Week 10: Interventions With Adults

One of the most exciting and interesting aspects of social work is that the work you will do with your clients will be incredibly varied. Each client presents with a different situation, concern, and personality. The work you will do with individual adults could address mental health concerns (i.e., depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar), physical concerns (i.e., recent stroke, paralysis, disability), or substance abuse (i.e., alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine). These are just a few examples of the presenting issues your clients could bring to their meeting with you. Each meeting with a client will introduce new information for you to assess. During these meetings, it is imperative to review your capabilities, including cultural competence, and determine if you are the most qualified to work with these individuals. In the NASW Code of Ethics (2017), under responsibility to professionals, there is an expectation that you will provide competent social work. This includes keeping abreast of current research and developments in the field; learning new skills and honing existing ones; and only practicing with individuals who you are competent to assist.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Demonstrate skills for explaining trauma to a client
• Evaluate EBP interventions for a specific population and problem
• Apply culturally competent intervention strategies to a population or presenting problem

Learning Resources

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

Required Readings

Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen, S. M. (Eds.). (2014a). Sessions: case histories. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
The Levy Family (pp. 15–16)
Knight, C. (2015). Trauma-informed social work practice: Practice considerations and challenges. Clinical Social Work Journal, 43(1), 25-37.
Thyer, B. A. (2013). Intervention with adults. In M. J. Holosko, C. N. Dulmus, & K. M. Sowers (Eds.), Social work practice with individuals and families: Evidence-informed assessments and interventions (pp. 147–176). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Elliott, D. E., Bjelajac, P., Fallot, R. D., Markoff, L. S., & Reed, B. G. (2005). Trauma‐informed or trauma‐denied: Principles and implementation of trauma‐informed services for women. Journal of Community Psychology, 33(4), 461-477.

Required Media

Laureate Education (Producer). (2013b). Levy family: Episode 3 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Accessible player –Downloads–Download Video w/CCDownload AudioDownload TranscriptCredit: Provided courtesy of the Laureate International Network of Universities.

Optional Resources

Use this link to access the MSW home page, which provides resources for your social work program.

Discussion: Trauma

Trauma is ubiquitous. While trauma is most commonly associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, trauma can manifest in a myriad of different ways and not every client who experiences trauma will be diagnosed with PTSD. Social workers intervene directly with trauma when working in Veteran’s services, domestic violence/sexual assault response programs, and child protective services. Social workers also work with trauma indirectly when working in mental health, substance abuse services, schools, refugee resettlement, and other forms of social service. Whether or not you are directly treating a traumatic episode as the presenting problem, trauma will be present in the clinical space. 

In this Week’s Discussion, you will demonstrate your skills related to explaining trauma and intervention to a client. This will require you explain the concepts in a manner that is understandable to the developmental and educational level of the client. No need to solicit a volunteer to assist you. Position yourself as though the client is directly behind the camera lens. The goal is to show, not tell. In other words, you are expected to demonstrate rather than discuss your skills. You should role-play as if you were speaking directly to a client.

By Day 3

Submit a 4-5 minute video demonstrating your skills. In the role-play: 

• Ask one question that you would use to elicit information about a client’s trauma experience. [Assume a response and move to the next part of the skill demonstration]
• Explain to the client the effects of trauma generally and how trauma may be affecting the client specifically.
• Explain to the client what intervention(s) you would recommend and why.
• Explain the role you would take in any intervention given your scope of practice and to whom you would refer the client for additional intervention.

Include a transcript and/or edit closed captioning on your video to ensure your video is accessible to differing abilities. 

By Day 5

Respond to at least two colleagues in one of the following ways:

• Reflect on your experience viewing the skill demonstration from the position of the client.
• Describe insights you gained from your peer’s demonstration that you will use to improve your own skills.

Submission and Grading Information

Grading Criteria

To access your rubric:
Week 10 Discussion Rubric

Post by Day 3 and Respond by Day 5

To participate in this Discussion:
Week 10 Discussion

Final Project

Once you graduate and obtain your first job out of your Master of Social Work program, you may be asked to identify the gaps in services at your new agency. You may be asked to create a new group or help to identify a new evidence-based intervention that can be introduced to the clients. Understanding how to research the current literature, and then choose and evaluate an intervention, is an important component of being a successful social worker. For this course, you have researched new and interesting interventions that are currently being used with children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. Further, you have explored the importance of connecting theory to practice.

For this Assignment, use will practice steps in Evidence-Based Practice. 1) You will think of a practice problem. 2) You then conduct a literature review on available research. 3) You will evaluate the evidence to determine which intervention to use. 4) You will consider client values and your clinical expertise. 5) You will think about what you hope the client gains from this intervention (i.e., decreased depression, increased quality of life, decreased PTSD symptoms) and consider how you might measure this change.

To prepare:

• Choose a population of interest to you.

  Children
  Adolescents
  Adults
  Elderly/Aging

• Choose a presenting problem (depression, family conflict, homelessness, etc.) related to the population of interest.
• Conduct a literature review focused on the presenting problem within the population of interest.

By Day 7

Submit an 8- to 10-page scholarly paper supported with a minimum of six peer-reviewed articles as references. In the paper, you should:

• Briefly describe the population and presenting problem you are focusing on for this assignment.
• Provide a review of the articles you reviewed from this project and explain what you learned from conducting this research.
• Briefly describe at least 2 evidence-based interventions currently used for your chosen population when addressing this particular problem. Provide supporting references when explaining the evidence behind the interventions.
• Explain which of these interventions you might choose to use and why.

  Consider client values and your clinical expertise and how those might affect your decision of which intervention to use.

• Describe how you might apply the specific skills and techniques of the chosen intervention.
• Briefly explain how you could measure the outcomes of this intervention.
• Explain any cultural considerations that you need to take into account when working with this population or the particular presenting problem.
• Discuss how the Code of Ethics applies when working with this particular presenting problem and population.
• Explain how you would apply a trauma-informed lens when working with this population.

Support your Final Project with specific references to the resources. Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.

The Final Project will be evaluated according to the Final Project Rubric, located below and in the Course Information area.