S504 Professional Practice Skills I (3 Credits)

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

S504 – Professional Practice Skills I (3 credits)

Instructor: Khadija Khaja, Ph.D. Fall 2006

Phone: 278-8609 Section: 6938

Email: Room: ES 2103

Office Hrs: Thurs 3:00 to 5:00 pm Thurs 6:00 - 9:00 pm

1. Course Rationale and Description

This foundation practice course focuses on basic generalist theory and skills that are necessary when working with a wide variety of client systems; individuals, families, small groups, communities, and organizations. Students are expected to demonstrate competent use of the following skills: attending, establishing rapport, reflecting, summarizing, exploring, questioning, contracting, and establishing clear well formed goals. In this course students will have opportunities to continue learning about themselves and will examine their personal values and any conflict between personal and professional values so the professional practice standards can be upheld.

II. Course Objectives

Through active participation in the learning experiences and completion of the readings, assignment, and learning projects offered throughout this course, learners are expected to demonstrate the ability to:

1. Apply critical thinking within the context of professional social work practice;

2. Understand the connections among knowledge, theory, values, ethics, and skills necessary for generalist and culturally competent social work practice;

3. Competently use generalist social work practice skills from preparing for a meeting to setting mutual goals with all system sizes;

4. Identify and explain social work roles;

5. Appropriately use self in professional relationships including the ability to express empathy, respect, warmth, and genuineness;

6. Evaluate their own strengths, limitations, and learning needs, including the quality and appropriateness of skill selection and application;

7. Use communication skills differentially across client populations, colleagues, and communities with particular focus on populations at risk, such as those groups distinguished by age, race, ethnicity, gender, culture, class, religion, sexual orientation, and/or physical or mental ability.

III. Required Readings

Dillon, C. (2003). Learning From Mistakes in Clinical Practice. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Gehart, D.R. & Tuttle, A.R. (2003). Theory-Based Treatment Planning for Marriage and Family Therapists. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Ivey, A.E. & Ivey, M.B. (2003). Intentional Interviewing and Counseling. (5th edition). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

IV. Course Format

Skills training is conducted through the use of an experiential laboratory dedicated to the mastery of core interpersonal competencies basic to effective social work practice. Emphasis will be on cognitive understanding, enactment of skills and competence in their differential application to work with individuals, families, and groups. Class sessions will combine formal lectures, discussion, case studies and experiential activities including structured skill practice and written assignments and exercises. Modeling of skills, practice in skill application, along with feedback and performance critiques will be stressed. Students will be asked to engage in critiques of their own skills as well as colleagues. Critical feedback is to be given in a critically constructive and respectful manner.

Throughout the course students will be asked to complete both in-class and out-of-class written exercises and other assignments relevant to the topic under study. As well there may be on-line activities utilizing technology to enhance learning.

Students will be expected to have assigned readings completed prior to class in order to engage in class discussion about application of content and all three textbooks need to be bought by the first week of class. Class attendance is required since substantial learning often takes place around the in-class activities and process. In case of illness or family crises, please notify the Instructor. In addition, a pattern of late arrival will significantly compromise one’s grade for participation. Missing more than two classes without compelling reason could result in an “F” grade for all class exercise grades.

You are required to purchase one blank VHS video cassette. You may need to buy a blank audio-tape cassette, however I let you know that in the future if time permits. You will need to bring your textbooks to class at all times due to exercises that we do each class in reference to course textbooks. As well it ensures that all colleagues are moving at the same pace and no one is slowing others down. This is a very challenging course and we need to ensure that all materials are covered on time. Changes in the course schedule may be made during the semester to accommodate specific developments in the class teaching and learning process.

V. Content Outline & Readings

Week 1: August 24 - Welcome and Overview

·  Getting acquainted

·  Overview of course content

Week 2: August 31 - Attending Behavior Basic to Communication

·  Towards Intentional Interviewing and Counseling

·  Becoming a Professional

·  At one with clients, yet different from clients

·  Moving from smart to wise

·  Crises about learning to be deliberate

·  Dawning of a new awareness

·  Treatment planning

·  Listening

·  Using attending in challenging situations

·  Determining your own style

·  How can we tell when clinical work is on track?

·  Discerning our mistakes

·  Frequent sources of derailment

·  General characteristics of effective work

·  Common worker signals of mistakes in progress

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 1, 2. Toward Intentional Interviewing and Counseling.

Dillon, Chapter 1, 2. Becoming a Professional/Early Successes and Derailments.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 1.Treatment Planning.

Week 3: September 7 - How to Organize and Interview

·  Making questions work for you

·  Making your decisions about questions

·  Engaging with clients and getting started

·  Problems with techniques in engaging and start up

·  Hesitating to discuss worker-client differences

·  Avoiding rapid fire questions

·  Overprotecting clients

·  Structural family therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 3. Questions: Opening Communication.

Dillon, Chapter 3. Engaging With Clients And Getting Started.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 2. Structural Family.

Week 4: September 14 - Observation Skills

·  Keeping watch on the interview

·  Critical self-reflection

·  Common mistakes in relating with clients

·  Worker concerns about relating with clients

·  Worker self-disclosure as a form of relational tending

·  Restoring empathic alignment

·  Strategic Therapy

·  Mid-Term Written Exam on Social Work Values and Ethics in Practice

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 4. Observation Skills.

Dillon, Chapter 4. Professional Relationships: Steps and Missteps.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 3. Strategic Therapy.

Week 5: September 21 - Paraphrasing and Summarizing

·  Active listening skills

·  Assessment and contracting

·  Elements of a good assessment

·  Frequent mistakes in assessment

·  Implications in contracting with involuntary clients

·  Mistakes in contracting

·  Observation changes the observer and the observed

·  Milan Systemic Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 5. Encouraging, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing: Skills of Active Listening.

Dillon, Chapter 5: Assessment and Contracting.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 4: Milan Systemic Approach

Week 6: September 28 - Reflecting Feelings

·  Middle phase of work

·  Becoming skilled with emotional experience

·  Critical reflection on feeling

·  Connecting the past, present, and hopes for the future

·  Techniques for updating unhelpful thoughts

·  Mental Research Institute Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 6. Observing and Reflecting Feelings: A Foundation of Client Experience.

Dillon, Chapter 6. The Middle Phase of Work.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 5. Mental Research Institute Approach.

Week 7: October 5 - Conducting a Well-Formed Interview

·  Cultural intentionality

·  Empathy and micro skills

·  Dimensions of a well formed interview

·  Portfolio of competence

·  Getting too far ahead of client

·  Overestimating the ease of change

·  Not challenging or confronting when stuck

·  Showing favoritism

·  Providing inadequate support and reinforcement

·  Expressing upsets with clients

·  Clients is testing and worker doesn’t see

·  Satir’s Communication Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 7. Integrating Listening Skills: How to Conduct a Well-Formed Interview.

Dillon, Chapter 7. When The Work Doesn’t Work.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 6. Satir’s Communication Approach.

Week 8: October 12 - Skills of Confrontation: Supporting and Challenging

·  Helping clients move from inaction to action

·  Challenging and being supportive

·  Factors influencing ending process

·  Steps in ending

·  Common mistakes in ending

·  Symbolic-Experiential Family Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 8. The Skills of Confrontation: Supporting While Challenging.

Dillon, Chapter 8. Common Mistakes in Ending.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 7. Symbolic-Experiential Family Therapy.

Week 9: October 19 - Focusing the Interview from Multiple Perspectives

·  Multiple perspectives on client concerns

·  Focusing and self in relation

·  Things counselors may be afraid of

·  Intergenerational Family Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 9. Focusing the Interview: Exploring the Story from Multiple Perspectives.

Dillon, Chapter 9. Questions that Haunt Us All from Time to Time

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 8. Intergenerational Family Therapy.

Week 10: October 26 - Helping Clients Explore Values and Beliefs

·  Eliciting and reflecting meaning

·  Discovering and encountering deeper issues

·  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 10. Eliciting and Reflecting Meanings: Helping Clients Explore Values and Beliefs.

Gehart & Tuttle, Chapter 9. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Week 11: November 2 - Six Strategies for Change

·  Interpretation/reframing

·  Logical consequences

·  Self disclosure

·  Feedback

·  Advice, opinion, suggestions

·  Directives

·  Solution Focused Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 11. Influencing Skills: Six Change Strategies.

Gehart & Tuttle. Chapter 10. Solution Focused Therapy.

Week 12: November 9 - Putting It All Together

·  Skill integration

·  Analyzing the Interview

·  Decisional Counseling

·  Narrative Therapy

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 12. Skill Integration: Putting it all together.

Gehart & Tuttle. Chapter 11. Narrative Therapy.

Week 13: November 16 - Integrating Microskills with Theory

·  Person Centered counseling

·  Collaborative Therapies

·  Determining your own style

Ivey & Ivey, Chapter 13: Integrating Microskills with Theory: Sequencing Skills and Interview Stages.

Gehart & Tuttle. Chapter 12. Collaborative Therapies.

Week 14: November 23 – NO CLASS Thanksgiving Break

Week 16: November 30 - Determining Your Therapeutic Style

·  Finding your authentic self

·  Defining who you are

·  Defining who you are not

·  Defining what you still need to work on

·  Defining your ultimate purpose for working with clients

Week 17: December 7 – Final Class

·  Evaluation of Course

·  Summary of Course

·  Due: Video Tape Assignment and Final Written Exam

V1: Assignments

Unless an emergency situation exists, written assignment submitted after the due date will not be accepted for credit toward the course grade. Those that are accepted after the due date will be penalized at a rate of five (5) percentage points for every day late. If special circumstances prevent the student from turning in work on time, it is the student’s responsibility to discuss these issues with the Instructor in a timely manner.

Assignment #1 Videotaped Baseline Interview 5 Points

Assignment #2 Peer Observations Exercises 5 Points

Assignment #3 Self-Reflection Exercises 5 Points

Assignment #4 Mid-Term Exam 10 Points

Assignment #5 Final Video and Written Practice Exam 70 Points

Assignment #6 Exercises Utilizing technology 5 Points

VII: Evaluation and Grading

Competent writing skills are an in integral part of all social work practice. Any written work is expected to reflect graduate writing skills. If you have concerns about your writing skills, contact the campus writing center for assistance. Do so before written assignments are due. Utilizing the campus writing center is encouraged when needed. Note that everything needs to be turned in on time. Each thing turned in late will lead to a deduction of 5 marks on your final grade.

Plagarism of any sort of academic dishonesty is prohibited by University policy. To avoid plagarism, credit sources whenever you use someone else’s work, language, or ideas. See the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association for guidelines concerning text references. In accordance with the Indian University School of Social Work grading policy, students must earn at least a “C” to pass this course.

Students will be assigned grades based upon the following scale.

A+ 97 - 100

A 93 - 96

A- 90 - 92

B+ 87 - 89

B 83 - 86

B- 80 - 82

C+ 77 - 79

C 73 - 76

C- 70 - 72

D+ 66 - 69

D 63 - 65

D-  60 - 62

F 59 and below

VII Course Policies

A. Incomplete grades:

Consistent with University policy, the grade of I (Incomplete) is warranted only under exceptional circumstances (e.g., illness, family emergency) and when the student has satisfactorily completed two-thirds of the course work. Students should contact the instructor if personal or familial circumstances negatively affect the quality of their academic performance.

B. Plagiarism and cheating:

Plagiarism is the presentation of another’s work as your own. Plagiarism and other forms of cheating are not only illegal but also unacceptable in this class. Academic dishonesty (including cheating on exams and plagiarism in papers) is not consistent with ethical conduct in social work practice and is unacceptable in social work classes. In cases of academic dishonesty, university guidelines will be followed. Any student caught cheating or plagiarizing (offering the work of someone else as one’s own) will fail the course. To avoid plagiarism, credit sources whenever you use someone else’s language or ideas. Such crediting must be detailed and specific. Simply including a literature citation in your list of reference is insufficient. You must specifically acknowledge a source each time you use the source, paragraph-by-paragraph, even sentence-by-sentence as necessary. Using direct quotations must be in quotations and referenced. See the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th Edition) for guidelines for in-text references.

Students in the Indiana University School of Social Work Master of Social Work program are expected to reflect congruence with the fundamental values of the social work profession and to conform their behavior to the standards described in the Indiana University Code of Student Ethics and the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Academic dishonesty such as plagiarism and cheating as well as behavior that is unethical or illegal may result in a failing grade in this course and expulsion from the School and University. A student’s right to appeal such dismissal is outlined in materials distributed at student orientation meetings.