Social Work In My Opinion

Social Work in My Opinion

Social Work in My Opinion

How Resistance ' Should be Viewed in Any Helping Situation /Ways to Encourage Non-Voluntary Clients to Engage in the Helping Process

Helping situations , within the scope of modern social work , represent a tremendous opportunity for the social workers . Properly executed and completed , the situations can be a wonderful personal and community service (Vourlekis , et al , 1992 , such as one would find in the case of voluntary clients . This being said , however , in the case of non-voluntary clients , resistance can and does often

manifest itself especially in the case of the chronically mentally ill for example (Hodge , 2001 . Therefore , resistance needs to be viewed in such a way that it will encourage the non-voluntary client to engage in the helping process itself , which can be accomplished in a variety of ways

First , as an overall guideline , it is important to take a step back from the helping process itself and consider the physical setting in which the helping process will be conducted . Research indicates that carrying out the helping process in a more structured setting such as the clinical setting as an example can and has been shown to facilitate a smoother helping process when the subject is showing some apprehension from the practical point of view , the effectiveness of the setting , because it will make it possible for the helping process to be completed in a more rapid faction , also controls treatment costs which is something that is a practical reality that needs to be monitored in social work environments where budgets are of a concern , such as in the use of paid social workers rather than unpaid volunteers (Kemp , et al 1997

Having the proper setting for the helping situation is an important first step . Going forward , the resistance itself needs to be viewed not as an insurmountable obstacle , but rather as an indicative symptom that if properly understood by the practioner , can in fact shed a lot of light on the underlying issues within the helping situation (Saleebey 2001 . For example , if the resistance is found to be based on the approach , style , or even gender of the social worker , the resistance can easily be countered with a few minor compensations on the part of the social worker themselves . On a deeper level , if the resistance involves more complicated root causes , this is a strong indication that perhaps multiple practioners and /or specialists need to get involved for a correct implementation of help

Finally , the issue of encouraging the non-voluntary client to engage in the helping process must be understood . Once again , it must be repeated that it is fair to say that many of the non-voluntary clients are that way because of chronic mental illness , which precludes the legitimate encouragement process- in this context , we are essentially talking only about non-voluntary clients who are this way outside of any factors beyond their control and free will . With this fundamental understanding , it is possible to motivate non-voluntary clients to...