Assessing Needs and Planning Care in Social Work

Brian Taylor, Toni Devine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000152166
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Processo decisionale
• Index: Business

The assessment of needs and the process of planning care are central issues in modern social work practice. Skilled assessment of client needs and strengths is essential to effective planning and efficient provision of quality social work services including both counselling and personal care. The focus of this book is on the development of the skills required at each stage of the social work process: assessment, care planning, implementation and evaluation. Throughout the book a balance is maintained between the focus on client involvement and the role of the social worker in an agency. The latter part of the book addresses practical issues in developing new approaches to assessment and care planning: primary workers, individual support and managing change. Social work practitioners, managers and trainers and students on qualifying and pre-qualifying training will find this an invaluable aid to the development of sound and yet creative practice.

1 Basic principles

1.1 The basic helping cycle

It would be neat to begin with a definition of social work. Unfortunately, no agreed definition exists; as with many other professions we take it for granted. We write here about the basic process of one human being helping another. We write about ‘personal’ helping, though this can mean providing and giving physical care, teaching skills of everyday living, or tackling a problem with someone in distress.

Not everyone has a natural aptitude for this type of work, yet a willing person’s ability to help others can be improved through training What is effective and efficient helping? What skills are required? These questions introduce the need for a theory, or model of helping, to clarify what working in social situations really means for both client and worker.

Many theories about social work practice exist. Some of the most important are mentioned in Chapter 4. Most useful theories focus on the interaction between the client and the worker, whether this is in individual counselling, work with groups, or in practical care of some kind. We accept this emphasis, but recognise that social work operates within a context. Most workers seeking to develop their social work skills are employees in an agency. In other words, the social worker is helping someone not just as a friend, a neighbour or even an autonomous counsellor would do. The help provided by the worker is supported and constrained by laws, policies, procedures, and some system of accountability to the wider society The worker has colleagues within his own organisation and other organisations (such as housing and health agencies) with whom he must form working relationships. There are records to keep and reports to write. Increasingly there is business planning, service contracts and the setting of quality objectives. The organisations change along with their services, greater accountability may be required inrelation to use of resources, and demands are made for higher standards of practice. The worker in the social agency, trying to serve his client, works within the context of changing values, be they personal (worker and client), professional, organisational, or societal.

Figure 1.1 The basic helping cycle

The ‘basic helping cycle’, as explained here, represents a systematic way of looking at social work practice in a value-based context. Its application is broad enough to encompass a variety of personal services including counselling, providing care for residents of homes, and teaching in developmental programmes for day centre members. The model (Figure 1.1) has inherent logic without a prescriptive format, assisting the social worker in providing useful services to a greater or lesser depth, depending on circumstances. As a model for practice, it allows for the ‘use of self’ — your own personal skills and attributes which are so essential — while also accounting for the use of resources to managers.

Assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation are the four building blocks of the helping cycle. Subsequent chapters define these words in greater detail, but listed here are meanings close to their everyday usage:

 

Assessment: What is the problem? What needs to be learnt? What are the strengths and limitations in this situation?

Planning: What should be done about it? By whom?

Implementation: Lefs get into action!

Evaluation: How are things at the finish of our efforts?

 

This is a model fundamental to many professions. Similar processes are outlined for management (Jaycees, 1974), education (Hunt and Hitchin, 1986), nursing (Yura and Walsh, 1979), psychiatric nursing (Ward, 1985), youth work (Jardine, 1987), and young offenders work (Pickles, 1987). In social work, variants are applied such as in mental handicap (Brechin and Swain, 1987) and cystic fibrosis (Spastics Society, 1987).

The purpose here is to demonstrate the application of this basic problem-solving cycle to social work with a range of client groups in a variety of settings. Throughout the book, a dual focus is maintained on both client and agency, with the worker as mediator between these (Shulman, 1992). Figure 1.2 outlines the process steps taken by the client and the agency; the cycle has been drawn as a straight-line sequence for clarity. Figure 1.3 shows the cycle with its four main phases, including in each phase the major components of practical action.

1.2 Social work skills and values

How can we define something dynamic in static words? That is the difficulty in describing the helping process. Boxes and demarcation lines are used to capture a process which essentially is flowing. Social work is seldom, if ever, a neat and orderly process from start to finish; it is an art, incorporating sciences, values, policies and personal skills. The practice material provided here needs to be accompanied by training and supervised experience if it is to be effective in developing your skills.

Figure 1.2 Client and agency perspectives

Training is essential, but that doesn’t mean that techniques can be put into people. Helpers need to grow and develop, usually with some nurturing. They need to become less confined by their own limitations and concerns in order to listen attentively, offering others the opportunities to make decisions for themselves. Less tangible qualities such as self-awareness and personal maturity also affect the social worker’s ability to help others. The relationship between the helper and the helped is central. It is not, however, a relationship for its own sake but one developed through the process of working together.

For the worker, this relationship with a client, is informed by health studies, social sciences, knowledge of agency policies and resources and undergirded by social work values. These values have largely grown with the profession, from its roots in Christian voluntary organisations and social movements of the last century. There is no universal Code of Ethics, but the basic ethical principles have stood the test of time (cf. Biestek, 1957) and are now embodied in Statements of Professional Competence (CCETSW, 1989).

Figure 1.3 Major components of the helping cycle

Empathy with the client is essential. So many clients have their hopes hampered by handicap or distress. The helping process, however logical, is like ‘an empty gong booming’ unless it has at its heart a caring concern which clients can realise and recognise. People under stress or facing a new challenge need a helper who will stimulate and motivate energies and imagination.

2 Assessment

2.1 Purpose of assessment

Assessment is a tool to aid in the planning of future work, the beginning of helping another person to identify areas for growth and change. Its purpose is the identification of needs; it is never an end in itself From an agency perspective, the object of assessment is to make possible informed decisions about meeting client needs. For the client, ‘assessment’ is basically discussing the current situation with the helper.

In social work, assessment includes the following elements:

• Making sense of a situation, for the client and the worker.

• Building up a picture of what happens, probable causes and probable consequences.

• Identifying problems or issues of concern to the person seeking help,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of examples
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Basic principles
• 2 Assessment
• 3 Care planning
• 4 Implementation
• 5 Evaluation
• 6 Managing the work
• Bibliography
• Index