SWSP6163: Professional Practice Discipline Social Work Assignment 1

This report, prepared for the SWSP6163 Professional Practice Discipline of Social Work course, examines the multifaceted role of a social worker. It addresses key aspects such as maintaining client confidentiality, the importance of detailed case notes, and the process of making referrals to other services. The report includes an analysis of a case involving a client experiencing mental health issues and domestic violence, highlighting the social worker's interventions, including the use of active listening, empathy, and the promotion of therapeutic relationships. The analysis also covers the use of various strategies to assist the client, such as recommending therapy, providing mental and emotional support, and encouraging the client to seek legal recourse. The report emphasizes the importance of ethical practice, client empowerment, and the social worker's commitment to improving the well-being of individuals and the community. It also includes a referral letter to a healthcare agency requesting for a psychiatrist and training for the existing employees.

SWSP6163: Professional Practice
Discipline of Social Work
Assessment 1: Role of the social worker, confidentiality, case notes, referral, analysis
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Table of Contents
Social work......................................................................................................................................2
Confidentiality.................................................................................................................................3
Case notes........................................................................................................................................4
Referral............................................................................................................................................4
Analyze............................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................8
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Social work
Dear tutor,
The key aim of the social worker is to enhance the overall lives of the individuals by assisting
with interpersonal and social difficulties, encouraging wellbeing and human rights. Apart from
that, they also play a huge role to safeguard adults and children by providing proper support to
them. They also assist individuals who are going through mental health issues. Day-to-day work
includes assessing the needs of the people and working directly with the families to assist them
to make crucial changes and resolve problems. Other than that, they also make various referrals
and recommendations to other agencies and services as well as keep full records in a detailed
way. The social workers identify the bigger photo which affects the work and life of the
individuals and promotes a society where the rights of the people are protected and respected.
The social workers mainly work with families, children and adults and also specialize often in a
certain work field like working with mature individuals with mental health-oriented and physical
needs or support for families and children. They assist the individuals to access their liberty or
rights as citizens and people. Apart from that, they work often with various social networks,
communities and families as well as people and assist them to promote supportive relationships
effectively and efficiently.
Social workers have a huge impact on the people and the community that inhabited them. The
roles of the community worker have risen to involve management of crisis and advocacy as well
as empowerment roles. They can also empower all the communities by promoting people to
participate in a role to properly shape the social services and giving education programs as well
as enabling long-term economic independence. They help the individuals to overcome the
challenges of their life by playing the role of an advocate mainly to raise awareness about the
needs of the clients and attach them to the solution-oriented services and programs.
The mission of the social worker is to improve the well-being of the human and assist them to
meet the individuals' basic needs effectively along with specific attention to the empowerment
and people's needs that are experiencing poverty, oppression and vulnerability.
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The core values of the social worker include social justice, service, individual worth, dignity,
competence, integrity and human relationship importance. The strategies that social worker uses
to assist their clients are narrative therapy, CBT, solution-focused and crisis intervention model.
Thanking You
Confidentiality
“Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness”. Confidentiality
plays an important role for an individual and it is essential for any social worker to maintain the
confidentiality of the clients. Confidentiality of the client is the key requirement that mental
health professionals, therapists and social workers safeguard the privacy of their clients by not
disclosing the therapies' contents. This is a fundamental rule between the clients and the social
workers that they should not share the information of the client with any other individuals
without talking the client’s consent or a legal ground or cause. Confidentiality helps social
workers to promote loyalty and integrity among the customers (GoodTherapy, 2022). Other than
that, it also helps them to build trust which feather assists to create a therapeutic relationship with
the client. Confidentiality of the client also overcomes the misuse of the information of the
clients and further helps to safeguard their reputation of them (G, Hamza and Kvn, 2015). The
client confidentiality purpose is to motivate the client to share sensitive information that might be
self-incrementing or embarrassing. With the help of sharing such data or information, the social
workers can assist the clients to address the problems, concerns or issues that they are going
through.
https://theranest.com/blog/breaking-client-confidentiality/
Various handful circumstances are there where the therapist can break the rule of confidentiality
and where the confidentiality rule does not apply. As per the section on privacy and
confidentiality of the ethical code of conduct of APA, the four main general circumstances that
are free from the confidentiality rule include if the client is a violent threat and imminent towards
others or themselves. The second one is if a billing situation is there which condoned needs
disclose. The third one is, that sharing information of the client is important to facilitate the care
of the client across various providers. Lastly, sharing information is crucial to giving proper
treatment to the client.
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Case notes
Case notes are a crucial and essential practice part for various social workers. Various types of
research have highlighted that the practices of record-keeping have an effect on the overall
outcomes of the clients like poor or bad case notes can lead to prevent effective decision-making
process and also encourage adverse results for the client. The proper record helps to give
appropriate and correct information regarding the situation of the client to the social worker. It
also gives a proper client’s interaction record with the social work services (Goodtherapy, 2022).
On 12/07/2022 at 12:00 pm Mr. Berlin had come with an appointment to discuss his mental
health problem. He described that due to his mental health issue he is facing various difficulties
to balance his personal and professional life. He is unable to give time to his 2 children and wife
due to his issue. Mr. Berlin has gone through depression and anxiety issues. I observed that he
has faced weight loss due to a lack of a proper diet. I also identified that he has gone through
extreme mood changes. I suggest him to speak to a renowned therapist to cope with this issue. I
also suggest him to contact a good nutritionist and dietician to regain his weight. With Berlin's
consent, I contacted a therapist and dietician and also arranged appointments for him on the very
next day. I understood that he needs both mental and physical support from his family members
so I request him to visit again after 7 days with his wife so that I can communicate with her and
make her understand the seriousness of this situation. I suggested him to take leave from work
and spend more time with his family members and friends.
Referral
Dear Healthcare Agency,
I am working in this organization for the past 5 years and have encountered many clients in my
service life. Tomorrow, when I am assisting my clients and suddenly a patient has come and I
acknowledged that she was going through mental health problems. She faces anxiety and
depression issues and due to these problems she was unable to do her work properly. After
understating all of her problems I believed that she must consult a good psychiatrist but I was
unable to help her with that and arrange an appointment for her as our faculty does not have any
good psychiatrist. After further interviewing her, I identified that she is married and also has a 5
years old child. Along with mental health issues, she is also experiencing domestic violence from
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her partner. After hearing this, I provided mental and emotional support to her and assist her to
cope with this situation by filing a legal complaint against her husband for domestic violence
charge. On the other hand, due to the lack of a good psychiatrist, I was unable to consider the
strategies including CBT, interpersonal and psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Hence, I am requesting you to take the help of the HR management and recruit renowned
psychiatrists in our healthcare organization so that we can assist the patients who are facing
issues related to mental health. The psychiatrist that this organization has does not have good
knowledge and skills so they are facing challenges to handle or cope with such situations
effectively and efficiently. So, I am further requesting you to provide proper training and
development to these employees so that they can improve their overall skills and knowledge and
would not face any difficulties to assist such patients in the future. Other than that, as a social
worker, I think we should implement an education program for mental health problems patients.
This will assist us to educate the clients as well as their family members to what are the strategies
they have to follow to overcome these situations easily. Along with this, this organization also
does not have all the necessary tools and equipment that one needs to assist a patient effectively.
I hope you will take the necessary steps after acknowledging all the problems and assist the
psychiatrist to overcome the issues that they are facing right now.
With regards
Analyze
The social worker engaged with the patients or client with the help of various strategies. The
social worker considered the help of close-ended and open-ended questions as well as active
listing skills to encourage the engagement of the client and understand the overall situation of the
patient effectively. The social worker further promotes a therapeutic relationship with the client
by interacting with her with the help of active communication skills. Apart from that, the social
worker ensured the client regarding the confidentiality of the patient to further gain the trust of
her and improves the engagement with the patient in the session (G, Hamza and Kvn, 2015).
This helped the client to freely talk with the social worker and explain her issue in a descriptive
manner. The engagement of the client with the social worker is based on the worker and client
relationship and not only depends on effective communication and micro skills techniques
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(Rodat, 2020). Other than that, the social worker had sufficient knowledge in this field which
further help him to interact with the patient rapidly and create a strong bond. The social worker
furthermore tried not to hurt the sentiment of the clients nor take any step that might highlight
any kind of discrimination or racism. This made the entire situation very easy for the social
worker to deal with. The active listening skills and patience of the social worker helped him to
better understand the issue of the client (Malachy, Okala A and Agha, 2019). Apart from that, the
empathy skills further assisted him to understand and identify the point of view and experience
of the client effectively. The social worker also recorded each and every detail of the patient in
the case notebook which will fuehrer help him to provide the best assistance to the client in the
future. The client is going through mental health issues (Karpetis, 2017). To cope with this
situation the social worker encouraged the patient to speak with a psychiatrist and recommend
some therapies such as Cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, supportive
psychotherapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy. Additionally, with the help of effective
observation skills, the social worker discovered that the client did not go out of her house and
meet with her friends or relatives at all. So, the social worker suggest her to do suggest the
patient to do regular exercise, eat healthy food and get participated in the community to improve
her mental health (Ileana Vîşcu, 2013). Additionally, the social worker also identified the dark
circles under the eyes of the patient which were probably due to lack of sleep so he further
suggest her to take proper sleep in order to improve her overall health condition. Apart from that,
the observation skills and the body language of the client further understood the social worker
helped to recognize that the client is going through domestic violence also (Eucharia Chukwu,
2019). To overcome this circumstance, he supported the patient mentally and physically which
she needed the most. Moreover, to address the injustice the social worker encouraged the patient
to lodge a complaint against her partner based on domestic violence and recommend her to take
leave from her work for some days and spend time with her child and other friends (Ahmed,
2016). As the patient was fearing that she might face job loss due to her mental health issue, the
social worker further ensure the client that he will try to arrange another job for her in case she
was rusticated from her job. All of these elements clearly state that the social worker knows his
job very well and also has the ability to deal with any problem of the patient as well as can give
the best support to them.
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References
Ahmed, S., 2016. Counselling Skills and Social Work Practice. The International Journal of
Indian Psychology, [online] 3(4), pp.194-206. Available at:
<https://ijip.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/18.01.077.20160304.pdf> [Accessed 7 August
2022].
Chen, S., 2022. 6 Best Practices for Protecting Client Confidentiality - TitanFile. [online]
TitanFile. Available at: <https://www.titanfile.com/blog/6-best-practices-for-client-
confidentiality/> [Accessed 7 August 2022].
Eucharia Chukwu, N., 2019. Methods of Social Work Practice. Research Gate, [online] 2(5),
pp.10-12. Available at:
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330938620_Methods_of_Social_Work_Practice>
[Accessed 7 August 2022].
G, R., Hamza, A. and Kvn, S., 2015. Guidelines for Social Work Assessment in Mental Health
Settings. Research Gate, [online] 2(8), pp.24-38. Available at:
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303719508_Guidelines_for_Social_Work_Assessmen
t_in_Mental_Health_Settings> [Accessed 7 August 2022].
Goodtherapy, 2022. For Social Workers: Tips for Writing Case Notes. [online] Goodtherapy.org.
Available at: <https://www.goodtherapy.org/for-professionals/business-management/private-
practices/article/for-social-workers-tips-for-writing-case-notes> [Accessed 7 August 2022].
GoodTherapy, 2022. Client Confidentiality - GoodTherapy.org Therapy Blog. [online]
GoodTherapy.org Therapy Blog. Available at:
<https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/client-confidentiality> [Accessed 7 August
2022].
Ileana Vîşcu, L., 2013. Social Work Counselling. Researh Gate, [online] 2(7), pp.1-6. Available
at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299392441_Social_Work_Counselling>
[Accessed 7 August 2022].
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Karpetis, G., 2017. Social Work Skills: A Narrative Review of the Literature. The British
Journal of Social Work, 48(3), pp.596-615.
Malachy, E., Okala A, U. and Agha, A., 2019. Chapter 7 Levels of Intervention in Social Work
Practice. Research Gate, [online] 8(12), pp.84-92. Available at:
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331230592_Chapter_7_Levels_of_Intervention_in_S
ocial_Work_Practice> [Accessed 7 August 2022].
Rodat, S., 2020. Empathy and active listening in the humanistic social work. Research Gatwe,
[online] 3(14), pp.10-19. Available at:
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344443250_Empathy_and_active_listening_in_the_h
umanistic_social_work> [Accessed 7 August 2022].
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