Assess with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.
Social workers understand that assessment is an ongoing component of the dynamic and interactive process of social work practice. Social workers understand theories of human behavior and person-in-environment, as well as interprofessional conceptual frameworks, and they critically evaluate and apply this knowledge in culturally responsive assessment with clients and constituencies, including individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Assessment involves a collaborative process of defining presenting challenges and identifying strengths with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities to develop a mutually agreed-upon plan. Social workers recognize the implications of the larger practice context in the assessment process and use inter-professional collaboration in this process. Social workers are self- reflective and understand how bias, power, privilege, and their personal values and experiences may affect their assessment and decision making.
Social workers:
a. apply theories of human behavior and person-in-environment, as well as other culturally responsive and inter-professional conceptual frameworks, when assessing clients and constituencies; and
b. demonstrate respect for client self-determination during the assessment process by collaborating with clients and constituencies in developing a mutually agreed-upon plan.
Assessment is another process that social workers use to be collaborative in our approach to practice most effectively for the individuals and clients that we work with. This is because we recognize that we are not perfect and therefore do not have perfect systems, policies, etc. Assessment provides an opportunity to assess what has worked and what needs attention to improve. This competency engages me to become involved and find any resource(s) for the individuals I will work with. It will promote me to take a collaborative and holistic approach to a client’s situation. I feel challenged by this in that I will have to constantly learn and remain updated on the resources that reside where I practice. I will remain committed to this by paying close attention to what client needs and barriers actually are with a collaborative approach. This will be done by incorporating assessments and evaluations with my future clients.
Evidences
Coursework:
This paper in Practice with Individuals details two pseudo scenarios of client situations. The task for this assignment was to develop an assessment tool to accurately gauge what the client might need in this given scenario. The assessment tools used here were scaling questions to measure the severity of what the first client indicated with experiencing emotional abuse from their partner and creating an ecomap to visualize what support the first client may have to use.
I developed skills in researching assessment tools for these two hypothetical scenarios. I also developed knowledge in the realm of assessment as this was one of the first times I used assessment tools. I learned how to select appropriate assessment tools depending on what the client voiced as needs or as issues. We used an assessment tool called a GIM Process that assesses the harm that may be potentially happening outside what has already been stated by the client.
I chose this experience because of the GIM Process used in the first scenario. This assessment gave me a greater look at what the client may not be as focused on in regards to what is still harming them and uncover what the client may have had difficulty describing the harm in their life.
Field:
For my practicum at First Year Experience (FYE), when we are notified that a student has not attended classes/ work, the protocol is to contact the student and to perform a wellness check. Part of this wellness check is to ask a series of scaling questions. The scaling question(s) are an assessment that is aimed at assessing where the student may be at mentally, emotionally, etc. From there we also contact the dean on duty of the resident hall where the student lives and ask the dean on duty to also perform a wellness check. The feedback that the deans give us is then compared to what the student has said to us in our assessment.
This assessment helped me develop skills in administering the assessment of the scaling questions and what to do with the information given from the student to be able to assess what they need as well as what we can provide them with.
I chose this to showcase the mastery of this competency because the assessment that was used was used in both semesters and the assessment is such a crucial piece of our process and journey with students. It is important to assess our students of what their needs are and how we can best serve them.
Further Evidence:
This comes from my job as a LifeGroup Director for the Office of Ministry and Missions. In this department, I am over five LifeGroup Coaches that oversee four LifeGroup Leaders. At the mid-term point of each semester, our department administers an assessment for LifeGroup coaches and directors. The assessment details what coaches feel they have been successful in and what they feel they could do better in. These include things like if coaches felt like they had successfully carried out their vision for each of their mentees. Each assessment was reviewed with each coach that I am over.
This assessment furthered my knowledge of each coach and their strengths and weaknesses with their mentees. I also developed skills in voicing what each coach indicated as something they want to improve upon in such a way that could encourage them to explore why they may struggle in their specific areas. And how to improve upon the struggles.
I chose this for this competency because this is an assessment tool that helps us at LifeGroups to better equip our LifeGroup coaches to serve the LifeGroup leaders from what they are reporting is happening.