CHC52015 Diploma: Case Management Reflective Practice Assignment

This assignment is a comprehensive reflection on the student's professional practice as a case manager, specifically within the context of child protection and community services. The assignment begins with a detailed professional development plan, outlining the student's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis), alongside their current and long-term career goals. The student analyzes their current role at Lifestyle Solutions, focusing on developing skills in community engagement and working with children and young people. The assignment then delves into the student's practice, examining their values, beliefs, and behaviors in relation to their clients and the legal requirements of their profession, particularly the Children Protection Act. It includes a self-assessment of their performance, highlighting what they did well and areas for improvement, with a focus on building rapport and therapeutic relationships with clients. The assignment also incorporates feedback from a colleague, offering insights and suggestions for further development. Finally, the assignment includes a reflection on enhancing their own practice, reiterating the SWOT analysis and outlining short-term goals to improve their community engagement and therapeutic skills, and a minute from a meeting with their supervisor.

1. Reflecting on your own practice
1a) Provide your answer
Professional Development Plan:
As I reflect on my professional development, I consider that my
competencies and skills have developed substantially and that my
responsibility has developed to manifest this. Protecting children
from scenarios of neglect, abuse and other maltreatment forms and
ensuring their social, psychological, physical and emotional well-
being remains a challenging task which has drawn on my
competence and skills across a wide array of areas. It has,
nevertheless, been a rewarding area of work and I feel it has
substantially developed my core skills and shall give me a vibrant
foundation to enhance my professional development. I further hold
that my experience at Lifestyle Solution has allowed me to begin to
develop the broader generic skills set needed in built environment
professionals, especially in respect to multidisciplinary working,
mediation, negotiation, and leadership. This shall give me a firm
foundation from where to develop my upcoming career within
social work or case management sector and effectively react to
change.
Strengths:
Strong interpersonal and therapeutic relationships and
communication skills
Broad array of professional networks and contact via involvement
in Lifestyle Solutions activities
Thorough understanding of legal requirements and responsibilities
under child care and protection act and out of home care standards
Strong reflective practices alongside willingness to take on
feedback from all stakeholders
Weaknesses:
Limited practice and knowledge or substantial experience in
meeting holistic needs of children alongside young people
Limited understanding of complexity of case management
alongside working with therapeutic model establishing person-
centric case management
Opportunities:
Increasing demands for case workers of managers by various social
work organizations
Rising professional and personal development formal and informal
training
Threats:
Competition from high number of graduates

Stressful and demanding work
Frequent turnover which is detrimental to motivation and morale
Emotionally volatile and difficult situation
Where Am I Now?
Current job title and employer details:
Beginning January 2019, I have been hired as a case manager or
child social worker at Lifestyle Solutions
Current Job/Role
My key role is working with children in the neighbourhoods to
protect them from neglect, abuse and any other forms of
maltreatment.
Current area of development
Engaging as well as working with local community because of
nature of my social work role at Lifestyle Solutions, this is never an
area in which I had experience before working at my current
employer. It shall be imperative that I continue developing desired
skills in this area to effectively undertake my duties.
Working with children and young people who have displayed
difficult or challenging behaviors requires skills and experiences
which I have never had before working at my current employer. I
will seek to continue developing the therapeutic communication
skills and therapeutic relationships to enable me work effectively.
The nature of my work requires a sound practice alongside
knowledge or significant experience to meet holistic needs of
children alongside young people who have already experienced
substantial trauma. I will continue to develop these skills and
experience to improve my work.
Where Am I Going
Long term Goals
My long term is my career development in the public sector as a
competent case worker. Various reasons underpin such a
commitment including an array of opportunities existing, breadth
of work as well as ability to make difference alongside seeing
tangible outcome from my work coupled with supportive
organizational cultures beside commitment to my professional
development and maintenance of a positive work-life balance.
My goal would thus be to work within community to protect
children from neglect, abuse and any other maltreatment thus
offering me a greatest potential for innovation and creativity.

I trust that my experience within the Lifestyle Solution to working
with children and young people will help me get a permanent job
which will place me in a good stance to realize my goal by
providing a wide range of experience in working with children and
young people.
Short Term Goals
I will be developing my skills of working with local community as
well as securing effective engagement in child protection process.
I will develop my desired knowledge of working with children with
trauma
I will develop therapeutic relationships with my clients
How Will I Get There?
Objective 1:
Developing skills of community engagement and working
How will I get there?
I will liaise with many associations and professional and personal
network agencies and my colleagues to develop a best practice
strategy to community engagement as part of my work. First
meeting May 4
I will learn best practice techniques of facilitations from
consultants. First meeting May 10
I will continue to help in facilitation of suitable community
engagement workshop alongside events at the organization.
Workshops approaching June and July 5
Comments and Summary
Generally, this is a detailed and clear professional development
plan. I have thought deeply regarding where I am seeing my career
progressing. Thus my short-run goals are focused on improvements
linked to my present role, which is part of a broader vision for my
future. I have clearly owned this plan since by reading it, one would
understand my weaknesses and strengths via the same themes
being selected and tackled in SWOT analysis, the weaknesses or
strengths of my plan, and my future objectives. Thus, whereas my
short term goals may never explicitly and directly work towards my
long-run goals, it remains easy to see how such goals and
objectives have been reached.
1b) Provide your answer
Case manager is based on values, beliefs and behavior of the
clients. In my practice, I meet parents who neglect and abuse their
children based on beliefs, values and behavior that to them are normal.
However, such values, beliefs and behaviors are in breach of children

protection act. For example, I met a mother who always raise her voice
when addressing his children since she believed in such a parenting style
having been brought up that way. However, in my work, that amounted
to neglect and abuse of a child.
1c) Provide your answer
What I did well
Colleague: What do you think you did well?
Me:
I was able to engage the community into my social work
I also managed to gain experience on how to work with children
Colleague: Kindly elaborate your first point
Me: I organized community workshop where I encouraged parents’
participation. Many were willing to share their parenting skills and the
problems they face. This made me teach them what the law requires of
them effectively
Colleague: Indeed, this was marvellous. I am pleased specifically by
your ability to organize the workshops and create therapeutic
relationships and good rapport with your clients which made them open
up and share their views.
What I will do differently
Colleague: What would you do differently?
Me: I believe that going forward, I will have to produce written
information like handouts and then next time I organize a
workshop, I will give my participants to continue learning about
the children act and even the best parenting styles.
Colleague: What goal would you set to achieve this?
Me: I would start producing these materials early enough and
also know the number of my audience
Colleague: While I agree fully with your goals and what you
need to do differently, I believe there is a further room for
change. I would wish that next time, you can involve many of
your colleagues to help you during the facilitation. In this sense,
many participants will believe what you tell them. To achieve
this, you need to come with SMART objectives.
1d) Provide your answer
From my clients, I am happy about the feedback given. The
clients have showed increased willingness to work with me
because I have been able to build rapport and therapeutic
relationship with them. I remember one client telling me that I
am good working with since I know and understand their
problems and needs.
2. Enhancing your own practice
2a) Provide your answer
Strengths:

Strong interpersonal and therapeutic relationships and
communication skills
Broad array of professional networks and contact via involvement
in Lifestyle Solutions activities
Thorough understanding of legal requirements and responsibilities
under child care and protection act and out of home care standards
Strong reflective practices alongside willingness to take on
feedback from all stakeholders
Weaknesses:
Limited practice and knowledge or substantial experience in
meeting holistic needs of children alongside young people
Limited understanding of complexity of case management
alongside working with therapeutic model establishing person-
centric case management
Opportunities:
Increasing demands for case workers of managers by various social
work organizations
Rising professional and personal development formal and informal
training
Threats:
Competition from high number of graduates
Stressful and demanding work
Frequent turnover which is detrimental to motivation and morale
Emotionally volatile and difficult situation
Where Am I Now?
Current job title and employer details:
Beginning January 2019, I have been hired as a case manager or
child social worker at Lifestyle Solutions
Current Job/Role
My key role is working with children in the neighbourhoods to
protect them from neglect, abuse and any other forms of
maltreatment.
Current area of development
Engaging as well as working with local community because of
nature of my social work role at Lifestyle Solutions, this is never an
area in which I had experience before working at my current

employer. It shall be imperative that I continue developing desired
skills in this area to effectively undertake my duties.
Working with children and young people who have displayed
difficult or challenging behaviors requires skills and experiences
which I have never had before working at my current employer. I
will seek to continue developing the therapeutic communication
skills and therapeutic relationships to enable me work effectively.
The nature of my work requires a sound practice alongside
knowledge or significant experience to meet holistic needs of
children alongside young people who have already experienced
substantial trauma. I will continue to develop these skills and
experience to improve my work.
Where Am I Going
Long term Goals
My long term is my career development in the public sector as a
competent case worker. Various reasons underpin such a
commitment including an array of opportunities existing, breadth
of work as well as ability to make difference alongside seeing
tangible outcome from my work coupled with supportive
organizational cultures beside commitment to my professional
development and maintenance of a positive work-life balance.
My goal would thus be to work within community to protect
children from neglect, abuse and any other maltreatment thus
offering me a greatest potential for innovation and creativity.
I trust that my experience within the Lifestyle Solution to working
with children and young people will help me get a permanent job
which will place me in a good stance to realize my goal by
providing a wide range of experience in working with children and
young people.
Short Term Goals
I will be developing my skills of working with local community as
well as securing effective engagement in child protection process.
I will develop my desired knowledge of working with children with
trauma
I will develop therapeutic relationships with my clients
How Will I Get There?
Objective 1:
Developing skills of community engagement and working
How will I get there?

I will liaise with many associations and professional and personal
network agencies and my colleagues to develop a best practice
strategy to community engagement as part of my work. First
meeting May 4
I will learn best practice techniques of facilitations from
consultants. First meeting May 10
I will continue to help in facilitation of suitable community
engagement workshop alongside events at the organization.
Workshops approaching June and July 5
2b) Provide your answer
Lifestyle Solutions:
April 2019 Minute
Date, Time, and Location: Wednesday, April 17 at 6.p.m in the supervisor
office
Meeting called to order by the supervisor at 6.05 p.m.
Attendance: Myself and Supervisor
Minutes: Not previous minutes and hence none was read and accepted
New Business:
We discussed at length with my supervisor about the effects, or possible
effects, of my own values, beliefs and behaviour in the workplace when
working with clients in a case management situation. We agreed that my
own values, beliefs and behavior had great effects on my working with
clients and that I should always ensure the code of conducts overrides
and that my clients to be given priority.
Next Meeting is 25/4/2019 at 6 p.m. same venue
Meeting Adjourned at 8.00 p.m.
Minutes Compiled by Myself
2c) Client to provide
2d) Client to provide
2e) Provide your answer
There is no part 2(e) in the document and that is why I left it
3 (a) Provide your answer
We keep up to date information through upskilling and study. For
upskilling, the organization offers training from time to time. Here, the
organization gives us opportunity to identify our areas of weaknesses and
areas of emerging needs where there is a mismatch between our current
knowledge and skills and the work demands and arrange for upskilling
training programs based on our feedbacks. The upskilling is important to
us case managers or child social worker since it helps us meet the
emerging demands in our work so us to give the best services to the
clients.
3 (b) Provide your answer
Three (3) pieces of evidence are required for external networks.

1. Child Protection (Working with Children) Regulation 2013
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_reg/cpwca2012cpwcr20132013156l26a2013951.pdf
2. Children and Young persons (Care and protection) (child employment)
regulation 2015 file:///C:/Users/noahh/Downloads/Public%20Consultation
%20Draft%20Children%20and%20Young%20Persons%20Care%20and
%20Protection%20Child%20Employment%20Regulation
%202015%20(1).pdf

3. Children and Young persons (care and protection) regulation 2012
https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/regulations/2012-425.pdf

3 (c) Client Provide
3 (d) provide your answer
At Lifestyle Solutions, it is a policy that we must be debriefed following a
critical incident like client abuse or death of a client. The organization
has a team of trained debriefers who assist us explore and understand an
array of issues. For example, when there was an instance of death of our
clients, we were debriefed on the sequences of events, the causes and
consequences, each person’s experiences, any memories triggered by the
event, normal psychological reactions to incident and methods of
managing emotional responses arising from this critical incident. These
approaches were of great significance to our work since it restores
confidence in us and make us feel like the situation is an experience and
an opportunity to learn from. I use various hobbies to ensure self-care
including meditation, eating healthy, and yoga.
3 (e) Provide your answer
The evidence I will give here are the goals I have written down to
support my personal development as a case worker:
Long term Goals
My long term is my career development in the public sector as a
competent case worker. Various reasons underpin such a commitment
including an array of opportunities existing, breadth of work as well as
ability to make difference alongside seeing tangible outcome from my

work coupled with supportive organizational cultures beside commitment
to my professional development and maintenance of a positive work-life
balance.
My goal would thus be to work within community to protect
children from neglect, abuse and any other maltreatment thus
offering me a greatest potential for innovation and creativity.
I trust that my experience within the Lifestyle Solution to working
with children and young people will help me get a permanent job
which will place me in a good stance to realize my goal by
providing a wide range of experience in working with children and
young people.
Short Term Goals
I will be developing my skills of working with local community as
well as securing effective engagement in child protection process.
I will develop my desired knowledge of working with children with
trauma
I will develop therapeutic relationships with my clients
4 (a) Provide your answer
In this section, I have accessed and reviewed information on current and
emerging industry developments which I will use to improve my practice.
I have realized that modern case management job description is much
probably to encompass home visits, management of crisis and quality
enhancement responsibilities. For this reason, I have decided to upskill in
these new areas so as to improve my practice. Another trend is that case
management has emerging models of integrated health delivery like
patient-centric medical home alongside accountable care organization
(ACO). Thus, I have realized that patient satisfaction is used as a central
metric in the evaluation of case manager programs, proceeded by
enhancement in clinical status of patient. Thus, I have realized that to
improve my work, I will ensure that my client are satisfied so that I will
ask them if they are satisfied to know if my work is good.
4 (b) Provide your answer
I have assessed and confirmed my own practice against legal and
ethical requirements alongside opportunities. Ethically, I am required to
get the consent of the clients when dealing with them. I have always
ensured that all my clients give consent before I start my intervention.
Also, the ethical standards require that I maintain the dignity and respect
of my clients and that their interest becomes the top priority. Based on
my assessment, I have always met this ethical requirements. Legally,
safety and security of the client information need to be guarded. I have
also met this by ensuring that what we discus with my client does not
leak out to unauthorized person hence maintaining privacy and
confidentiality in my work.
4 (c) Provide your answer

I have identified and engaged with opportunities to extend as well
as expand my own expertise. I have realized that uncertainty in
healthcare brings challenges and opportunities for case managers. As a
case manager I have an opportunity to look at how I can improve
healthcare since we are right at the center of this as case managers.
Thus we have to improve care coordination, ensure effective transition of
care enhance journey of patient as well as care quality they receive. We
also have opportunity to work closer with caregivers and patients to
engage them in our processes. Thus, I will boost my expertise by
engaging in upskilling to be able to engage my clients fully since they are
no longer passive but active people who need to be included in shared
decision making.
4 (d) provide your answer
I have regularly participated in review processes as a commitment to
upgrading skills and knowledge. I have done this by participating in my
upskilling programs offered in the organization.
5. Provide your answer
I have undertaken a structured process and reflected on as well as improve my
own practice and created a personal development plan that entails goals,
timeframes and means of measuring progress. The following is the personal
development plan about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, saving for my
overseas holiday and renovating my home.
Goals, Timeframe and Measurement of progress:
1. In the next three months, I will maintain a healthy lifestyle by
eating healthy foods by avoiding junk foods and engaging in
daily physical activities. I will measure the progress when I
realize that I progressively reduce the consumption of junk
foods and also when I realize that I always fix at least one
hour doing physical activities or exercise.
2. In the next six months, I aim at saving 100$ per week to save
for more overseas holidays. I will measure the progress by
counting what I have saved at the end of every week through
the six months.
3. In the next one year, I aim at fully renovating my house and
ensuring it is looking good. I will measure my progress by
checking what I have done per month in my house towards its
full renovation.