Evaluation of Practice

Evaluation of Practice Amy Salomone SW 4442 Wayne State University

Evaluation of Practice Evaluation of My Practice My field placement is with Turning Point, a domestic violence and sexual assault agency. The goal of the agency is to empower survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to regain control over their lives. I am a part of the Community Advocacy Program (CAP). At my field placement, I have my own clients in which I serve as advocate for a 12-week period each semester. I think I have done fairly well in my social work practice with my clients. I came into this field placement not having any real world experience in working with actual clients and providing them with real help, everything up until that point had been a hypothetical clients with hypothetical problems. As an advocate, our main goal is to help clients achieve short-term goals and work towards long-term goals. However, not all goals will be met, but I aim to provide the client with the tools to achieve these goals on her without my help and guidance. For instance, when working with a survivor I will only perform some tasks while also giving them tasks to do as well. I want the client to become empowered by being able to do things on their own, and this also helps them to be more independent after termination when the session is over. There have been times I have become frustrated and I wished I could help my survivors more, but I feel as though I have done my best for my clients with the skills and level of practice I currently possess. Impact on the Client When working with a client I know I am having an impact because I am seeing results of the work I am doing with her firsthand. For example, this semester my client is homeless; she has been living out of shelters for about the last 6 months in order to stay away from her abuser. In the beginning of the term, she was exited from Turning Points

Evaluation of Practice shelter and did not have any backup plan for where she could possibly stay. After much effort we found her an open placement in a shelter up at Port Huron. She has been up there for about a month now, and we are still working together towards her greater goals. For the last couple months we have been working on finding her transitional housing and employment. We have applied to an innumerable amount of places, and she recently had an interview and is waiting to hear back. It is nice to actually see the outcome of my hard work by seeing the client achieve her goals. In the Community Advocacy program, I am in direct contact with clients. I am the primary person the client works with unless they are in dire circumstances that require advanced help that I do not feel comfortable handling on my own. Typically the clients only check in with my supervisor at the end of the 12-week session in order to get feedback about CAP and whether they felt I was a helpful and useful resource for them. So, I also get a report on how effective I was for the client after the session is over. This allows me to get feedback for how effective the client thought I was and if the program was valuable and should continue. Skills Needed in Field Placement Much of what I do is as an advocate is providing support and crisis management to my clients. Although this may sound minor in comparison to the other needs the survivor may have, I would say that this is actually the biggest part of my job as an advocate. Many times the client is just looking for someone to believe them, really listen, and vent to. With my current client, she has commented almost every week how much me just listening to her and giving her my support means to her. I just use skills I learned in class,

Evaluation of Practice such as, empathic response, paraphrase, and furthering responses. I try to just let her talk and dominate the conversation, so that she can tell me as much, or as little, as she wants. She has thanked me multiple times for simply just listening to her, even if she may talk my ear off, and how much better she feels after getting off the phone with me. Another skill that is essential at my agency is observation. Many times clients are not forthcoming or trusting in the beginning of the session; we have to build rapport and trust as the session goes on. This being the case, sometimes I have to take cues from the clients body language and observe their nonverbal communication while I am with them; this can be extremely telling of how they are feeling. For instance, a survivor I had last semester as a client, also happened to be a convicted felon. During our initial meeting she was telling me about herself and seemed very opened about sharing her story, when a lull came in the conversation I took the opportunity to ask her about the charge. Immediately she shutdown, she gave very short answers, her body sagged, and she looked down at her lap. Based upon her nonverbal communication, I instantly knew I had made a mistake bringing it up myself instead of waiting for her broach the topic. So observing and taking cues from the client are extremely important at this field placement. Fit of Population The population I work with is women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and sometimes their children. I had specifically requested this agency because of the unique population. I knew that domestic violence and sexual assault agencies were not common and I wanted the experience of working with this population because I may not otherwise get to in my social work career.

Evaluation of Practice Unfortunately, I do not think this population is a good fit for me. While at the agency, I have worked with some inspiring women that truly embodied the title of survivor, as well as women that have simply tried to manipulate me for their benefit. That being said, I do not think this is a good fit for me because I think I would experience burnout with this population extremely early; as an intern I almost feel as though I am at this stage now. This may be because in CAP I am on-call all day, everyday. I do not have set hours, so I cannot simply leave issues at the office. In addition, while working with this population I feel like I am constantly jumping hurdles and hitting brick walls. When trying to find the resources, such as housing, it is extremely difficult and discouraging. For example, a client I am helping right now that was just rejected for subsidized housing because of bad credit. The clients I work with have a difficult past to compete with in a society where finding employment and housing is already tough. It can be very discouraging at times. Improvement of Social work Practice I know I have plenty more to learn as a social worker. I hope to gain knowledge and experience not only as the semester continues, but as a MSW student, as well as into my professional career as a social worker. I know that I need improvement in many areas, such as, interviewing. I still find myself talking with clients and being at a loss for what to say next. I usually default to empathic response, which sometimes works, or silence, and the client will want to naturally fill in the space. I think to improve on this issue I just need more practice. I think that more experience talking with clients will help me to see what skills do, and do not, work when speaking with clients. I think the more experience I get the more knowledge I will gain in dealing with clients.

Evaluation of Practice In addition, before starting this internship I did not know how to find or link my clients to resources. I am still not great at working within the system; however, I think I am better than I was when I started this field placement. I think improving on my social work practice is related to getting more experience and gaining more knowledge in the field. Experience and Ethics I have found myself facing ethical dilemmas throughout my field placement. In many cases this is due to the nature of CAP, which I think can sometimes lend itself to the possibility of ethical issues within the social work spectrum. For instance, as advocates we are told to build rapport with our clients, so that we can get them to open up and trust us as well as share as much information with us as possible; however, we are not given an office or professional setting with which to meet with our clients, so many times we are meeting with them in shelter, at a restaurant, or in their home. This can be confusing to the client who may begin to think that we are building a friendship rather than a professional relationship. The NASW Code of Ethics states that we cannot have a dual-relationship with our clients because it runs the risk of hurting the client. I have had to learn to speak to my client in a kind, but professional, way so that they are not misled into thinking we are friends. For instance, we were told that when the 12-week session is over we are to terminate the relationship and have no more contact with the survivor; the case then becomes our supervisors. I had built a good rapport with one of my clients last semester, so terminating with her was quite difficult. Initially after termination she would still try to call me to chat, but since we no longer had the professional relationship I could no longer continue our contact because I did not think it was appropriate.

Evaluation of Practice Field Placement and Social Work Values and Ethics This field placement has allowed me to learn and grow as a social worker. In September when field placement began, I had never had contact with a real client; the only experience I had was role-playing clients in our practice methods class. In many ways I felt like a deer-in-the-headlights being thrust into a role I did not think I was ready, or qualified, to be in. I took on the fake it till you make it approach; faking like I knew what to do for my new clients that I felt were unfortunate for being stuck with someone who clearly had no idea what they were doing. The first semester, I felt disconnected from my clients because one had absolutely nothing and the other had no support system, while I was a privileged white girl who had never had to deal with such hardships, and therefore did not know how to go about getting the resources they so desperately needed. However, as the semester continued I became more comfortable, because I was actually gaining knowledge. With some trial and error, and a lot of guidance, I was able to begin figure things out, such as, how to go about even using the bus system. Although, at many points its been difficult and stressful this placement has taught me so much in the short period of time I have been there. I have seen compassion and sacrifices workers have made in order to help their clients. As the NASW Code of Ethics as our guide, we as social workers know that we are duty bound to put the clients before ourselves, and I believe this exemplifies social work.