Developing Practice Competencies: A Foundation for Generalist Practice - Softcover

Ragg, D. Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470551704 ISBN 13: 9780470551707

Publisher: Wiley, 2011

Synopsis

Designed for the generalist practice course, this book uses students' own experiences rather than abstract discussion to build competency and professional identity. Full of rich case examples and exercises, the book lets students visualize and carry out skills in an applied, experimental way. It breaks down each practice skill into subcomponents, allowing students to consciously build up their capabilities as part of a lifelong learning process. Social work students will benefit from this presentation of the core knowledge, techniques, and values essential to the effective practice of social work.

About this title

About the Author

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.

From the Back Cover

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.

"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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Developing Practice Competencies

A Foundation for Generalist PracticeBy D. Mark Ragg

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-55170-7

Chapter One

Professional Self-Awareness

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 become too self-focused, you can create a new problem as you spend too much time attending to yourself and ignore the client (Williams, 2008). Indicators of errors should operate like red flags, where you notice something in the interaction that provides a clue that you need to alter your approach. To begin this process, the next sections explore the roots of your beliefs and affective reactions.

Socialization, Self-Awareness, and Initial Skill Sets

It is likely that you have already started some self-reflection in your early professional courses. Often reading theories causes us to reflect on our past experiences and current functioning. This is a common experience for people entering professional education programs. It is your personal history that provides a predisposition to care about other people. This same set of experiences develops an initial skill set for exploring situations, understanding problems, and identifying options. If you did not have such experiences and skills, it is unlikely that you would consider a helping profession.

Process of Socialization

As you enter your professional education, it is helpful to understand your predispositions and initial skill sets. These helping foundations are based largely on socialization experiences. As your skills develop, interpersonal habits form. Some habits involve our thinking and affective reactions. Other habits involve how you interact with other people. The skill foundation that you bring into a helping profession involves a convergence of your interactive habits and attitudes that promote caring. Although this skill foundation is useful as a starting place, the habitual nature of interpersonal skills leaves you at risk for errors.

To build an awareness of the beliefs and values that control your initial skill sets, it is useful to first understand how socialization forms your thinking and interactive habits. There are several sources of socialization. Figure 1.1 presents four common sources of socialization. Take a moment to consider some of your experiences with these sources and reflect on the values and beliefs that emerged through your socialization experiences.

The nature of our mental socialization is shaped by two continua. The first continuum focuses on how you process events. On one end is reliance on logical processes and thinking. At the other end of the continuum are emotional processes. Although both logical and emotional processes are important, you often tend to favor one type of processing based on your past experiences. The second continuum focuses on the interactive context of socialization. Some people are prone to immediate reactions while others tend to respond slowly through a series of exchanges. Our skill foundation is very heavily influenced by these two continua.

Cognitive-Emotional Elements

The cognitive-emotional continuum ranges from highly cognitive to highly emotional socialization experiences. Emotionally intense experiences tend to stimulate affective reactions. If the experience is positive, you often seek to replicate it in future relationships. If the experience is negative, you tend to avoid similar experiences as you develop. People who have intense emotional experiences during their development may tend to process situations from an emotional position.

At the cognitive end of the continuum, high-intensity experiences promote questioning and critical thinking. This is common in socialization exchanges where experimentation, experiential learning, and negotiation were promoted. Each exchange involves thinking and rethinking situations based on new experiences and outcomes. Lower-intensity experiences may involve socialization experiences where you are told what to think and encouraged to accept rather than question. If negative emotion is linked to certain thinking styles such as feeling rejected for autonomous thinking, a tendency to accept rather than question can be strongly embedded in our socialization experience.

The variations in our socialization form affective and thinking habits as we age. Our patterns of responding to emotion and expressing feelings, beliefs, and values develop and become second nature. Some of us love thinking through complicated problems and will automatically begin analyzing situations as they emerge. Others are more attuned to affect and can easily identify with people's feelings and internal experiences. Still others react to situations with particular emotional or cognitive themes. These automatic tendencies provide the initial skill foundation for how you respond to client situations.

Interactive Elements

The second continuum focuses on relational elements in our socialization. You develop your interpersonal skills within a social context. There is a group of people you lived with, a group of people you learned with, and a group of people you played with. The nature of these groups provides a context for your interactive habits. You have all read about family systems, attachment relationships, and other theories focused on relationship influences. Consequently, you likely have a strong appreciation of the relational context of human development.

Your interactive socialization experiences form habits for conversing. You have learned to wait for your turn to talk. Consequently, many of us listen until we have a thought, then shift our focus to our thinking to remember the thought until our turn emerges. This and other interactive habits shape your initial interpersonal skills. Everyone carries around invisible rules about what is rude and what is acceptable. To promote social success, habits emerge to inhibit rude behavior.

The interactive habits you develop for managing social relationships provide a set of initial communication skills. These skills are the foundation upon which you build your professional practice skills. Your patterns of listening and exploring situations emerge from social situations in your past. Concurrently, your patterns of problem-solving, managing differences, and decision making often are well set before you enter a helping profession. Given that helping professionals all work in a relationship with clients, these habits are very important to understand and control.

Socialization Influences on Response Systems

The habits that emerge from your socialization often form patterns that influence how you respond to situations. Depending on the sources and the intensity of experiences with each continuum, some habits will be tightly held and others will be flexible. Cognitive-emotional habits form beliefs and codes for living; interpersonal habits form patterns of responding. Although these habits have been instrumental in your social successes, as a helping professional you must move beyond habitual responding by building "professional" beliefs and skills.

The discussions and exercises throughout this and the subsequent chapters build on your current beliefs and interactive habits. Through reading, thinking, and applying your knowledge in the exercises, you will start building your professional "self." The professional identity and skill sets you develop should complement, rather than conflict with, the caring habits you have already developed. You will learn to use yourself with greater precision and purpose. This ability to control your responses requires self-awareness.

Understanding Response Systems

As you start building self-awareness, it is useful to first understand your response tendencies. Four areas of experience affect how people react to any given situation. These four areas provide a framework for monitoring reactions. Such frameworks are useful because it is impossible to monitor everything. The four areas of experience can be broken down into two domains: action systems and processing systems. The term "action system" refers to the interactive and behavioral responses that occur in response to a situation. The term "processing system" refers to the internal thoughts and feelings that emerge in the situation. By concentrating on one or the other system on responding, people can scan and monitor how they react in different situations.

Action Systems

The action systems govern what people say or do within a situation. There are two elements in the action system: interaction and behaviors. The interactive response system governs what you say and how you relate to other people. The behavioral response system controls how you act within a situation. Although the two are closely related, it is worth considering each separately so unique contributions can be understood. In helping professionals, interactive people tend to explain, provide advice, or try to discuss situations. More action-oriented people seek to fix things or take over situations until problems are resolved.

To understand how socialization influences your interactive response system, think about some of the rules that govern how you speak to others. You probably have noticed how your interactions change from situation to situation. In some situations you talk more while in others you are content to be passive. Similarly, in some situations you are tentative while in others outspoken. Students learning to be helping professionals have two very common interactive habits (Piers & Ragg, 2008). The first emerges in situations where you talk more. Often talking is preceded by an impulse to say something. In such situations there is often a socialized interactive pattern.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Developing Practice Competenciesby D. Mark Ragg Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission of John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0470551704
• ISBN 13: 9780470551707
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432