Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

D. MARK RAGG is a Professor at Eastern Michigan University's School of Social Work, teaching in both the BSW and MSW programs, with a focus on practice and child/family courses. His current research focuses on issues of evidence-based practice, sustainability in community settings, adapting practices to achieve a cultural/ethnic fit, working with families and youth, and developing effective interpersonal practice competencies.

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Praise for Developing Practice Competencies: A Foundation for Generalist Practice

"This is the textbook I have been waiting for. The author engages the reader from the very beginning. It includes comprehensive coverage of EPAS standards and practice behaviors that any social work instructor would be delighted with. Mark Ragg's explanation of social work concepts and practice skills is very readable and well illustrated. This textbook will enhance social work students' self-confidence in their skills as beginning practitioners. This is an author who clearly knows how to engage and excite social work students about contemporary social work. Strongly recommended for generalist practice programs!"
―Mary Fran Davis, LCSW, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee

An applied, experiential introduction for the development of generalist practice skills in the helping professions

Designed to help students in social work and human services programs establish a solid skill foundation for professional practice, Developing Practice Competencies holistically organizes this content knowledge through a consistent framework integrated throughout the book.

Developing Practice Competencies explores:

• How to build on current interpersonal skills to develop a professional identity and a specialized repertoire of intervention skills
• How to work competently with diverse client groups taking into account the cultural and social contexts of each client situation
• Ways to engage individuals and larger client systems in focused work toward client-specific goals
• Successfully managing the nuances and challenges of the helping relationship
• Combining specific skills for use in evidence-based models

Filled with rich examples, role-plays, and exercises, Developing Practice Competencies covers the foundation competencies necessary for students preparing to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities on behalf of underserved and socially compromised people.

An accompanying DVD offers video of the practice skills in action and electronic versions of exercises for classroom discussions.

Aus dem Klappentext

Praise for
Developing Practice Competencies
A Foundation for Generalist Practice
 
"This is the textbook I have been waiting for. The author engages the reader from the very beginning. It includes comprehensive coverage of EPAS standards and practice behaviors that any social work instructor would be delighted with. Mark Ragg's explanation of social work concepts and practice skills is very readable and well illustrated. This textbook will enhance social work students' self-confidence in their skills as beginning practitioners. This is an author who clearly knows how to engage and excite social work students about contemporary social work. Strongly recommended for generalist practice programs!"
--Mary Fran Davis, LCSW
Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee
 
An applied, experiential introduction for the development of generalist practice skills in the helping professions
 
Designed to help students in social work and human services programs establish a solid skill foundation for professional practice, Developing Practice Competencies holistically organizes this content knowledge through a consistent framework integrated throughout the book.
 
Developing Practice Competencies explores:
* How to build on current interpersonal skills to develop a professional identity and a specialized repertoire of intervention skills
* How to work competently with diverse client groups taking into account the cultural and social contexts of each client situation
* Ways to engage individuals and larger client systems in focused work toward client-specific goals
* Successfully managing the nuances and challenges of the helping relationship
* Combining specific skills for use in evidence-based models
 
Filled with rich examples, role-plays, and exercises, Developing Practice Competencies covers the foundation competencies necessary for students preparing to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities on behalf of underserved and socially compromised people.
 
An accompanying DVD offers video of the practice skills in action and electronic versions of exercises for classroom discussions.

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Developing Practice Competencies

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

Effective helping professionals tend to be very self-aware and maintain an ability to control how they respond to situations (Jennings & Skovholt, 1999; Jennings et al., 2008). Self-awareness and self-control dovetail with each other to create interpersonal effectiveness. The term "self-awareness" refers to the ability to tune in to yourself, maintaining an ongoing knowledge of your emotional and cognitive responses to external events. "Self-control" refers to the ability to control how you express your feelings and thoughts in interaction with others. Such control keeps your traits, emotional reactions, and personal issues from interfering with ethically grounded professional practice (Brabender, 2007).

Importance of Self-Awareness

The need for practitioner self-awareness is well established in the professional literature (Borrell-Carrio & Epstein, 2004; D. W. Johnson, 1997; Spurling & Dryden, 1989). Because professional practice occurs in an interpersonal context, we must be able to monitor our responses to client situations in order to allow professional skills, rather than reactivity, to govern how we act. Self-awareness serves four critical functions for helping professionals:

1. A source of personal power. When people know what they are thinking and feeling, they stay fully informed on how they are influenced by others (Hedges, 1992; Rober, 1999; Tansey & Burke, 1989). When a person is not aware of how others influence feelings and thinking, there is a loss of control and personal power.

2. Source of insight into differences. When people are aware of their thoughts and feelings, they are better positioned to understand the differences between themselves and other people (Arthur, 1998; Dettlaff, Moore, & Dietz, 2006). A full awareness allows for differences to be explored without feelings of threat (Dettlaff et al., 2006; Manthei, 1997). This is particularly important when cultural or spiritual differences exist in the client situation (Daniel, Roysircar, Ables, & Boyd, 2004; Suyemoto, Liem, Kuhn, Mongillow, & Yauriac, 2007; Yan, 2005; Wiggins, 2009).

3. A source of insight and control (Hedges, 1992; Rothman, 1999). Everybody reacts to certain situations based on their feelings and beliefs. If practitioners understand their thoughts and feelings, they can separate their reactions from the client's story and proceed in a way that is most helpful to the client. However, when practitioners are not aware, they may superimpose reactive agendas and proceed based on reactivity rather than on a logical understanding of the client's needs. Concurrently, practitioners may avoid client themes, options, feelings, and issues to diminish the intensity of their own emotional reactions.

4. A source of emotional connection with clients. Practitioners' abilities to tune in to their own strengths, vulnerabilities, sensitivities, and feelings provide a set of internal experiential hooks on which they can hang the experiences of others (Rothman, 1999). These experiential hooks are drawn on when others speak of their experiences. The practitioner listens to the other's story and draws on these hooks to imagine the full experience of the client. The hooks, coming from self-awareness, consequently provide for empathic understanding of the client and a focus on improving responses (Manthei, 1997).

Self-Awareness as an Element of Interactive Practice

The goal of self-awareness is to prevent practitioner attitudes and feelings from interfering with professional interactions (Williams, 2008). It is very important to be able to pay attention and respond to client statements (Bachelor, 1995). When you are in a reactive mode, your focus shifts to acting on your reactive impulses rather than attending to the client's statements. To have a good working relationship, you must understand the content of client statements and also respond to the client's emotional experience (Castonguay, Goldfried, Wiser, Raue, & Hays, 1996; Miville, Carlozzi, Gushue, Schara, & Ueda, 2006). When practitioners are able to accomplish such positive and open working relationships, creative problem-solving and a sense of playfulness can be achieved with clients (Creed & Kendall, 2005; Morgan & Wampler, 2003).

Self-Awareness Based Practice Errors

Two common types of self-awareness errors can interfere with a good working relationship: errors of omission and errors of commission. Errors of omission occur when you interact with another person but fail to pick up on important themes or information during the interaction. Errors of commission occur when you actively insert your own meaning into the situation or take actions that interfere with the helping relationship. Without an awareness of your beliefs, biases, reaction themes, and feeling patterns, you are at high risk of these types of error.

Errors of omission occur when you do not adequately understand what the other person is attempting to communicate. This can occur if your feelings, beliefs, and attitudes intrude on your listening. In such moments your focus shifts to your thinking rather than fully attending to the client communication. When you miss the details of the client experience, you have huge gaps in understanding. When such gaps develop, there is a tendency to fill them with assumptions and theories of what is occurring rather than relying on information provided by the client. Such errors are hard to identify without first understanding your communication patterns and biases.

Errors of commission occur when you impose your beliefs or feelings onto the client situation. In such situations your thoughts and feelings exert more influence on the interaction than your client's statements. When we start imposing our models onto the client, significant problems often emerge in the helping relationship (Borrell-Carrio & Epstein, 2004; Keenan, Tsang, Bogo, & George, 2005; Price & Jones, 1998; Saunders, 1999). Research on helping relationships concludes that clients relate best to nonjudgmental, positive, and responsive practitioners (Bachelor, 1995; Binder & Strupp, 1997; Hilsenroth, Peters, & Ackerman, 2004).

The solution to errors of omission involves increased awareness of your personal traits, but avoiding of errors of commission requires you to apply this awareness to how you are operating in the here and now. Often when errors of commission occur, you will find yourself talking more than the client as you try to convince him or her to accept your point. If you ever experience an emotional pressure to "sell" your insight or solution to the client, you may be at risk of a commission type of error. The self-awareness task is to notice a shift in the interpersonal dynamics during the session. These dynamics may indicate errors of commission:

• Clients become less active in the conversation as you take over the discussion.

• You start to believe you know more about the client situation than the client does.

• You start explaining the client's reality back to him or her.

• You believe that you know what clients need to do and start imposing your solution.

As self-awareness develops, it will be important to find a balance between observing yourself and observing your client. If you...