Assignment # 3
Audio-taped Role Play
Submitted to: Dr.Gallant
Submitted By: XXJZZYRXXOOZ
Course: 47-304/211 Comunication
Due Date: Tues, Nov 13th, 2006.
This following paper is an analysis of a five to ten minute audio taped role play interview with a client. As the social worker it was my goal to be able to facilitate an interview with the client. I had to focus on using the skills that were discussed in Cournoyer’s (2005) text The Social Work Skills Workbook, as well as lecture material covered in Dr. Gallant’s Social Work Communications Course at the University Of Windsor, Ontario. This following analysis will critically look at the skills that we were expected to use and what our strengths and or weaknesses as social workers were during the interview. Also, how as social workers we can recognize the mistakes that were made and what could be done to rectify the situation for the next time around. These skills are split into preparing, beginning and exploring phases all to be discussed in turn as they relate to the five column content chart of the transcribed verbatim interview with my client attached.
Preparing
There is a process that must take place when a social worker is preparing for an interview with a client. This process is called the preparing phase. The preparing skills are to be used before the first meeting with your clients. The preparing skills that I used in my process were prepatory arranging, prepatory self-exploration, and preliminary planning and recording. This is not all the skills that are included in the preparing phase but the ones that are most relevant to my interview. Since the interview was done with a classmate and there were no real people or resources to examine or review to find out more information on the case, I could not really make use of the prepatory reviewing skill.The preparatory reviewing skill “involves examining and considering information available to you and your agency before an initial contact with another person” (Cournoyer, 2005, p160). This may have been helpful to me though because it would have as Dr.Gallant said in lecture, allowed for a more all encompassing look at the client issues in light of the intensity, severity, and duration (Gallant, personal communication, November 2nd, 2006).This is important to have a first glimpse of before contact with your client if possible.
The prepatory arranging skill I did use in my preparation for my interview with my client. Prepatory arranging involves preparing the logistics for the first meeting with your client (Cournoyer, 2005). Logistics such as time, place, privacy of location, taking into consideration any special needs of your client etc. These considerations are all important to having a successful interview and for facilitating a safe and respectful environment for your client to feel comfortable in. Unfortunately this was a weakness for me. I did not do a good job with my prepatory arranging for the interview. The physical environment was not conducive to a quiet and confidential setting appropriate for interviews. The client and I were sitting in a hallway in the basement of the library at the University of Windsor. There were people around down the hall and we thought that it would not be a problem. We did not take into account the fact that people might walk through the hallway and this sound can interfere with our interview. There was one part in the tape where I could not transcribe verbatim what my client was saying because a man had walked past us with splash pants on and they made a lot of noise. I indicated this in my chart on page six of the content chart attached. As well I do not think it was a very comfortable environment in which to sit. More time will be spent in the prepatory arranging for the next meeting with the client in order to minimize bad judgments in logistical planning for the first meeting. As Cournoyer (2005) says “prepatory arranging should facilitate communication and diminish, to the extent possible, interference and distraction”(p166). I hope to rectify this situation for the third assignment.
The preparatory self-exploration skill is a self analysis skill in which you the social work must venture into before the first meeting with your client (Cournoyer, 2005). This involves identifying how you may be affected by the interaction with the client or how your own life histories and experiences may come in conflict with how you address or service the client. This is an important skill to use as the social worker as Dr. Gallant says it gives them a chance to be fully open and complete with their client as opposed to potentially having a detrimental affect on the client because of the situations of your own life or experience that may conflict with being able to help the client (Gallant, personal communication, November 7th, 2006). By practicing centering you are able as the social worker to gather your thoughts and reflections on yourself so that you can come to terms with them or reach a relaxed state about it so to enter into your clients world with unconditional judgment (Cournoyer, 2005). With my client I knew that I may not be able to relate because I did not have a boyfriend and was single.This was important to recognize as possibly being an inhibition. I had to make sure that I did not in any way let the client know that I possibly could not relate the actually feeling but I would still empathize with what I believe that client is feeling and imagine at least how they may be feeling due to what they were talking about.
The last preparing skill that I found relevant to my interview was the preliminary planning and recording skill. This requires the social worker to determine before meeting with their client what the goals of the interview are going to be and to discuss this with the client. This will enable the worker to have a guided framework for their interview and this will effect how it progresses. For the purpose of my interview I knew that I wanted it to be an information gathering interview. I wanted to find out more information about the client situation and what the client believes to be the main problems and issues that need to be addressed. As Cournoyer (2005) points out in an information-gathering interview you want to gather the data that will be able to help you and the client reach and understanding of the circumstances at hand. You want the client to discuss their feelings and views on the situation, and that was what I tried to do in my interview. By asking few questions and allowing the client to talk I was able to gather information based on the clients views and feelings.
Beginning
After preparing for an interview with a client you need to move onto a different set of skills that will help you to begin to enter the meeting with your client.These will begin to facilitate your contact and interaction with them as a starting point for the interview. The beginning skills are followed up by the exploring phase of the interview which will require more intricate and honed social work skills. These skills are necessary to be able to narrow down and enter into the person, problem and environment of the client and be able to start where the client is (Gallant, personal communication, November 2nd, 2006). The first beginning skill that one must enter into is introducing themselves to their client as well as allowing the client to introduce themselves to you the social worker. Cournoyer (2005) suggests that at the beginning of an interview you introduce yourself by your first and last name as well as your profession and with what agency you work for or are affiliated with. It is also important to understand the cultural context in which these introductions take place because some things may be more appropriate then others depending on the context. Something as simple as an introduction still requires thought and skill as I found out in my interview.
I neglected to give the client my full name and I did not tell the client what I did or who I worked for. I think I just assumed since it was a role play with another social work student that they already knew that I was a social worker. This was a bad judgment on my part because I realize now that Cournoyer’s points on introductions are crucial to starting to build that repore that is necessary to a healthy client/worker relationship so that the client feels comfortable and respected by the worker. I started off the interview by just introducing myself as Jessica and then jumped into the confidentiality piece and I did not even ask the client what her name was. I failed to seek out introductions which Cournoyer (2005) addresses as another beginning skill. I made to many assumptions that I think were mainly because it was a role play and not a real situation with a client. This is a weakness on my part because I failed to practice the necessary little skills that are just as important in the interview as anything that comes later during the exploring phase.
As the interview began I realized that I did not really give a clear outline of what we were going to do together throughout the interview. The key word in that sentence is ‘together’. I did tell the client “So ah… just want you to feel comfortable and be able to say whatever you’d like to. So...what is it here you ah...what is it you come here to talk about today?” This statement left out a lot of information and was very vague. I did not describe what the initial purpose of the interview would be; to gather information that would be able to help her, to be able to figure out what her issues/problems are and how we can work together to help alleviate them. In my clients case I failed to inform my client that identity development was a key component of the initial purpose of our interview so that we could both figure out what role I as a social worker would need to take to be able to provide the best services to my client (Cournoyer, 2005). By not orienting the clients and making them aware that this is a two way process I did not give the clients the feeling of self-determination and self-empowerment. The client could have thought that I was just going to give them what they wanted or on the other end of the spectrum made all the decisions for them and that they would not have a say in matters. Next time I will make an effort to identify the clients as active participants and not as passive observers in the whole process (Cournoyer, 2005).
Confidentiality is a key component in any client/worker relationship and in any other helping profession where the clients may divulge information that puts them in a vulnerable at risk position. As Cournoyer (2005) points out discussing the policies and ethical factors that are involved in your relationship is important. I did manage to do this in my interview. I said to the client, “Anything you say today will be confidential”. Which is good to protect confidentiality but I think I gave the wrong impression to my client when I followed that up by saying “Anything that you say will stay inside this room”. I gave them a false impression of “absolute confidentiality” (Cournoyer 2005). As a social worker and a professional I am bound by a code of ethics and guidelines for social work practice but also bound by other legal rules and laws that may conflict with the confidentiality of a client. For example if my client told me that somebody was in danger of being hurt or even worse killed then I would have the duty to report that to the authorities.
Seeking feedback is another skill that Cournoyer (2005) discusses in his text as an important part in communicating with your clients.This is to check and recheck if information has been understood as well as to gain the clients permission or acceptance. I did not do much of this in my interview. I think I got confused with seeking clarification which I did much more of through out the interview. If I had been able to achieve this skill more fully I would have been able to create a mutual process in which the client can feel needed as well as have their opinion on the whole situation heard. This skill will be a necessary addition to my next encounter with my client.
Exploring
The last phase that needed to be ventured into for this interview was the exploring phase. This is the part of the interview that you attempt to gain all the information from your client and attempt to empathize and grasp what the person, problem, and situation is according to the client’s perspective. There are different skills used during the exploring phase in order to facilitate a successful interview to be able to explore the issue, explore the person and explore the situation and ways to look forward to exploring the future possibilities (Cournoyer, 2005). It is important during the exploring phase to look for the strengths that the client has in dealing with the problems which often come in numerous amounts with clients. They are bombarded with different problems and you are never dealing with just one issue. As Dr. Gallant and Cournoyer (2005) both have stated you need to be able to partialize and take the clients issues and problems and break them down into more manageable pieces (Gallant, Personal communication, October 24th, 2006). Partializing is very helpful during the exploring phase because it is at this phase when you are trying to unpack all the problems that the client presents to you and if you were to try and deal with all at once you would be over whelmed and likely end up burning out and not being able to deal with the client effectively.
Asking questions is a good portion of the exploring phase. Asking the right questions and at the right time will greatly impact of the effectiveness of the questions. In my interview with my client I was able to ask a variety of close-ended (questions that invoke a one word answer such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’), as well as open-ended (questions that leave the answer open to the client for more in depth explanation)(Cournoyer, 2005). For example: “have you tried something like that before?” “How does that make you feel when he’s that defensive?” I also found that with some of my questions I was able to achieve the seeking clarification skill as well.
Seeking clarification as Cournoyer (2005) statesis a less invasive form of questioning because you are giving the client the power to say what they want heard.At the same time are able to let the client know that you are interested in their situation and problems because you are attempting to clarify points for reference. In my interview I asked the client to clarify certain feelings as well as specific factual data that I missed. I found it difficult to be able to remember everything that the client said.To be able to reflect the meaning and content I really had to clarify for my own sake any missed points. For example I asked: “Is that along the lines?”, and “A year was it you said?”, “…has become very jealous of you hanging out or associating with other guys correct?”
Reflecting the content of what the client is saying is an empathetic skill. This means that it is a way for you the social worker to communicate your understanding of what the client has said. It is a skill of active listening, in which the worker is able to reflect through paraphrasing in the clients’ words and understanding of what they want you to hear (Cournoyer, 2005). During my interview with my client I made every attempt to focus more on reflecting the content and the feelings of the client then interrogating them with questions. Reflecting the content is more focused on the factual aspects of the message the client gives you and it is important to stick with that at times. The problem I found I had in my interview was that I was repeating the same lead in lines and words to help me reflect. For example I used the phrase “So you feel that…” almost every response that I gave to the client as well as the phrase “you know…” almost as a sign of approval or that what the client said and what I said I have decided already match up. That is very problematic to make assumptions, and then to put those words into that of the clients’. If you are off the client will have a negative reaction and may explode or get angry because they feel like you really have not been listening to them at all. You need to respect the client and their ability to cope, do not jump ahead of yourself and add feelings and emotions if the clients are not on that level. You need to start at the level of the client as Dr Gallant has repeatedly expressed in his lectures. (Gallant, personal communication, October 31st, 2006).
Reflecting the feelings of the client comes once the client has reached that stage or you have been in the interview with them for a considerable amount of time. Cournoyer (2005) describes reflecting feelings as “a brief response that communicates your understanding of the feeling expressed by a client” (p 237). In my interview I added a lot of feeling words to my responses but I tried to stay on the level of the client and reflect the feelings that the client was expressing. For example: “So your…your overwhelmed with…with everything that has recently transpired from the relationship, and you do love him”. In that statement I used two feeling words ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘love’ only one of which the client had actually expressed herself in her statement: “You know I feel like I'm not a good girlfriend…like you know I should be…and then I don't know what to do. Cuz I love him and everything was going really well. I wanna stay in a relationship with him but...it's just too much.” It is important to be able to capture the emotion experienced by the client in order for the client to feel that you empathetically understand them.