opting to working to serve the family as a whole rather than focusing on just the prognosis of the client.
Reference
Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
