Chapter 4: Social Work with Individuals and Families

Question 1

What did friendly visiting become and what was its aim?

Answer 1

became known as social casework—aimed to systemically gather information on an individual and a family’s situation, formulate inferences of the source of their issues, and develop a treatment to help improve their circumstances

Question 2

Three ways people become involved with social workers?

Answer 2

• initiated their own request for services,
• been referred for services by a third party (such as a teacher, physician, friend, or neighbour), or
• been legally required to seek services.

Question 3

What is clinical work?

Answer 3

Focuses on working with thoughts, interactions, behaviours, and emotions of an individual or family.

Question 4

What is case management?

Answer 4

Focuses on helping individuals and families navigate their way to resources.

Question 5

What can case management be divided into?

Answer 5

Service navigation and advocacy

Question 6

What is service navigation?

Answer 6

Focuses on facilitating connections to resources and following up to ensure that needs are met.

Question 7

What is advocacy?

Answer 7

Involves acting as an intermediary between individuals/families and service systems to protect rights to service access and met needs.

Question 8

What is an example of an organization focused on clinical work?

Answer 8

a short-term counselling department in a health clinic for individuals and families managing difficult life events

Question 9

What is an example of an organization focused on case management?

Answer 9

uch as a community-based mental health team that focuses on helping people with severe and persistent mental health challenges remain in the community by locating appropriate housing, ensuring resources are in place to monitor medication use, and assisting with access to social programming, vocational counselling, and financial resources

Question 10

How is SW distinguished from other helping professions?

Answer 10

is its focus on both clinical work and case management despite the organizational setting or presenting issue.

Question 11

What are the four key skills to support effective communication for direct practice?

Answer 11

1. Attending
2. Questioning
3. Reflecting
4. Summarizing

Question 12

What are attending skills?

Answer 12

Non-verbal aspects of communication that convey interest.

Question 13

What are open ended questions?

Answer 13

Questions that require more thought than a one-word answer.

Question 14

What are closed ended questions

Answer 14

Questions that can be answered by a simple “yes” or “no” response.

Question 15

Why is it important to ask important questions?

Answer 15

Bombarding clients with a series of questions, no matter how well constructed and pertinent, can feel confusing, distracting, and disruptive.

Question 16

What is reflecting?

Answer 16

Paraphrasing what a worker thinks a client is trying to communicate.

Question 17

What is parroting?

Answer 17

Repeating what a client says verbatim.

Question 18

Difference bettered reflecting and parroting?

Answer 18

While reflecting communicates interest and effort, parroting does little to further the conversation.

Question 19

What is summarizing?

Answer 19

is an effort to pull together the key themes, feelings, concerns, and issues expressed in an encounter.

Question 20

What are common factors?

Answer 20

A term used to emphasize the common relational elements in all approaches and techniques informing direct practice with individuals and families.

Question 21

While terms used vary, the components of relationship valued by social work practitioners and clients across settings tend to cluster around four related aspects, which are?

Answer 21

1. Care and concern
2. Genuineness
3. Empathy
4. Collaboration

Question 22

What is care and concern?

Answer 22

Expressed when social workers seek to understand individuals and families out of a genuine desire to help.

Question 23

What is genuineness?

Answer 23

Being open, real, and sincere with individuals and families.

Question 24

What is empathy?

Answer 24

The capacity to understand and respond to another person’s subjective experience.

Question 25

What is collaboration?

Answer 25

The development of mutually agreed on goals and tasks between a social worker and individuals and families.

Question 26

What are the three processes ‘Bogo’ highlights that underlie the previous discussed components of the social work relationship?

Answer 26

• Social work with individuals and families is client-centred
• Social work with individuals and families is dependent on worker self-awareness as social workers must be acutely aware of their own reactions, beliefs, and experiences.
• Social work with individuals and families requires attunement to how each individual is experiencing the relationship and the focus of the interactions.

Question 27

What is client-centred?

Answer 27

An approach that places individuals and families at the centre of the helping relationship, honouring their perceptions and experiences and supporting their active involvement in solutions.

Question 28

What is self-awareness?

Answer 28

Refers to social workers’ insight into how they affect or are affected by others.

Question 29

What is attunement?

Answer 29

Social workers’ attention to how individuals and families are reacting to them and the work they are doing together.

Question 30

What is self disclosure?

Answer 30

Typically described as an intentional attempt at revealing something about the self of the worker.

Question 31

In general terms, when can self disclosure be appropriate? 3

Answer 31

• convey empathy,
• strengthen the relational bond, or
• help a client gain insight into a particular situation

Question 32

How can hope be nurtured?

Answer 32

Through expression of compassion and by seeing and pointing out signs of strength and resilience and offering additional support and information.

Question 33

4 Phases of the helping process?

Answer 33

• 1: Exploration/Assessment
• 2: Contracting/Planning
• 3: Implementation/Intervention
• 4: Ending/Evaluation

Question 34

What is the exploration and assessment stage?

Answer 34

The initial collection and analysis of information is central to the first phase of the helping encounter as it forms the template that guides the work the social worker and individual and family will do together.

Question 35

What is a product?

Answer 35

Refers to the written assessment.

Question 36

What is a process?

Answer 36

Refers to the manner in which a social worker gathers information.

Question 37

What is voluntary request for services?

Answer 37

Requests for services wherein clients have self-referred or agree with those referring them that social work services are warranted.

Question 38

What is involuntary request for services?

Answer 38

Requests for services wherein clients have been pressured to seek the services of a social worker either by a court mandate or by facing a sanction for not seeking service.

Question 39

How are most SW assessments informed?

Answer 39

By verbal reports and observations during client interviews.

Question 40

What does the Guidelines for Ethical Practice of the Canadian Association of Social Workers stipulate about records?

Answer 40

that social workers are obligated to ensure individuals have “reasonable access” to the official written records that concern them (Section 1.7.5). An empowerment approach to practice would suggest that it is

Question 41

What is the contracting/planning phase?

Answer 41

During the process of eliciting information that provides both the social worker and client with an understanding of the issues or challenges being faced, a social worker also helps to develop a focus for the work that is agreeable to the client and that falls within the mandate of the social worker’s organization. This process of developing a shared understanding of the issues to be addressed within the social work encounter is referred to as contracting or planning.

Question 42

What are the 5 components to planning to contracting?

Answer 42

• Purpose
• Target problems
• Goals
• Time limits
• Actions, activities and responsibilities

Question 43

What is Purpose?

Answer 43

The rationale for service

Question 44

What is target problems?

Answer 44

Issues or challenges clients face that they wish to change.

Question 45

What are goals?

Answer 45

Future desired end states for the client

Question 46

What are time limits?

Answer 46

The time parameters social workers and clients establish for the work that they do together.

Question 47

What are actions, activities and responsibilities?

Answer 47

The negotiated expectations workers and clients establish for the work they will do together

Question 48

What is the implementation phase?

Answer 48

shifts from exploring needs and issues and developing collaborative goals and plans to actively working toward change within the individual or family, the environment, or both. When lack of resources or services has been identified as part of the problem, the social worker focuses on helping the client access those services either through referral, supporting a client’s efforts to obtain services, or advocating on the client’s behalf. Once services are attained, a period of monitoring is required to ensure the services requested and attained match client needs and preferences.

Question 49

What is the ending/evaluation phase?

Answer 49

In the best scenarios, endings are negotiated and anticipated by workers and clients when the goals identified during planning or contracting appear to be achieved. In other circumstances, endings are forced because clients elect not to continue engaging with the social worker or because workers leave an organization. When endings are forced by circumstance, they can be more challenging and emotionally charged.

Question 50

What are the four processes that facilitate good endings?

Answer 50

• 1: Renewing process,
• 2: Consolidating gains,
• 3: Planning next steps,
• 4: Processing the emotional bond.

Question 51

What is the reviewing process?

Answer 51

Facilitated by the worker to help clients reflect back on their initial concerns to elicit insights about progress made.

Question 52

What is the consolidating gains process?

Answer 52

Involves reinforcing the capacities within clients that led to positive change.

Question 53

What is the planning next steps phase?

Answer 53

A process of exploring and anticipating future needs and potential resources to address them.

Question 54

What is the processing the emotional bond phase?

Answer 54

Refers to facilitating the expression of emotion associated with ending the work between worker and client.

Question 55

How do SW work to engage each family member?

Answer 55

Working to engage each family member involves inviting all members to express their feelings, apprehensions, and perceptions about their engagement with the social worker, and helping the family consider presenting issues in relational terms

Question 56

What is tracking?

Answer 56

Involves observing patterns of interaction between family members while listening to the issues they are discussing.

Question 57

What is family structure?

Answer 57

Refers to the way the family is organized, including roles family members hold and closeness and distance between members.

Question 58

What is a genogram?

Answer 58

A visual representation of family that illustrates a family’s history, structure, demographics, functioning, and patterns of relating to one another.