Fall 2025 SOWk 530 Week 02 - How We Help: Getting Started with Direct Practice

Fall 2025 SOWk 530 Week 02 - How We Help: Getting Started with Direct Practice

title: Fall 2025 SOWk 530 Week 02 - How We Help: Getting Started with Direct Practice date: 2025-09-05 10:43:00 location: Heritage University tags:

• Heritage University
• MSW Program
• SOWK 530 presentation_video: > “” description: >

Week two is synchronous, with class taking place on Saturday (09/06/25). In Hepworth et al. (2023), you read about the helping process and social worker values and ethics. There are forums for you to start considering how we initiate services with our clients, the helping process, and various ethical considerations. During class, we will be focused on similar themes, including how we help, building relationships and connections, and our social work values and ethical considerations. The agenda of the in-class session includes:

• How have we been helped
• Social work’s orienting perspectives and phases of the helping process
• Getting started with the helping process, motivation, and rapport
• Values and ethical dilemmas

Learning Objectives this Week

• Reflect on how first impressions and initial interactions influence client engagement and rapport.
• Identify practitioner behaviors that contribute to strong therapeutic alliances during early client contact.
• Explore the historical development of the helping process in social work and discuss its impact on current practice models.
• Analyze ethical dilemmas and use an ethical decision-making model
• Reflect on one’s own experiences of receiving support to deepen empathy and recognize key helping behaviors.
• Describe the five orienting perspectives of social work practice and the phases of the helping process, and explain how each shapes engagement with clients.
• Compare the experiences and needs of voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary clients, and discuss strategies to promote motivation and trust.
• Analyze value conflicts in ethical case scenarios and evaluate potential responses in accordance with professional standards and cardinal social work values.

Plan for Week 02

Agenda

• How have we been helped
• Social work’s orienting perspectives and phases of the helping process
• Getting started with the helping process, motivation, and rapport
• Values and ethical dilemmas

Learning Objectives

• Reflect on one’s own experiences of receiving support to deepen empathy and recognize key helping behaviors.
• Describe the five orienting perspectives of social work practice and the phases of the helping process, and explain how each shapes engagement with clients.
• Compare the experiences and needs of voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary clients, and discuss strategies to promote motivation and trust.
• Analyze value conflicts in ethical case scenarios and evaluate potential responses in accordance with professional standards and cardinal social work values.

Questions About the Course

I wanted too spend just a couple of minutes at the start of class answering any questions you might have about the course.

Developing a Poster Showcasing How You Have Been Supported

Each of us, to our own degree, has had difficult experiences, and often we’ve had somebody who has supported or comforted us. You don’t have to share the experiences, I’m more interested in what felt like you were supported.

[Small Group Activity] Developing a Poster Showcasing How You Have Been Supported

Recall a time that you were experiencing an intense emotional difficulty and were comforted and supported…

• How did you “know” that person was supportive?
• What behaviors and words did that person use that were helpful to you?

[Whole Group Activity] Share posters

Have students present about their posts and hang them on the wall.

[Whole Group Activity] Debrief the activity.

• Social work isn’t rocket science
• Systematic connection

Orienting Perspectives for Social Work Practice

The newest edition of the textbook frames social work practice with what they describe as orienting perspectives. These perspectives go across each of our classes areas of practice. It is these perspectives that really make social work a unique focus.

Ecosystem Perspective: Behind and or integrated into all of it is…Ecosystem Perspective, which Hepworth et al. (2023) describe as “That is, it provides a set of metaphors to help us understand the interconnections among people and the various systems in which they interact, but the model does not provide a roadmap for practice. It does not illuminate the mechanisms through which people and their environments influence each other, nor about how to achieve an adequate goodness-of-fit.” (p. 21)

There are five orienting perspectives that are all interrelated and connect with direct social work practice:

1. Strengths Perspective: Social workers acting from a strengths perspective collaborate with clients to the greatest degree possible to support client self-determination in the resolution of their problems. Moreover, the strengths perspective guides social workers to mobilize client resources, relationships, knowledge, life experiences, and competencies to achieve the goals that they value. Harnessing clients’ strengths promotes their autonomy and independence and ensures successful functioning even after contact with the social worker has ended.
2. Cultural Humility: Social workers who practice cultural humility accept cultural differences and affirm the value and importance of all cultures. They exhibit curiosity about cultural differences and reflect deeply about how their own cultural orientation informs their helping efforts. Cultural humility also draws attention to the power differences that are inherent in the social worker–client relationship
3. Antioppressive Practice: The goal of AOP is to foster the full participation of clients in society irrespective of oppressive ideologies that justify exclusion, discrimination, and violence. In doing so, AOP contributes to macro-level changes by incrementally replacing oppressive ideologies with alternatives based on equality and acceptance.
4. Trauma-Informed Practice: Trauma-informed practice is a strengths-based approach which guides social workers in how to work with individuals who have histories of trauma. It is a relational approach to social work that promotes a feeling of safety, collaboration, and empowerment and creates opportunities for individuals to rebuild, heal, and restore a sense of control and well-being.
5. Evidence-Informed Practice: evidence-informed decision-making and evidence-based practices (1) Evidence-informed decision-making is a strategy for integrating research evidence into practice and policy decisions. (2) The process of evidence-informed decision-making often leads to the adoption of specific evidence-based practices (EBPs).

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

Phases of the Helping Process

There are three phases outlined in the text regarding the helping process. This semester we will be going more in-depth through them as the weeks go on. They are as follows:

Phase I: Exploration, Engagement, Assessment, and Planning Phase II: Implementation and Goal Attainment Phase III: Evaluation and Termination

Phase I: Exploration, Engagement, Assessment, and Planning

1. Exploring clients’ problems by eliciting comprehensive data about the person(s), the problem, and environmental factors, including forces influencing the referral for contact.
2. Establishing rapport and enhancing motivation.
3. Formulating a multidimensional assessment of the problem, identifying systems that play a significant role in the difficulties, and identifying relevant resources that can be tapped or must be developed as strengths. This review should also include screens for trauma, cultural humility.
4. Mutually negotiating goals to be accomplished in remedying or alleviating problems and formulating a contract.
5. Making referrals.

Phase II: Implementation and Goal Attainment

1. Prioritize goals into general and specific tasks.
2. Select and implement interventions influenced by best available evidence.
3. Plan task implementation, enhancing self-efficacy.
4. Maintain focus within sessions.
5. Maintain continuity between sessions.
6. Monitor progress.
7. Identify and address barriers to change.
8. Employ appropriate self-disclosure and assertiveness to facilitate change.

Phase III: Evaluation and Termination

1. Assessing when client goals have been satisfactorily attained.
2. Helping the client develop strategies that maintain change and continue growth following the termination.
3. Successfully terminating the helping relationship.

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 34)

You can see on page 34, figure 3-1 that includes these phases and the activities and processes we follow as we engage with our clients though out the process.

[Small Group Activity] Does helping need to be structured in a systemic process like this systemic? What are some of the potential benefits or challenges to having it structured like this?

[Whole Group Activity] Debrief

Case Study and Connections with Helping Process

I want to introduce some of the skills and give a written example of somebody going through the helping process and what that looks like.

[Individual Activity] Read case study in Teater (2014)

I’m going to have you read this case study. You can skim the start of the article if you like, but I really want you to focus on the case study, starting on page 39.

As you read the case study you might notice that Teater (2014) groupings of phases of the helping process is really similar to the phases of the helping process. She describes them as:

• Preparatory
• Initial: Getting Started
• Ongoing: Working Toward Goals
• Ending: Bringing the Shared Work and the Relationship to a Close

[Small Group Activity] Discuss Case Study

In groups of three or four, I want you to discuss the following:

• What was the social worker’s focus at the beginning of the work together?
• Identify any themes from Hepworth et al. (2023) and the phases of the helping process that you see implemented by Teater’s (2014) case study.

[Whole Group Activity] Debrief Small Group Discussion

Establishing rapport and enhancing motivation - Rapport

Rapport is one of the most important aspects of the client-clinician relationship and is highly related to positive outcomes. This rapport can also be connected to a client’s motivation and willingness to change.

[Partner Group Activity] Talk to a partner about somebody with whom you have a really strong rapport. Talk about how that relationship is, and how you know that you have a good rapport with them

[Small Group Activity] Turn your partners into groups of four, and discuss how you know that you have a good rapport with that person, what it looks like

[Whole Class Activity] Brainstorm writing on the whiteboard, potential ways of developing rapport with clients.

Strategies and Behaviors that Improve Client Trust (1 of 2)

Leach (2015) describes some strategies and behaviors that improve client trust, communication, and rapport.

Maintain

• Client comfort
• Confidentiality & trust
• Enthusiasm
• A collaborative relationship
• Interest in client concerns
• Objectivity
• Attentiveness
• Eye contact
• An open posture

Avoid

• Passing judgment
• Jargon and technical language
• An authoritarian demeanor
• Interruptions

Strategies and Behaviors that Improve Client Trust (2 of 2)

Leach goes on to talk about how we should be and what we should use.

Be

• Dependable
• Open minded
• Flexible
• Reassuring & supportive
• Confident
• Friendly
• Genuine
• Warm
• Sincere
• Honest
• Empowering
• Engaging and interactive
• Respectful of client wishes and needs
• Sensitive
• Empathetic
• Altruistic

Use

• Open-ended questions
• Rationales for procedures, treatments, and decisions

Types of Clients

In social work, we have all types of clients that we work with.

[Whole Class Activity] Discuss the differences and possible clients for each client type.

• legally mandated
• voluntary
• non-voluntary

Involuntary Clients (1 of 2)

Involuntary clients are forced into involvement with social workers and really do not want to be involved. They could be mandated or non-mandated.

[Discussion] What might be some reasons for clients being mandated?

10 suggestions for working with involuntary clients.

1. Acknowledge to yourself that the client is indeed voluntary.
2. Try to put yourself in the clients shoes.
3. Label and help the clients express their negative feelings.
4. Clarify your role for the client.
5. Know the limits of your authority, and in effect power over the client.

Involuntary Clients (2 of 2)

1. Give them as many choices as possible including minor options.
2. Figure out what you can do for the client that he or she wants.
3. Use pro-social modeling and reinforcement in order to encourage and promote client pro–social values and behaviors.
4. Allow the client to gain trust in you and in the intervention process.
5. Accept the fact that, ultimately the client has the right to choose whether or not to cooperate with you.

What Questions Would You Use to Interview During Phase I

The assessment we conduct through the initial interview (and how we continue to assess as we go on) drives the services we engage in with our clients.

[Small Group Activity] Develop a set of questions that you would ask during phase I. the objective is intended to assist students in separating people from their problems, as well as provide an opportunity for them to focus on the process of gathering information, which is a key element in the initial stage of the helping process.

Questions can be categorized by answering essential questions, such as who the person is, their situation (including strengths, resources, networks, and needs), and the concern or presenting problem.

[Small Group Activity] Practice asking questions to a partner

This process is similar to what you will be doing for your video role-play.

Value Dilemmas and the Cardinal Social Work Values

The scenario exercises in operationalizing cardinal values in Chapter 4 encourage discussion and exploration of personal–professional value conflicts.

Consider:

Write about and reflect on value dilemmas in your practicum journals to identify and reflect on value dilemmas as they arise in the field or in other class work.

[Whole Group Activity] What are the implications of not upholding the profession’s values?

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

Ethics Case 1 (1 of 4)

A classmate has told you that they are Googling clients from their field agency as well as looking them up on Facebook. They state that the information is public, so there is no confidentiality involved, and the more they learn about them the better they can help them. In your own placement, workers send Snapchat messages to each other of the wacky ways clients dress and behave. They say it builds camaraderie in the team and is harmless since the photos and comments go away after only a few seconds.

Consider:

• What conflicting principles and values are in play in the case?
• What are the pros and cons of the various courses of action?
• What guidelines are applicable in resolving this dilemma?
• What resources could you consult to help you decide on an ethical course of action?

[Small Group Activity] Discuss ethics case study [Whole Group Activity] Debrief activity

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 75)

Ethics Case 2 (2 of 4)

You are forming a youth group in a state correctional facility. From past experience, you know that members sometimes make references in the group to previous offenses that they have committed without being apprehended. You also know that they may talk about indiscretions or misdemeanors they (or others) may have committed or plan to commit within the institution, such as smoking marijuana, engaging in sexual encounters, receiving contraband from visitors, or stealing supplies or property from peers or staff. Are you required to share all the information you learn in the group? How can you encourage trust and sharing if there are limits to confidentiality?

Consider:

• What conflicting principles and values are in play in the case?
• What are the pros and cons of the various courses of action?
• What guidelines are applicable in resolving this dilemma?
• What resources could you consult to help you decide on an ethical course of action?

[Small Group Activity] Discuss the ethics case study [Whole Group Activity] Debrief activity

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 75)

Ethics Case 3 (3 of 4)

In conducting an intake interview with a young woman in a family agency, you observe that both of her young children are withdrawn and listless. Throughout the interview, the client seems defensive, suspicious, and appears ambivalent about having come for the interview. At one point, she states that she feels overwhelmed with her parenting responsibilities and is having difficulty in coping with her children. She also alludes to her fear that she may hurt them but then abruptly changes the subject. As you encourage her to return to the discussion of her problems with the children, your client says that she has changed her mind about wanting help, takes her children in hand, and hastily leaves the office.

Consider:

• What conflicting principles and values are in play in the case?
• What are the pros and cons of the various courses of action?
• What guidelines are applicable in resolving this dilemma?
• What resources could you consult to help you decide on an ethical course of action?

[Small Group Activity] Discuss the ethics case study [Whole Group Activity] Debrief activity

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 75)

Ethics Case 4 (4 of 4)

You have been working in a mental health agency with a middle-aged male who has a history, when angered, of becoming violent and physically abusive. He has been under extreme psychological pressure lately because of increased expectations at work. In an interview today, he is extremely angry, clenching his fists as he tells you that his boss is giving him a hard time, singling him out for criticism, and threatening that he will lose his job. “If that happens,” he says, “they’ll be sorry.”

Consider:

• What conflicting principles and values are in play in the case?
• What are the pros and cons of the various courses of action?
• What guidelines are applicable in resolving this dilemma?
• What resources could you consult to help you decide on an ethical course of action?

[Small Group Activity] Discuss the ethics case study [Whole Group Activity] Debrief activity

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 75)