Fall 2026 SOWK 486w Week 10 - Planning and Implementing Change-Oriented Strategies

Planning is an integral part of working with clients. After we have assessed their needs, we need to help develop goals for our clients to work on as we move into the intervention stage of the planned change process. Students will read two chapters from Hepworth et al. (2023) focused on developing goals and the types of interventions we might choose to engage our clients in. During class, we will explore goal-setting and goal-creation. The following is the agenda for the class session.

Course content discussion (feedback, papers, and upcoming assignment)
Information about goals
The six steps to planning
Practice doing the planning process

The learning objectives this week include:

Explain the purpose, function, and types of goals used in social work practice.
Apply the six-step planning process to develop goals collaboratively.

Assignment 04a: Interviewing Skills Video Role-Play

Worth 200 points, or 50% of the student’s final grade, the assignment has two parts, each worth 100 points. The Interviewing Skills Video Role-Play is a key assignment for the social work program. This assignment allows you to view yourself as a social worker conducting an interview. The Interviewing Skills Reflective Paper provides a space to self-critique your engagement and interviewing skills.

Meta: Points 100 pts (25% of student’s final grade); Deadline Monday 11/16/26 by 08:00 AM; Completion students submit through Anthology Portfolio (MyHeritage Assignments); Locations Assignment Description and Rubric, Appendix E. Compress a Video to Reduce the File Size (Desktop Computer), and Assignment Detail.

Purpose: The Interviewing Skills Video Role-Play supports students in confirming the acquisition of interviewing skills through the application of person in the environment, empathetic responding, reflective responding, and other interpersonal skills.

Task: Students will work with a partner to record a 15 to 20-minute interview. The interview should be a role-play of an initial meeting between a social worker and a fictional client. Students have the freedom to develop their settings for the interview. This assignment is designed to offer the student the opportunity to demonstrate engagement, the sixth competency described by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). The following is the language used in the 2022 education and policy standards (EPAS):

Competency 6: Engage with Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities

Social workers understand that engagement is an ongoing component of the dynamic and interactive process of social work practice with and on behalf of individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities.

Social workers value the importance of human relationships. Social workers understand theories of human behavior and person-in-environment and critically evaluate and apply this knowledge to facilitate engagement with clients and constituencies, including individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Social workers are self-reflective and understand how bias, power, and privilege as well as their personal values and personal experiences may affect their ability to engage effectively with diverse clients and constituencies. Social workers use the principles of interprofessional collaboration to facilitate engagement with clients, constituencies, and other professionals as appropriate.

Social workers:

a. apply knowledge of human behavior and person-in-environment, as well as interprofessional conceptual frameworks, to engage with clients and constituencies; and

b. use empathy, reflection, and interpersonal skills to engage in culturally responsive practice with clients and constituencies. (p. 11)

The following are the instructions for this assignment:

Students will record a 15 to 20-minute role-play with a classmate. To complete this, students should use a tripod or stable surface to record the role-play with a cell phone or other recording device.
Each student’s role-play will have three parts: (1) introduce the role-play setting, (2) complete the client interview using listening and attending skills discussed and practiced in class, and (3) debrief the role-play with your partner.
The intention is to demonstrate your ability to use attentive listening, open-ended questions, empathetic responding, and other skills. The focus is not on solving the person’s problem or difficulties.
Students can do each of the three parts with the camera rolling. During the debrief with your partner, discuss (a) the things that you said/did that helped the other person feel comfortable and open up, (b) the things that you could have improved, and (c) any suggestions or feedback from your partner.
After completing the first interview, switch roles and do another 15 to 20-minute role play following the same format.
Each student should upload their final video of them as the interviewer to Anthology Portfolio for the instructor’s assessment.
Your video may be too large to upload to Anthology Portfolio and needs to be compressed. Appendix E provides step-by-step directions with screenshots to reduce your video’s file size.

Success: Each student will submit a video of themselves demonstrating their interviewing skills. Grades will be based on the Appendix B Practice Behaviors Rubric, which evaluates students based on CSWE Competency 6. Feedback from the instructor will be completed by final grades, due Wednesday 12/16/26 at 5:00 PM.

Appendix B. Practice Behaviors Rubric

The Practice Behaviors Rubric assesses CSWE Competency 6 for the interviewing skills video role-play. The following assignment in this course will be graded according to this rubric: A-04a Interviewing Skills Video Role-Play.

Description	Initial	Emerging	Developed	Highly Developed
Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment [HBSE] and practice context to engage the client	Demonstrates lack of knowledge of HBSE and practice context through the use of inappropriate strategies or questions.	Demonstrates some HBSE and practice knowledge, but the interviewer also shows some misunderstandings.	Demonstrates a basic fundamental understanding of HBSE and practice context knowledge but may have some gaps in applying appropriate strategies.	Utilizes strategies, including choice of language, level of assertiveness, etc., that is appropriate for the individual client based on knowledge of HBSE and practice context
Use empathy to engage the client effectively.	Communicates judgmental statements during the interview and does not help the client to feel understood.	Demonstrates beginning skills at empathy but has lapses that communicate judgment of the client or create an atmosphere that is too formal to build trust.	Demonstrates a sufficient amount of empathy and understanding. There are very few statements that might be perceived as judgmental.	Demonstrates empathy and understanding throughout the entire client interaction. Refrains from statements that might be perceived as judgmental.
Use reflection to engage the client effectively.	Does not create a flow from one question to the next. Asks primarily closed questions. Jumps from topic to topic without regard for themes.	Asks several closed questions but includes some open-ended questions. The student begins to address the client’s feelings. Has at least some ability to direct the conversation.	Utilizes primarily open-ended questions. Acknowledges client’s feelings and encourages the client to share thoughts.	Utilizes well-planned, open-ended questions that allow the client to expand on thoughts and feelings. Reflects on the main ideas the client shares and gently directs the interview toward those themes.
Use interpersonal skills to engage the client effectively.	Communicates discomfort or disinterest through verbal and nonverbal behavior.	Demonstrates some basic verbal and nonverbal communication skills but is not yet able to communicate warmth and genuineness to the client.	Elements of the interview clearly communicate warmth and genuineness, although there may be lapses. A few attending and communications techniques are included. The conversation flows fairly well.	Communicates basic helping skills to the client from the greeting and throughout verbally and nonverbally. Demonstrates a combination of attending skills. Has the ability to keep momentum in the conversation and uses silence appropriately.

Midcourse Feedback

I want to go over the midcourse feedback. I did only get 9 responses, where I had hoped to get a lot more.

What’s going well

In-class activities and discussion came up most, in about five responses. Students named the activities in every class, discussions they called “thought provoking and personable,” practice interviews, and hearing other perspectives.
Course materials and supports (presentation slides, reading quizzes, podcasts): PowerPoints to follow along with. Two students said being able to take notes on the slides during class helps. One added that in-person sessions are “always organized.” Reading before class helps. Another student listed quizzes, readings, podcasts and videos together.
My energy, how I teach, and availability: Your energy and how you teach. Students describe you as passionate, interactive, “always happy,” with lectures that “go by fast” and give good examples. One wrote a long response praising the mix of lectures, videos, visuals, group work and supplemental material, and said they look forward to class every week. Availability. Two students mentioned that you answer questions after class.
Course content (workload and learning): Workload. One student called it very manageable. What they’re learning. One student said they are taking in the course’s central idea: seeing the whole person rather than just the problem, and how family, relationships and environment shape behavior.

What’s not going well

Five of the nine said nothing is wrong (“No comments or complains,” “nothing. everything is great”). The four real points were:

Material can be hard to follow: Hard-to-follow theory. One student struggles with some theories when a lot comes at once, and finds some readings hard to understand.
Keeping track of what’s due. One wants reminders about upcoming work. Another wants a to-do list that covers assignments from all classes, which is partly about MyHeritage rather than just your course.

What you could do differently

Six said nothing. The three concrete suggestions were:

One page with every assignment, in date order. This is the clearest ask, and Q2 and Q4 point the same way.
More class discussion, and more time to prepare before projects.

Types of Goals: Descriptors

When considering changes to goals in these broad domains, we can also apply a descriptor to the goal.

The first two descriptors are related to time

Long-term: frame people’s ambitions within their identities and values
Short-term: reflects a partialized version of a long-term (e.g., they need to fit within their long-term goals)

Share about the WISe family vision, team mission, meeting needs, and goal.

There are many other formats or types of goals that our clients might have:

Approach Goals: identify a positive end state, usually emphasizing growth and change (e.g., “I will improve my grades in photography”)
Avoidance Goals: identify a future state to be avoided or minimized (e.g., “I won’t commit any new crimes”)
Performance Goal: goals define an outcome (e.g., “I will pass all my classes this semester with a B or better.”)
Learning Goal: emphasize process and the acquisition of knowledge and skills that people can use to achieve short- and long-term goals (e.g., “I will be able to write CER.”)
Empowerment Goals: framed toward self-determination and agency. They operate at the sociopolitical level, often emphasizing dimensions of consciousness raising, education, social support, and access to resources (e.g., “I will advocate for myself by asking my teacher for help when I do not know how to do a task.”)
Conformity: They are represented in mandates and the prerogatives of program objectives and referring authorities (e.g., “I will follow my probation contract.”)
Risk/resilience: Identify changes in risk and protective processes that are likely to alleviate presenting problems (e.g., “I will put my phone in do not disturb by 10 pm”)

[Small Group Activity] Discuss with a partner each type of goal and some potential goals you might have in each area.

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

SMART GOALS

SMART goals are a strategy used throughout clinical practice discussions. My first exposure came when I worked at Jubilee; I taught the kids on my caseload that goals have to be SMART.

Our textbook describes SMART as a popular mnemonic that comes out of research on goal setting. Effective goals have the following qualities:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-limited

(Hepworth et al., 2023, p. 240)

Each quality has research support. Specificity points to the tasks and activities that help a client reach the goal. Measurability allows us to monitor progress and give feedback, which supports motivation. Achievable and realistic keep the goal within what the client sees as possible. Time limits are a central feature of effective social work interventions (Hepworth et al., 2023).

Achievable and realistic does not mean easy. Reaching a goal takes work, and motivated people with support can achieve difficult goals (Hepworth et al., 2023).

SMART Goals: Other Versions

You will see SMART everywhere, but the words behind the letters change depending on who is using it. Our own textbook uses two different versions in two chapters.

Source	S	M	A	R	T
Doran (1981), the original from management	Specific	Measurable	Assignable	Realistic	Time-related
Hepworth et al. (2023, p. 240), goal formulation	Specific	Measurable	Achievable	Realistic	Time-limited
Hepworth et al. (2023, p. 296), case management planning	Specific	Measurable	Achievable	Relevant	Time-bound
Common version found in agencies and online	Specific	Measurable	Attainable	Relevant	Time-bound

Doran’s original: George Doran wrote it for managers writing corporate objectives. His “A” was assignable, meaning naming who will do it. He also said not every objective has to meet all five criteria or be quantified. The closer we get to them, the smarter the objective (Doran, 1981).
SMAARRT: Behavioral health treatment planning expands the acronym to seven letters (Mancini, 2021, based on Adams & Grieder, 2014). It is the version I sometimes teach out of in the MSW program.
- Specific: clear, concise, and says who will do what
- Measurable: you know when it is achieved because it can be counted or measured
- Actionable and Achievable: the person has the power to accomplish it in a reasonable time frame
- Relevant and Recovery-oriented: it aligns with recovery and what the client wants
- Time-limited: the completion date is specified

References

Adams, N., & Grieder, D. M. (2014). Treatment planning for person-centered care: Shared decision making for whole health (2nd ed.). Elsevier.

Doran, G. T. (1981). There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35–36.

Hepworth, D. H., Vang, P. D., Blakey, J. M., Schwalbe, C., Evans, C., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, G. D., & Strom, K. (2023). Direct social work practice: Theory and skills (11th ed.). Cengage Learning, Inc.

Mancini, M. A. (2021). Person-centered treatment planning. In Integrated behavioral health practice (pp. 123–153). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59659-0_5

Process of Goal Formulation Practice (5 of 12) - Formulating Client-Driven Goals

Then we work to help them formulate goals that are meaningful to them.

Potential Methods to Obtain

Solicit quotes or client description
Offer tentative suggestions

It becomes our job to help shape and give focus to their goals

Examples of how we might help shape goals:

When clients give avoidance goals, you can reach for positive opposites that they can work towards
For clients who express low confidence or efficacy beliefs about achieving a new or challenging goal, consider suggesting a learning goal
For clients who express a low goal commitment, consider a focus on their long-term goals before focusing explicitly on their short-term goals

–> Next slide, small group process after

(Hepworth et al., 2023)