Assignment 1: Week 6 Blog

Refer to the topics covered in this week’s resources, and incorporate them into your blog.

BY DAY 3

Post a blog post that includes:

• An explanation of potential challenges for intervention during your field education experience (Redeem Healthcare Medical Systems located in Baltimore, MD)

• An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address intervention in your field education experience

BY DAY 4

Respond to the blog post of three colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

• Make a suggestion to your colleague’s post.

• Expand on your colleague’s posting

Colleague 1: Ashlynn

During my field placement, I have come across many challenges during the intervention phase. Some of these challenges consist of families/ parents agreeing to participate in services however when services are ready to begin, they either stop responding to calls or indicate that they have changed their mind.

Additionally, I have families that make it very difficult to make contact with them so getting to the intervention stage is hard within itself. However, I diligently make efforts to contact the families.

When Safety Plans are created to ensure the child’s safety, due to it being voluntarily we never really know if the parents are being complainant.

Since the start of covid-19, a lot of the refers we make to families are home-based. Due to this many families are very leery in letting strangers in their home. This is completely understandable considering the severeness of covid. Therefore, when I refer parents to services in the assessment phase I ask would they mind home-based service or if they are looking for something that could be done over video.

Reference

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th

ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Colleague 2: Sharon

Potential challenges for intervention during your field education experience:

Some challenges that I have experienced working with clients at field placement, is that they have agreed to work on specific program goals and after they have agreed to participate in the treatment programs they drop out. For example, substance abuse treatment programs, parenting, or harm reduction classes. My clients would start either of these recovery or treatment programs that run for six weeks to improve their circumstances and then drop out two weeks later. After noticing that the client did not show up, I would follow up with a phone call and usually told something like they are not feeling well. For example, one of my clients that were registered in the parenting program did not show up and after following up, I learned from her that she was not feeling well and that she would return the following week. I offered the client an opportunity to catch up by letting her know that I am willing to spend one-on-one time with her to bring her up to speed with the other students. This was in consideration to help her stay in the program if she was coming down with an illness. The client didn’t call me back to make further arrangements. I phoned her a couple more times and was unable to get her on the phone. Neither, did she return any of my calls thereafter? I had to withdraw her from the program, notify my supervisor, and add her to the no-show list. I tried to connect with her thereafter, but she seemed busy and kept avoiding me. The situation became a bit frustrating for me knowing willingly that I wanted to help her. I later came to a realization that I cannot do it for the client and that they have to be willing to take the steps on their own. I also learned, that they sometimes face internal barriers and challenges that limit participation. Garthwait, (2017) mentioned that “understanding the social problems addressed by your agency will help you analyze them and begin the work necessary to reduce or eliminate them,” (p. 94). I find that this is a profound statement because the agency deals with clients who are homeless and are struggling emotionally and faces various psychosocial symptoms. Moreover, clients don’t always fully disclose. I spoke with my field supervisor who informed me that these circumstances happen all the time and he finds it challenging as well.

Personal action plans taken to address intervention in your field education experience:

In order to address no shows issues with treatment programs drop-outs, we normally issue transportation allowance before the program starts for clients to prepare themselves for the program. Now we issue the transportation allowance one week after the start date of the program. Also, new boundaries were established to go over clear guidelines with the clients from the beginning of the program so that they know what is expected of them and go over the program agreements. For example, clients are made aware that they will not receive a certification of completion to show a third-party agency until they complete the program and accomplish their goals. For instance, some clients need the substance treatment workshop, harm reduction or parenting program to either get their children back from the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) where their children are in temporary care or to help them to become sober and practice safe needle usage.

An additional step that I added to the program is to follow up with a third-party call to the agency to let the agency know that the clients have dropped out. Garthwait, (2017) mentioned that “one social problem can lead to or exacerbate others, or how several problems clustered together can overwhelm clients.” Having this awareness helps me to better put the client’s situation into perspective and offer empowerment and support.

Reference

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Colleague 3: Amber M

• An explanation of potential challenges for intervention during your field education experience

A challenge that I have during my intervention process is that not all patients are receptive and of interventions. My preceptor asked if I could lead a processing group for a particular unit that had four individual patients attempt suicide in one weekend. Although most are receptive not all patients want to be bothered or participate. I helped the clients create a safety plan and process the events of the past weekend, it was difficult at first because one client tried to take over the group and was cynical of the interventions, which in turn affected her peers being receptive of the group. She eventually stopped her cynical and smart comments but initially it was hard trying to motivate the group with so much push back from this individual.

• An explanation of personal action plans you might take to address intervention in your field education experience

It was easier to work with her dark humor and sarcastic tone than against, to avoid power struggle. My preceptor used the clients remarks to address serious issues and it was obvious later that her remarks were a reflection of her being uncomfortable with the topic. But by allowing her to express herself and using her comments as a way to address the suicide attempts, it ended up being a win win. Suicide and depression is growing problem, to fix the problem tit is useful to listen to those who experiencing these issues first hand, which my preceptor and I did, “one of the most important perspective on social problem is that of the clients who are experiencing them” (Garthwait, 2017p.93).

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.