My internship is at the UC Davis Medical Center in the Clinical Social Services Department. This semester, interns do rounds in the hospital to get exposure to the different services. What that means is that each week, I am in a different unit of the hospital shadowing a Social Worker and taking cases if I feel comfortable. With that being said, I have not had the opportunity to work with a client for a long period of time. Next semester, I will have the option to chose two units that I want to be a part of and that is when I will have my own caseload. Luckily, I have had the opportunity to use motivational interviewing while working with the clients I have interacted with. There was one particular client that made an impression on me because
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My intention of telling her that was so that the visit felt normalized because I was essentially following the protocol of the hospital. Her reaction to my presence at the beginning interrupted my idea of a positive engagement. Then, I realized I could have done a better job at presenting myself and start engaging with her right away rather than present myself as if the client was in trouble. I quickly started to focus on her baby and used the baby as a piece to engage with her. I made comments like, “Congratulations on your baby, she is precious”. Then I asked her simple questions like, “Have you picked out a name yet?” After my redirection to the baby, the client was able to warm up a little to me and engaged in the conversation about her baby. I realized that with many clients, you have to allow them to lead the interview instead of you trying to impose your questions directly to get the answers you need to write the note. I realized that not every person is going to be open to discuss personal things to a Social Worker right away.
During the engagement process, I was able to have a get a lot of the questions of the psychosocial assessment answered without the client realizing it was for an assessment note. Because we were talking about her baby, I was able to get answers on who the father is and if he is going to be involved in the care of the baby. I was also able to get answers on whether she was ready to take the baby home and what her support system looked like. Because we were still focusing on the baby to engage, it made it easy for the client to talk to me. The next step was another difficult moment in the
My intention of telling her that was so that the visit felt normalized because I was essentially following the protocol of the hospital. Her reaction to my presence at the beginning interrupted my idea of a positive engagement. Then, I realized I could have done a better job at presenting myself and start engaging with her right away rather than present myself as if the client was in trouble. I quickly started to focus on her baby and used the baby as a piece to engage with her. I made comments like, “Congratulations on your baby, she is precious”. Then I asked her simple questions like, “Have you picked out a name yet?” After my redirection to the baby, the client was able to warm up a little to me and engaged in the conversation about her baby. I realized that with many clients, you have to allow them to lead the interview instead of you trying to impose your questions directly to get the answers you need to write the note. I realized that not every person is going to be open to discuss personal things to a Social Worker right away.
During the engagement process, I was able to have a get a lot of the questions of the psychosocial assessment answered without the client realizing it was for an assessment note. Because we were talking about her baby, I was able to get answers on who the father is and if he is going to be involved in the care of the baby. I was also able to get answers on whether she was ready to take the baby home and what her support system looked like. Because we were still focusing on the baby to engage, it made it easy for the client to talk to me. The next step was another difficult moment in the