This assignment provides the opportunity to reflect on your identity as a professional social worker and the behaviors appropriate to that role. Competencies include:
1. practice personal reflection
2. attend to professional roles and boundaries
3. articulate challenges experienced
The first assignment is weighted at 20% of the course grade and should be no more than four pages in length. The assignment will involve a description and self-reflection on a beginning client contact. Use two or three references. Assignments should be completed in Microsoft Word using APA style (6th edition).
Please complete each section of the assignment as directed below. Each numbered item should be addressed using no more than one page.
1. Please respond to the following questions as they relate to an initial contact with a client, consumer, or constituent:
• What did you see as your purpose in this interaction with the client?
• What did the client see as the purpose?
• How did you and the client talk about your similar or different goals?
• How did you negotiate the next step in your work together?
2. Using course readings (i.e., required and recommended) discuss:
• What role(s) did you assume as a professional social worker and its/their relation to the purpose of this client interaction?
• How was worker authenticity and empathy applied and/or demonstrated in this contact?
• What social work skills did you use to foster a working relationship with this client/consumer/constituent? Identify which of these skills were most helpful to the client/consumer/constituent. Why?
3. What challenges did you experience in this interaction related to your own personal biases, assumptions and values, cultural differences, and ethical issues? Provide a few ideas of how you might address these in the future.
4. What questions and/or concerns do you have about your work with this client/consumer/constituent?
USE READING Cournoyer, B. R. (2011)
USE CHAPTERS 1,2,3,4 &6 From Hepworth et al. (2017)
USE CHAPTER 4 & 5 From Murphy & Dillon (2015)