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WEEK 6 READING (1): Social Work Skills - Assessments (SKILLS INVOLVED IN…
WEEK 6 READING (1): Social Work Skills - Assessments
"There is no singular theory or understanding as to what the purpose of assessment is and what the process should entail".
Traditionally in social work, assessment has been about identifying deficits or difficulties rather than strengths, with an emphasis on matching needs with eligibility for services.
PURPOSE OF ASSESSMENT:
To help and support individuals to
maintain
the quality of life they currently have and to avoid a deterioration.
.
To help and support individuals to introduced
limited changes
(first order changes, where the system itself remains unchanged).
.
To help and support individuals to introduce more
radical change
(second-order change where changes occur to the system itself).
ASSESSMENT:
An ongoing process in which the client participates, whose purpose is to understand people in relation to their environment; is is a basis for planning what needs to be done to maintain, improve or bring about change in the person, the environment or both.
(Coulshed & Orme 1998)
This definition emphasises the collaborative nature of the relationship between practitioners and service users and carers, as well as the importance of incorporating social and environmental factors within the assessment process.
Involves all parties to:
Describe
Explain
Predict
Evaluate
Prescribe
ISSUES WITH ASSESSMENT:
Searching for long-lost causes:
There's no guarantee it will be found
The exercise is costly in time and resources
Dwelling on the history of problems can intensify bad feelings and distract the client from doing something positive in the now.
Sometimes we may focus on the past because we don't know how to address the problem that has been presented.
On the other hand, it is sometimes clear that the client wants to explore past events, and it can be unhelpful and over-prescriptive to steer them away from their natural inclination.
Some practitioners use a narrative approach, which is an 'client-centred' intervention and people often greatly appreciate the opportunity to describe themselves in this unhurried way. However it can be time consuming and needs to be well thought out if we are to take advantage of it.
CLIENT AND CARER PARTICIPATION AND INVOLVEMENT:
The needs and concerns of the client users and carers can often differ, although they share some as well.
User Participation:
The range of involvements that clients have with organisations, institutions and decisions affecting them and others.
These extend from having control to being a source of info or legitimation.
It's crucially judged by the extent to which people can exert influence and bring about change.
NEEDS-LED VS RESOURCE-LED ASSESSMENTS:
Needs-led policies -
seek to respond to identified need (individual or collective level).
Service (resource) led policies -
determined by available provision rather than specific need.
Questions to consider:
Who gains access to resources?
What happens to those who fail to qualify (perhaps because they have been designated ineligible)?
Different Assessment formats:
Third party assessments -
pre-sentencing reports, case conference, social history assessment.
Investigation assessments -
risk assessment in relation to child protection or mental health.
Eligibility/needs assessments -
in relation to community care or children in care.
Suitability assessments -
in relationship to prospective child-minders, foster carers, adoptive parents.
Multi-disciplinary assessments -
in relation to hospital discharge, statementing in education.
WAYS TO UNDERTAKE ASSESSMENT:
Practitioner working alone (most common)
Joint assessment (two practitioners working together, good for when problems are complex)
Group or team assessment (everyone who has had contact with the family/group give their experience/perception)
Multi-disciplinary assessment (professionals from different professions working together, sharing knowledge and expertise, to effectively meet the client's needs.
ISSUES WITH MULTI-DISCIPLINARY WORK:
The difference in status can limit the contributions of some professions (such as social workers)
Time spent communicating with other professionals is likely to lead to less time being available for direct contact with service users
If professionals have similar values, certain assumptions may not be questioned, and the wrong decisions can be made.
EVALUATING OUTCOMES:
It's important to differentiate between the effectiveness of our own practice and the overall success of the intervention / the final outcome.
It's possible to be successful in terms of the intervention or skills used in a particular situation, only to find that the overall result or outcome was negative.
TYPES OF OUTCOMES TO LOOK AT:
1. Outcomes of a particular service:
'Service-based outcomes'
The nature, extent and quality of what is provided
2. Outcomes for service users:
'Client-based outcomes'
The effects of a particular provision on its recipients
Feedback on the results can come from:
Through our own perceptions
Asking service users, colleagues, supervisors, other professionals involved.
Evidence from external events (eg. a benefit being approved)
From other institutions (eg. hospital, school)
SKILLS INVOLVED IN ASSESSMENT:
1. Problem-Solving Skills:
Social works should not problem-solve on behalf of the client unless there's a good reason.
2. Decision-Making Skills:
Involves a focused and goal-oriented course of action.
If problem-solving activities are done effectively, it should be possible for individuals to arrive at helpful decisions.
Effective decisions make the decision-makers goals
3. Organisational and administrative Skills:
Roughly two-thirds of our time is spent dealing with 'indirect' tasks, such as liaising with other agencies, mobilising resources, attending meetings and trainings etc.
These roles as well as the competing pressures call for organisation and planning skills, so that we can be efficient and effective in our work.
These skills help us achieve objectives and remain consistent with the expectations of the agency.
It requires discipline
The extent to which clients and carers are informed, consulted and involved in decision-making can be categorised as follows:
Decisions that should be made but are
not made
Decisions that are made where the client and carer are
not informed
Decisions that are made where the client and carer are
informed
Decisions that are made where client and carer will be
consulted
Decisions that are made in partnership where service users and carers are
jointly involved
Decisions that clients and carers
make for themselves
Developing the kinds of practices, goal setting and service provisions that SUPPORT USER INVOLVEMENT includes:
Encouraging users to describe their own needs through the construction of jointly constructed problems, goals and tasks.
Sharing the assessment with the user (including written assessment) and explaining why particular services are being offered, giving users the right to refuse what is being offered
Ensuring the users have sufficient info both about the decisions made and the services available.
MAKING JUDGEMENTS:
Forming judgements is different to being judgemental, (which involves being critical and oppressive, or holding prejudicial or stereotypical views).
We need to be able to arrive at some kind of judgement in our role of social workers, that doesn't involve these harmful views ^.
We are all confined to some extend, by what is possible and achievable within the funding available, workload pressures and other constraints or resources.
These limitations are made more restrictive when we fail to explore in a rigorous way the opportunities and possibilities that exist.
ANSWER: COLLABORATIVE FRAMEWORK
The part we play in helping to bring about lasting positive change is located within a collaborative framework.
It can be difficult to implement, as it can be hard to form a collaborative and inclusive partnership with service users, carers and others, so that together we can successfully address the dilemmas for which our help is sought.