Moving Beyond Assessment: A Practical Guide for Beginning Helping Professionals

Moving Beyond Assessment: A Practical Guide for Beginning Helping Professionals is a text designed to help beginning professionals from social work, nursing, psychology, counseling, and other related disciplines navigate the early stages of working with clients in a variety of settings. The authors are experienced clinicians, supervisors, and professors who have trained hundreds of graduate students to learn how to assess, intervene, and evaluate their work with clients. In addition to the direct practice focus of the book, the authors address issues such as self-care, the basics of neurobiology, working with multi-disciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, and supervision. The text has a user-friendly tone and the authors have included numerous practice vignettes and their own personal and professional experiences to exhibit how the content can be applied to real life settings. Beginning practitioners will find tips, tools, resources, and concrete examples they can use to enhance their work with clients and normalize their experiences in the helping field, while learning how to take care of themselves as professionals. This text is an essential guide for anyone who is seeking to become a helping professional.

Melissa D. Grady, PhD, MSW, is an Associate Professor at The Catholic University of America's National Catholic School of Social Service. At CUA she conducts research on sexual violence prevention and evidence-based practice and teaches courses on clinical theory, social work practice, human development, and research. Dr. Grady has been in active clinical practice for almost 20 years.

Eileen A. Dombo, PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America's National Catholic School of Social Service, where she is also Chair of the BSW Program. She is a clinical social worker with almost 20 years' experience working with trauma survivors, and her research and writing focuses on trauma and current issues in clinical practice, as well as workforce health and vicarious trauma. Dr. Dombo teaches clinical practice courses to graduate students and directs the senior thesis course for undergraduates.