Module 7 Flashcards
Fields of practice and methods
health sector
This sector is extremely complex and varied, and employs a large number of professionals from different professions that must work together to support the health care needs of clients. Specific issues in the health sector include working with people who have undergone unexpected trauma or are facing an complex health problem. For this reason, work in this field of practice often involves crisis work and knowledge may be needed about specific medical conditions and their impacts.
Interventions and skills needed in the health sector are primarily driven by evidence-based practice. The specific skills needed for human service and social workers employed in this sector will depend on the setting, client base and health condition that they are providing assistance within. Examples of the sorts of skills needed might include group work, advocacy, discharge planning, case management and working with loss and grief.
youth work
The youth work field of practice sees practitioners assisting young people who are transitioning from childhood to adulthood and navigating all of the challenges that come with this process. These might include supporting young people experiencing family conflict, addiction issues, mental health issues, homelessness and unemployment. Australia experiences high rates of youth suicide, and workers in this field are likely to engage with young people at risk. The practice context for youth work can involve a wide network of services and practitioners might find themselves working in the juvenile justice system, child protection, disability organisations, crisis accommodation services and mental health services, to name a few. Youth workers can have a range of qualifications, including human service and social work degrees.
Working with young people usually involves taking a more informal approach, including outreach work on the streets, hostel work, drop in centres or recreational settings. For this reason, youth work may not be a 9-5 job and youth workers may work nights and weekends. A key skill needed to work with young people is developing rapport and trust between the client and the worker, as is a likely driver of positive change for the young person. Other skills needed include advocacy, networking with other services, counselling, mentoring, educating, running activities, groupwork and risk assessment.
Housing
The field of housing involves working with a wide variety of clients who are either homeless, at risk of homelessness or trying to maintain their housing. It can also involve policy work advocating for group. Client groups may include young people, families in crisis, refugees, people leaving prison, domestic violence survivors, people with addictions and the unemployed. For this reason, workers in the field of housing will need to have good interpersonal skills that enable them to connect with people of all stages of life experiencing complex issues. A major tension in this field of practice is the shortage of available crisis and social housing options. Long wait lists exist for people requiring housing and crisis housing beds fall way short of demand. The recent cuts to the federal budget in the area of homelessness are likely to place even higher demand on existing services.
Additional skills required to work in the housing sector include case management skills, liaising with a range of government departments such as Centrelink, advocacy skills and counselling skills.
academia
Working in the field of academia requires completion of additional studies, most usually a PhD, which involves a large research project that focuses in very specifically on one particular issue. Often workers will move into this field after working in other front line services or policy work. Academics usually have a specialty area of knowledge that derives from their PhD research, as well as broad skills in education. Other skills needed include developing course work, engaging and supporting students from a wide variety of backgrounds, advanced writing skills and research and publication skills.
Government decides how much of their budget to allocate to welfare. Welfare expenditure includes spending on:
income support,
housing,
programs for children and young people,
people with disability,
older people, carers and the community service workforce.
Let’s look at some numbers. The 2019-20 budget revealed that government welfare expenditure on welfare is $180.1 billion (Australian Government, 2020).
Welfare Services encompass a range of services and programs to support and assist people and the community. These include:
supported accommodation,
family support,
early intervention programs,
outreach services,
counselling,
youth programs,
child care services,
home and community care services for older people and
specialist services for people with disability.
Another avenue of funding is from non-government sources.
Non-government community service organisations (NGCSO’s) play an important part in delivering welfare services. It can be quite confusing, as NGCSO’s are largely funded by government, however they are not government. Other sources of funding for NGCSO’s are from fundraising activities, like the ‘Red Shield Appeal’ run annually by the Salvation Army, and fees charged to service users.
There are a wide range of organisations and agencies within the Human services, including:
Government agencies (Dept. of Child Safety)
Non-profit community agencies (Beyond Blue)
Faith-based services (Salvation Army)
For profit companies (some Prisons)
Collectives (Zigzag young women’s services)
Governance
refers to the system of rules, practices and processes that an organisation must comply with
managerialism
which is associated with a focus on measurable outcomes, integrating services, risk management and increased reporting. This has impacted on welfare services in that it is not always easy to meet these requirements when working with the complexities of people’s lives. For example, a client may have experienced a major breakthrough in their thinking and as a result, feel better able to support their children.
How do you report this as a measurable outcome?
Working within diverse fields of practice
▪ Field of practice is the area or context in which a worker applies knowledge and skills in order to assist clients with particular needs and issues
▪ Workers must be competent in:
▪ Awareness of issues in a number of ‘fields of practice’ (target population and issues faced and resources required)
▪ Knowledge of policy and service contexts, interventions and approaches, methods of practice, knowledge and skills
▪ Adapting interventions and methods within different fields
▪ How is your practice framework looking and where might you focus on developing?
The Health sector
Practice context
▪ Large budget – universal human need
▪ Hospitals, community health centres,
government health departments and the
private sector
▪ All illnesses, conditions and ages
▪ Crisis work dominates as illness often
traumatic and unanticipated
▪ Technology has had major impact
Intervention and skills
▪ Evidence-based practice
▪ Crisis and short-term interventions
▪ Grief and loss
▪ Working in multidisciplinary teams
▪ Finding suitable placements for patients
about to be discharged
▪ Case management
▪ Advocacy
▪ Health promotion
Mental Health
Practice context
▪ Acute and long-stay hospitals, community mental
health, non-government agencies (part of most practice)
▪ Multidisciplinary teams
▪ Bio-psychosocial interventions
▪ Long-term and episodic
▪ Tensions between medical and social model
Intervention and skills
▪ Case management
▪ Family education
and support & psycho-education
▪ Advocacy
▪ Counselling of individuals
▪ Groupwork
▪ Community development to address social exclusion
▪ Mental health policy work
Drug and alcohol field
Practice context
▪ Complex area of work with often clear links to mental health
▪ Inpatient facilities, community-based methadone
maintenance programs, therapy, self-help, education and
prevention
▪ Often trauma theory informed
▪ Many unqualified staff work in this field
Intervention and skills
▪ Working in detoxification programs – medical information
▪ Working in rehabilitation programs
▪ Harm reduction is preferred approach for government and
therapeutically
▪ Gendered analysis of drug use
▪ Individual counselling and therapy
▪ Self-help groups, e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers
Anonymous, 12 steps
▪ Brief therapy and interventions
▪ Facilitating family support programs
▪ Drug education work in schools or running community
campaigns
Working with young people and juvenile
justice
Practice context
▪ Multiple needs include housing,
finances, family issues, education,
employment, relationships
▪ Often informal settings, emergency
accommodation’ outreach and drop in
services
▪ Building of relationships critical to this
work
Intervention and skills
▪ Assessment of needs
▪ Program delivery
▪ Activity-based (Bush adventure therapy, arts)
▪ Individual counselling, mentoring and support
▪ Family work
▪ Advocacy
▪ Resources and funding
