Engage with Individuals, Families, Groups, and Organizations

Engaging with individuals, families, groups, and organizations is an important part of the social work process. So much time, learning, engery, and prep work is put into preparing to engage with clients that the engagement itself is a rewarding culmination of all of those preparations. I enjoy utilizing the information that I have learned in my coursework to effectively engage with systems in a social work capacity. It is my desire to use my learned skills to engage with clients professionally and competently.

Examine Evidenced-Based Practice to Prepare for Professional Engagement Across Systems

Field: During the Spring 2019 semester, I utilized the evidence based practices that I researched in competency 4, to effectively engage with a caseload of clients. Here is an excerpt from one of my weekly journals that shows what a typical day of appointments with clients looked like. Due do confidentiality purposes, no names have been included in the journal.

Class: During my winter semester child and family advocacy emphasis course, I examined the evidenced-based practices of treatment for individuals with Hoarding Disorder as a part of a literature review on this facet of mental health.

Other: During my fall semester clinical class, we learned about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). In order to prepare for engaging with psuedo clients, I read my textbook on CBT and answered questions to facilitate preparation and learning.

Engage with Systems Utilizing Evidenced-Based Practice Strategies

Field: During the spring 2019 semester, I met with several students per week, and met with one regular student for approximately 12 weeks, in order to assist them with their individual disability intervention needs. Here is a casenote I completed on her, with identifying information blacked-out.

Class: During the fall semester, I learned about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and utilized the evidenced-based strategies found in the textbook when meeting with pseudo clients for practice sessions. I practiced my CBT skills several times each week. Here is a practice video I completed with a psuedo client as a part of my learning and growth.

Other: During the winter semester, I learned about evidenced-based strategies for group therapy and had the opportunity to engage with a group of pseudo-clients each week in order to sharpen my skills as a group clinician. Here is a record form for one of my weeks of practice.