Chapter 12 – Activating Resources

Applying Generalist Intervention Skills

This is the time called the developmental phase when generalist social workers implement plans for change with their clients. Workers draw on a variety of skills for working with both client systems and their environments collaboratively. Both the workers and clients play complementary roles in putting plans in action for change.

Intervention across System Levels

Generalist social work intervention involves work at multiple system levels: individual, couple, family, group, organization, neighborhood, or community. The generalist social worker uses intervention skills specific to the level of the client system, but will also intervene at other system levels on behalf of the current client. All involved with the social worker benefits from his or her interest, encouragement, organized approach, and the connection to resources, applicable information, and newly acquired skills. In addition, social workers employ strategies with their client systems for maintaining progress, developing power, changing perspectives, managing resources, and educating.

Maintaining Progress in the Action Plan

During the developmental phase, social workers move as directly as possible in the directions that the clients desire. They draw on the plan that both have previously framed to move toward the clients’ goals as effectively as possible.

Implementing Action Plans

The action plan designates the work that social workers and clients do when they are together and frames activities to accomplish between meetings. The plan needs to be flexible, however, social workers need to review progress and redefine directions when work gets off-track. Social workers want to continue to lead the way to the achievement of goals.

Collaborating on Actions

During their time together and the in-between meeting tasks, social worker and clients keep actively moving toward goals. During their meetings, they work on creating additional activities for each to implement toward change. Between meetings, social workers and clients work separately before coming together for the next session. While on their own, social workers investigate more potential resources for their clients, advocate with other systems, or consult with supervisors on a client’s progress. While clients are on their own, they utilize their strengths, experiment with new behaviors, attempt change, and connect to necessary resources in the environment. Over time, social workers do less while clients do more. As client systems rely on their own strengths to implement change, social workers gradually shift from being active interveners to becoming more reflective and encouraging facilitators.

Enhancing Interactions

Social workers enhance interactions by encouraging client systems to identify what issues are affecting their lives. Such issues as what they may be thinking, what they may be feeling and what they are doing. It is very important for the social workers and clients to use discovery skills to execute plans. It is also important for the social worker and the client-system to maintain good communication practices. Good communication practices allow client-systems and social workers to explore new perspectives, share observations, and gain an understanding of what is happening. Workers are able to enhance interactions by using their skills to keep clients focused, encourage participation and handle differences.

Maintaining Focus

In the development phase, workers and clients have already agreed upon a plan, which contains objectives and activities. Because a plan is already in place, the worker is able to help the clients stay on course. The worker encourages the clients to focus only on the issues, activities, and tasks that are at hand. Workers facilitate communication by encouraging clients to talk about one issue at a time. Moving too quickly from one issue to another can cause the client to ignore feelings associated with particular issues. When the worker keeps the client focused it sends out the message to the client that the worker means to discuss the tougher feelings and concerns. When workers allow clients to skip around it seems as though he/she is in agreement with the client and this allows and sends the message that it’s okay to overlook troublesome issues, and it may appear to the client that the worker is either uncomfortable or that maybe the worker does not feel competent to handle rough situations.

When working with larger systems keeping things on track may require using written agendas, handouts, or questionnaires. Using more formal procedures and concrete materials helps in keeping larger groups on task.

Encouraging Participation

By encouraging participation client-systems are able to introduce more resources. Encouraging participation also helps all members of the client-system to offer their ideas and viewpoints. People need to be assured that they have a right to express their opinions and views, that they will have the same opportunity, and that others will listen to what they have to say. Facilitative social workers interact to with the client-systems to insure a respectful atmosphere.

Sustaining Motivation

It is important to keep the clients motivated even through times of change. One way that this can be accomplished is by validating the client’s reality. This can be done a couple of ways. One of which is to show the client that you understand what they are going through and another way is to help them to realize that what they are going through is normal.

Another way to sustain the motivation is by helping the social worker to accept the nature of change. We need to realize that when change occurs it is natural for people to slow down so that they can restabilize and continue on. We as social workers need to be patient with this occur.

A third way to sustain motivation is to respect the uniqueness of every client. We should not have “standard techniques” that we should use with every client. Instead we need to realize the individuality and us techniques that work accordingly to that individual client.

The fourth way to sustain motivation is to provide emotional support to our clients. You can look at it like being a cheerleader for our clients. Emotional support helps to strengthen the working relationship and it helps to contribute important ideas for the clients work.

Stimulating Support within Client Systems

Workers can encourage strength between group members by highlighting similarities among members. Taking notice to similarities can strengthen the clients’ feelings of support and power; it can bring about self-confidence, and increases abilities to risk changes. It is also helpful to make physical arrangements because it helps to develop coalitions. A good example of this would be the worker arranging the seating before the meeting that removes physical barriers. Choosing appropriate tasks and activities can also be used to create alliances.

Handling Differences

When there seems to be conflict between group members, workers can maintain collaboration by asking each member to represent the opposing view and or summarize what others are saying. By doing this it promotes listening to other views. The worker can intervene in a situation by recognizing that there happens to be more than one viewpoint. It would be helpful if the worker would stop for a minute to summarize the different viewpoints.

Magnifying Strengths

  • Practitioners need to tap into the strengths that the client already possesses. This can be done by pointing out the client’s positive behaviors and accomplishments, the special characteristics that make them positively unique, as well as their positive resources and support systems.
  • Practitioners should use a focused listening in order to be able to read into the clients’ message, analyze the situation, and eventually be able to focus on the client and their situation.
  • Practitioners should focus on the positive actions taken by the client to improve their situation rather than make the client feel they are doing nothing right.

Changing Perspectives

  • Practitioners can help clients change their perspectives regarding their situation by helping them look at the problem in a different way.

Offering Feedback

  • Workers can help clients change their perspective by giving them feedback on observed behavior.
  • Practitioners can offer constructive feedback by describing current behavior and sharing perceptions at the level and readiness of the client.
  • It is important for workers to confront clients in a supportive way that will help them to analyze their actions in regards to their intent, behavior, and outcomes. This should be done when the client worker relationship is well established and is most effective when confronting value issues.

Positive Outlooks

  • Workers can help clients take currently negative outlook on a situation and help clients look at it in a new positive way.
  • Metaphors can also be used in helping clients create a positive outlook on a situation.

Understanding Narrative Strategies:

As social workers, we are listening to our clients narrate (summarizing) their lives to us. Their lives represent a story with various characters. We have to let the client narrate to us and we do not jump to the end to try and assume how they got there. By doing this we miss out on important parts of their journey. A good example of this would be if you picked out a book that seemed interesting and just read the back of the book, yes, you would be able to get a brief summary or characters and circumstances, but you would miss out on all of the struggles and triumphs as well. For our clients, these parts of the journey are essential to giving us greater insights on who they are, what their believe system is, what level of knowledge they have and even sometimes who they trust.

Three activities involved in this strategy are; collaboration, which is allowing the client to be empowered from benefit of our input, Reflexivity, which is positive interpretations from us as the worker and offering several suggestions, options or viewpoints that again are empowering and strengthening. Lastly, there is multiplicity, which is how we allow the client an opportunity to tell their story to us without prejudice and also for them to hear our views of their story.

The story (personal journey) is separate from the person. It is not who they are, just how things played out for them.

Managing Resources:

Puts social workers in roles such as catalysts (or a link), mediators, or advocates for their clients. The worker needs to be familiar with what is available and even better; the worker could form alliances with key contacts at the carious resource sites. The worker needs to educate themselves on services that clients might need whom they dealt with so they can relay that information to the client. They also need to know what services would be most advantageous for that particular client.

Ultimately, the worker wants the client to be a success and by assisting in this manner, might give the client an edge that someone who accesses services alone may not have.

Managing Resources

  • All human systems from individuals to communities need environmental resources to sustain their functioning

Linking Clients with Resources

  • The best choice is the one in which clients feel confident in their abilities to succeed, use as much of their own capabilities as possible, and learn additional skills for the future.

Case Advocacy

  • Advocacy in networking resources and services to meet the needs of immigrant clients is essential
  • There can be no empowerment without participation or, at least, presence and observation

Maximizing Clients’ Rights

  • When interpretations of rules and regulations deny clients access to programs and services, they have rights to fair hearings, appeals, and due process
  • Fair hearing provide the mechanism for appealing decisions which have negatively affected clients’ benefits or services
  • Due process of law protects individuals’ rights in dealings with the government
  • Key features of due process involve clients’ rights to:
  • Be informed in a timely manner about the specifics of administrative actions, including the basis for these actions
  • Argue their point of view at the hearing in writing or in person
  • Be represented by legal counsel
  • Face witnesses directly and question them in the context of cross examination
  • Participate in an open or public hearing
  • Have their appeal heard by an impartial, unbiased hearing officer or judge
  • Have the facts of their record form the basis for the decision and obtain a written report which details the facts of their case and applicable laws

Educating

Social workers and their clients should sometimes look to education to find solutions. The social worker can educate the client through different techniques that could include:

  1. Role Playing
  2. Structured curriculums
  3. Modeling

Teaching can expand the client’s knowledge, skills, and other resources to work towards empowerment. By teaching, the social worker is identifying the client’s objectives and style of learning.

Collaborating together with the client in a joint process by:

  1. Assessing the needs
  2. Setting objectives
  3. Selecting appropriate methodologies and materials
  4. Developing evaluation procedures
  5. Active participation

Collaborative teaching helps the client to become users rather than just the recipient of the education.

The various types of educational experiences are:

  1. Role-Playing: useful in developing interpersonal skills and when working with groups. Role playing provides an arena for trying out new behaviors without the risk of failure.
  2. Structured and unstructured experiences selecting various members for roles and facilitating interaction, observation and feedback.
  1. Structured Training Experiences: Using useful tools to teach the client communication and relationship skills. Many groups focus on developing skills that help to facilitate development through:
  2. Brochures,
  3. manuals, and
  4. do-it yourself skill development books
  5. Training programs
  6. Parenting classes
  7. PET
  8. Tough Love

The material needs to be culturally sensitive and aimed at identifying:

  1. Learning objectives
  2. Levels,
  3. Learning style of the participants

The programs should also take in to consideration the schedules of its participants and their families in order to help determine the best time to meet.

  1. Modeling: Social workers need to acknowledge the responsibility that each one has to the group by monitoring their own actions and words. Modeling promotes changes in behavior through the use of:
  2. Observation
  3. Imitation
  4. Vicarious Experience
  1. Sharing Information: The social worker can be one of the clients most important resources
  2. Three important characteristics of the social worker
  3. Expertise
  4. Trustworthiness
  5. Likability
  1. Offering Professional Knowledge:

Information that is shared should be consistent with the agreed upon contract, connected to the clients’ immediate concerns and within their area of expertise. Many workers may be cautious about what personal information to share, so as to not undermine the client. The most empowering way is to respond to the clients’ request, by drawing on their practice experiences, knowledge of human behavior, theories, and research data. Social workers selectively use their expertise to inform and normalize the situation, no to impress or undermine. By sharing with the client, the worker is showing cultural competence.

  1. Self-Disclosure: Social workers are human beings too. A good social worker will carefully choose to draw upon their own experiences to benefit their clients. This is a selective process and the social worker should be careful to not reveal too much information. The social worker should also differentiate between what is self-disclosing and what is giving advice.
  2. Advice: How to do something
  3. Self-Disclosure: This is something that I experienced.

It is important that when self-disclosing information, that the social worker acknowledge that the information may, or may not be useful to the client.

To enhance the clients’ experience of power and competent the social worker must use strategies that build confidence within the client systems and encourage clients to take over their own development. Practitioners help client to:

  1. recognize their own power to affect events
  2. become aware of choices and options for continued development and change
  3. increase knowledge about and use of resources and opportunities
  4. strengthen existing skills
  5. developing solutions
  6. Collaborate to activate existing resources as they implement plans of action.