Social Work Helping Skills: Importance And Analysis

Discussion

Discuss about the Social Work Helping Skills.

Social work and attending the people needing help typically demands a number of personal knowledge and communication skills. as opined by Payne (2014), listening, gathering information making the client free and comfortable, building trust etc. some of the most crucial communication skills need for a successful social worker. While dealing with the clients, the social workers need to have necessary knowledge about the legal help, psychological aspects, available services and many more. As mentioned by Dorfman (2013), the roles of the social workers are multifaceted. While the clinical social workers need information for providing quality treatment, the direct intervening social workers help in the clients in coping to their social lives. Hence,   having and showing an appropriate and approachable body language and appropriate knowledge about the services are important in developing a helping relationship when attending, following and reflecting to the client’s position.  Here, in this report, a candid discussion has been made on the effective and inappropriate skills and knowledge those are bring used by the social workers while attending the clients. While discussing this topic, the author has referred to the provided video for the successful completion of this discussion and analysis.

In their operation, the social workers needs to collect effective information, disseminate suggestions and help people take important decisions. Hence, it is typically important for them to beware of the socio-personal skills and required knowledge for providing the best quality services. As mentioned by Sue, Rasheed and Rasheed (2015), “The basics of interaction and communication in social work are the voice and words, body language, listening, observing, encouraging and remembering.” From the introduction to the termination of the interview session or communication, it is needed for the social worker to be considerate and patient. Here, in the given video, the social worker has tactfully utilized a number of social work skills in obtaining information regarding the psychological torment of one her clients

As mentioned by Koprowska (2014), communication skills are mostly important for the social workers while attending the clients. It helps them in collecting the most authentic data and information, which is needed to provide the best quality service. As discussed by Sue, Rasheed and Rasheed (2015), it helps the social worker in building a trustful relationship with the clients as well as collecting information and examining their responses (body language) when working and talking about the family members and friends.

The Required Skills and Analysis of the Video

Here, in this video, the clients had to express all hr feelings truly to the attendant (social worker), so that she can help her out from the dilemma of looking after her grand children even being physically and financially unable to do so. Hence, as mentioned by Argyle (2013), it was fundamentally important for the social worker to make the client feel safe and listened. It puts light on the importance of the effective communication skills for a social work job.

While discussing the life issues of the client, it is important for the social worker to follow a certain stages of conversation. As discussed by Sue, Rasheed and Rasheed (2015), it is important for the worker to ask the client about her age, present status of hr social life and make the client know about the intensions of the social worker. It makes him/ her feel secured. However, in the given video, the social worker has not followed any of this initial conversation, but she has started the conversation in a light not by showing interest into the clients’ personal and social life. As mentioned by Reamer (2013), this particular skill or strategy of ice braking helps the worker in gaining trust from the clients’ end.

In addition to this, as mentioned by Hardina (2012), shifting the conversation to the focused topic is very crucial personal communication skill of a social worker. As discussed by Teater (2016), the worker needs to alter the subject of conversation purposely while he/ she finds the topic of the conversation is unproductive, or the client is being sensitive towards the matter. Here, in this video, the social worker has stated the conversation in a very tactful way. With her first addressing sentence related to the topic of the client’s grandchildren, she has found no difficulty in Going to the topic straightaway. As opined by Thompson (2015), while using this strategy, the worker needs to be very prudent. It is a skill to make the client feel free, while entering to the topic of discussion. In this given video, the social worker did this with great precision and it has helped hr in making the conversation purposeful from the very beginning.

In addition to this, it is typically important for maintaining confidentiality while collecting personal and motional information from a client. As mentioned by Kosberg and Garcia (2013), the client must be made aware about who will be make known to information provided by him/ her.  As pr the social work philosophy, maintaining confidentiality of the client’s information is must for the social workers. Here, in the given video, the social worker has made it clear that she is going to keep all the information confidential and the report she is going provide will be based on the conversation. Now, as opined by Davies and Jones (2015), such an assurance provides a sense of security to the client, which makes him/ her feel that they can share their point of view with the social worker. Here, the attendant has become able to make the client share her sense of insecurity, desire and expectation through the course of the interview.

However, it is important for the social worker to show some sympathy with verbal and non-verbal expression. As discussed by Sue, Rasheed and Rasheed (2015), in the interview sessions, the clients often get overwhelmed by his / her emotions. In such a context, it is needed for the social worker to show some sympathy. However, in the given video, the social worker has failed to provide verbal consolation, but she has done it in a non-verbal communication pattern.

As opined by Davies and Jones (2015), “asking the right questions is a foundation of any social work interview.” By posing valid, relevant and purposeful questions, the social worker needs to make the client fl that h/ she is interested in this conversation. Moreover, as mentioned by Martin and Hollows (2016), by putting open-ended questions, the social worker will be able to provide a scope of airing the view to client. In the given video, the social worker has used this particular strategy for obtaining information from the client. Moreover, it is also important to use the skill of active listening mainly to the clients who are sharing issues with their life and family. As mentioned by Kosberg and Garcia (2013), while attending the aged clients the social workers need to identify the main issue they are wanting to talk about and provide them the comfort zone of conversation as thy often feel lonely in their social and personal life. In this particular video, the social worker has successfully implemented this strategy of active listing and in bringing out the client’s desire of being with her daughters and grandchildren.

However, it is important for the social worker to make their client to deal with the adverse situation by him or herself. As opined by Thompson (2015), to do so, the social workers need to have required level of knowledge about the services. It is an important skill to be maintained by the social workers. However, in the given video, the social worker had to collect the information only; hence, she avoided providing any service help to the client.

In addition to this, as mentioned by Gray and Webb (2012), the social work principals typically put importance on the non-judgmental attitude of the social workers. Bing a social worker, a professional faces a number of situations and circumstances. It can fairly be possible that h/ she find the client guilty according to his/ her own moral sense. Moreover, as discussed by Taylor (2013), even while addressing the criminals the social workers have to keep their own judgments beside, and look into the scenario from the clients’ perspective. In the given video, the client wanted to spend time with her family members and being cared by her daughters. The social worker felt for her, and she made the client understand that she is not wanting too much.

Here, another important quality becomes important in the discussion. As mentioned by Ife (2012), while developing a helping relationship while attending, following and reflecting on a client’s situation it is needed for the social worker to keep a certain emotional distance from the client. As discussed by Germain (2013), it is often natural for social workers to find a similarity in the life of the client with their own. It directs the social worker to judge a situation form his/ hr own personal emotions or point of view. It is crucial for them to avoid such a situation. As everyone has an individuality and own idea of right and wrong, the social worker’s judgment can make the situation mode adverse to the client.

Hence, as opined by Sue, Rasheed and Rasheed (2015), it is needed for the social workers to not to find for personal attachment with the client and judging the situation on the parameter of his/ hr own experience. Here, in the selected video, the social worker tried to make the client talk about hr daughters and wanted to know whether she is having any negative feeling for them. When, the client refused to express any hard feelings for her daughters, and expressed her deep-rooted desire, the social worker immediately understood this and continued the conversation in that particular manner.

Here, in the given video, the social worker has maintained a considerable voice, approaching body language, active and attentive listening and encouraging attitude while attending the client in the a home visit.

Conclusion:

Positive communication skills are fundamentally required for effectively helping the clients to get over their state of torment. It is the duty of a social worker to help the people to help themselves. Hence, by providing an environment where the clients are able to feel free and gain confidence over themselves is a duty of the social workers. By applying the strategy of effective listing, accepting the individuality of the client, providing confidentiality, not being judgmental and airing pragmatic solutions the social workers will b able to serve the best quality service to the clients. Here, in the given video, the social worker has provided a comfortable and confidential environment to the client. She has effectively tried to make the client feel that she can feel the mental torment of the client with her body language, relevant question inputs and streamlining the conversation in a purposeful manner. It has helped her to gain trust from the client and she has held her heart out to the social worker. This has particularly made the task easy for the social worker. Moreover, with the assurance of keeping the content of conversation a secret, she has provided a sense of security to client and the client has explained the secret desires to her. Hence, it can be concluded that the communication skills and knowledge is immensely helpful in the successful execution of the social work duties, which has been effectively used by the attendant in the video.

References:

Argyle, M. (2013). Social skills and health (psychology revivals). Routledge.

Davies, K., & Jones, R. (Eds.). (2015). Skills for social work practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

Dorfman, R. A. (2013). Clinical social work: Definition, practice and vision(Vol. 9). Routledge.

Germain, C. B. (2013). Social work practice. Columbia University Press.

Gray, M., & Webb, S. (Eds.). (2012). Social work theories and methods. Sage.

Hardina, D. (2012). Interpersonal social work skills for community practice. Springer Publishing Company.

Ife, J. (2012). Human rights and social work: Towards rights-based practice. Cambridge University Press.

Koprowska, J. (2014). Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning Matters.

Kosberg, J. I., & Garcia, J. L. (2013). Elder abuse: International and cross-cultural perspectives. Routledge.

Martin, R., & Hollows, A. (2016). Practising for Social Work Practice: Integrating Knowledge and Skills for Social Work with Children and Families.Social Work Education, 1-13.

Payne, M. (2014). Modern social work theory. Palgrave Macmillan.

Reamer, F. G. (2013). Social work values and ethics. Columbia University Press.

Sue, D. W., Rasheed, M. N., & Rasheed, J. M. (2015). Multicultural Social Work Practice: A Competency-Based Approach to Diversity and Social Justice. John Wiley & Sons.

Taylor, B. (2013). Professional decision making and risk in social work. Learning Matters.

Teater, B. (2016). An introduction to using theory in social work practice’and ‘Skills for using theory in social work.

Thompson, N. (2015). Understanding social work: preparing for practice. Palgrave Macmillan.