Data Collection and Assessment

1
Data Collection and Assessment
2
Basic Concepts

• Data collection is the activity of securing the
  information needed to understand the practice
  situation as a prerequisite to formulating a plan
  of action.
• The worker should identify the subjective
  perceptions, assumptions, and beliefs regarding
  the situation held by the client, family members,
  teachers, employers, and perhaps even a referring
  agency.
• Assessment is the thinking process by which a
  worker reasons from the information gathered to
  arrive at tentative conclusions.

3
Basic Concepts

• The social worker should be able to describe the
  problem accurately and identify what needs to be
  changed to improve the clients situation.
• The best assessments are multidimensional.
• Social workers must guard against unconsciously
  making the clients situation fit a particular
  theory or a preconceived diagnostic category.

4
Techniques and Guidelines For Direct Practice

• Data-Collection activities that need to be
  considered
• Volitional the personal choices and decisions
  that shape ones life.
• Intellectual the ideas, knowledge, and beliefs
  used to understand oneself, others, and the
  world.
• Spiritual and religious ones deepest core
  beliefs concerning the meaning and purpose of
  life.
• Moral and ethical ones standards of right and
  wrong.

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Techniques and Guidelines For Direct Practice

• Data-Collection activities (continued)
• Emotional ones feelings and moods.
• Physical ones level of energy, ease and
  capacity for movement.
• Sexuality ones sexual identity and
  orientation, libido, capacity for reproduction.
• Familial relationships with ones parents,
  siblings, spouse, partner, children, and
  relatives.
• Social interactions with friends and peers,
  ones social support network, ones interest in
  recreational activities.

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Techniques and Guidelines For Direct Practice

• Data-Collection Activities (continued)
• Community ones sense of belonging to a group
  beyond family and friends.
• Work/occupation the nature of ones work.
• Economic ones material resources ones
  capacity to secure the money needed to purchase
  goods and services.
• Legal ones rights, responsibilities,
  protections and entitlements as a citizen.

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Techniques and Guidelines For Direct Practice

• Modes of data collection
• Direct verbal questioning.
• Direct written questioning.
• Indirect or projective verbal questioning.
• Indirect or projective written questioning.
• Observation of the client in the clients natural
  environment.
• Observation of the client in a simulated
  situation (role playing).
• Client self-monitoring and self-observations
  (journals and logs).
• The use of existing documents.

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Techniques and Guidelines For Direct Practice

• Assessment activities requires developing a tool
  that combines data collection with a format that
  facilitates interpretation.
• Particular attention needs to be given to
  assessing client strengths.
• Value preferences affect assessments.
• There must be clarity as to who is the client and
  who will be the target system.
• Diagnosis means the clients problem, condition,
  or situation is classified and assigned to a
  particular category.

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Social Assessment Report

• A social assessment report is a type of
  professional report frequently prepared by social
  workers in direct practice that focuses on and
  describes the social aspects of the clients
  functioning and their situation.
• Social workers are particularly concerned about
  the match between client needs and the resources
  available to meet those needs.
• Past behavior is the best predictor of future
  behavior.

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Social Assessment Report

• A social assessment report presents the reader
  with two types of information
• The social data, consisting of facts and
  observations.
• The workers interpretation of those data along
  with implications of the data for those who will
  work with the client.
• The information presented should lay a foundation
  for doing something with the client about their
  problem or situation.

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Social Assessment Report

• A good report is characterized by these
  qualities
• Shortness
• Clarity and simplicity
• Usefulness
• Organization (including)
• Identifying information
• Reason for report
• Reason for social work or agency
• Statement of problem or situation
• Statement of family background
• Physical functioning, health concerns, illness,
  disabilities, medications

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Social Assessment Report

• Characteristics (continued)
• Organization (continued)
• Educational background, school performance,
  intellectual functioning
• Psychological and emotional functioning
• Strengths, ways of coping, and problem solving
  capacities
• Employment, income, work experience and skills
• Housing, neighborhood, and transportation
• Current and recent use of community and
  professional resources
• Social workers impressions and assessment
• Intervention and service plan

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Social Assessment Report

• Characteristics (continued)
• Confidentiality and client access (remember to
  respect the clients privacy).
• Objectivity observations should be expressed in
  a nonjudgmental manner.
• Relevance The information should have a clear
  connection between the clients concern and the
  social workers involvement.
• Focus on client strengths Avoid preoccupation
  with pathology, family disorganization, personal
  weakness, and limitation.

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Dual Perspective

• One of social works unique contributions is its
  emphasis on understanding the client within the
  context of their environment.
• A persons social environment is comprised of two
  elements
• The nurturing environment is composed of family,
  friends, and close associates at work or school.
• The sustaining environment is made up of the
  people one encounters and learns to deal with in
  the wider community

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Dual Perspective

• Special concern during the assessment phase of
  the change process is the question of whether an
  intervention should be directed toward elements
  of the nurturing environment or toward the
  sustaining environment.
• The concepts of a nurturing and a sustaining
  environment can be translated into a simple
  assessment tool for identifying the location of
  both the supports and problems a person
  experiences in the social environment.

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Genograms and Ecomapping

• A genogram is a diagram similar to a family tree.
  It describes family relationships for two or
  three generations.
• An ecomap places an individual or a family within
  a social context by using circles to represent
  organizations or factors impacting their lives.
• An ecomap is developed jointly by the social
  worker and client and helps both to view the
  family from a systems or ecological perspective.

17
Social Support Assessment

• Social support refers to the information,
  encouragement, and tangible assistance that if
  offered to a person, by others, and is perceived
  by the person as being beneficial to their
  functioning.
• Social supports are a component of ones larger
  social network those individuals and groups
  with which they interact on a regular basis.
• To help clients make appropriate and effective
  use of social supports, it is necessary to engage
  them in identification and assessment of
  potential social supports.

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Social Support Assessment

• This assessment do not objectively describe the
  clients support but rather reflect the clients
  perceptions and beliefs.
• The social worker engages the client in a
  discussion of how the client might reach out to
  and use identified social supports.
• Whether the supports are likely resources will
  depend on the nature of the clients problem or
  needs and the clients willingness to use them.

19
Life History Grid

• The life history grid is a method of organizing
  and presenting data related to the various
  periods in a clients life.
• The grid is especially useful in work with
  children and adolescents, where an understanding
  of life experiences during a particular stage of
  development may shed light on current functioning.

20
Life Cycle Matrix

• An assessment should consider the clients stage
  in the life cycle and the developmental tasks
  common to that stage.
• The use of a matrix can help the social worker
  organize thoughts about the family members and
  the physical, psychological, social, and
  spiritual needs associated with a particular
  stage of life.
• Within a family system, the developmental
  struggles of one member may interfere with the
  developmental tasks and crises faced by another.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• A client strength can be defined as an important,
  positive, and prosocial action or activity that
  the client is doing, can do, or wants to do.
• To be successful, an intervention must be built
  on and around client strengths.
• Focusing on client strengths requires a paradigm
  shift a whole new way of thought and analysis.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Examples of individual strengths
• Assuming responsibility for ones actions.
• Taking reasonable risks in order to made needed
  changes.
• Demonstrating loyalty and a sense of duty to
  family, relatives, and friends.
• Showing affection, compassion, and concern for
  others demonstrating a willingness to forgive
  others.
• Assisting and encouraging others protecting
  others from harm.
• Seeking employment, holding a job, being
  responsible employee, meeting ones financial
  obligations.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Individual strengths (continue)
• Exercising self control and making thoughtful
  decisions and plans choosing not to engage in
  problem or self-defeating behavior.
• Being trustworthy, fair, and honest is dealing
  with others.
• Experiencing true and appropriate sorrow and
  guilt making amends for having harmed others.
• Seeking to understand others and their situations
  and accepting differences among people.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Individual strengths (continue)
• Willingness to keep trying despite hardship and
  setback.
• Participating in social, community, or religious
  organizations and working to improve ones own
  neighborhood and community.
• Expressing ones point of view and standing up
  for ones own rights and the rights of others.
• Making constructive use of special abilities and
  aptitudes.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Important family strengths include
• Members trust, respect, and enjoy each other.
• Members listen to and respect each others
  opinions even when they disagree.
• Their communication is clear, positive, and
  productive.
• The family has clear and reasonable rules that
  govern behavior and interaction.
• Each members ideas, preferences, and needs are
  considered before making a decision that would
  affect the family.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Building on client strengths may require looking
  at a clients problems from a different angle.
• Another way of orienting your approach to one
  that recognizes and builds on client strengths is
  to operate on the assumption that within all
  people, there are innate tendencies toward
  psychological health and prosocial behavior.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Guidelines to help the worker maintain a focus on
  strengths
• Believe the client.
• Display an interest is strengths.
• Assume that the client is an expert on their
  behavior, life, and situation, and knows best
  what will work in a change effort or treatment
  plan.
• View the assessment and the service planning
  process as joint worker-client activity.
• Assess but do not diagnose.

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Identifying Client Strengths

• Guidelines (continue)
• Avoid discussions of blame and what the client or
  others should or should not have done previously.
• Assume that within the clients family, social
  network, and community there is an oasis of
  potential resources, both formal and informal,
  that can be drawn into the helping process.
• Formulate an intervention plan that is specific
  and individualized to the client and their
  situation.

29
Expanding a Clients Vision of Changes That Are
Possible

• The principles of solution-focused therapy is to
  help the client detail descriptions of those
  times and situations when the problem did not
  have such strong negative effects on their
  functioning and also to encourage the client to
  imagine how they would think, feel, and behave if
  the problem would suddenly disappear.

30
Expanding a Clients Vision of Changes That Are
Possible

• Techniques to implement changes
• Exploring exceptions refers to a type of
  questioning intended to help the client realize
  that there are times or situations when the
  problem is less frequent or less intense.
• Scaling questions is designed to help the client
  realize that the seriousness and the impact of a
  problem varies over time and also that bringing
  about desirable change is a matter of taking many
  small steps, rather than making some large and
  sudden shift in functioning.

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Expanding a Clients Vision of Changes That Are
Possible

• Techniques to implement changes (cont.)
• The miracle question encourages the client to
  visualize and describe what their life would be
  like without the problem.
• Suggestions for asking the miracle question
• Mark the beginning of the solution-building
  process clearly and dramatically, by introducing
  the miracle question as unusual or strange.
• Since the question asks for a description of the
  future, use future-directed words What would be
  different? What will be signs of the miracle?

32
Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• A coping strategy is a fairly deliberate and
  conscious effort to solve a problem or handle
  personal distress.
• An ego defense mechanisms is a habitual or
  unconscious problem-avoiding maneuver.
• Coping strategies have two functions
• To solve a problem (task-focused coping).
• To reduce the emotional discomfort cause by
  stressors (emotion-focused coping).

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Emotion-focused coping strategies
• Crying
• Talking it out
• Laughing it off
• Seeking support
• Dreaming and nightmares (a common reaction to
  traumatic experiences.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Task-focused strategies consist of deliberate and
  rational actions that will likely bring about
  changes in ones functioning, ones environment,
  or both.
• Good task-focused strategies will be capable of
  achieving these tasks
• Express thoughts and feelings in a clear,
  positive, and assertive manner.
• Ask questions and gather new information, even
  when the new information may challenge current
  beliefs.
• Identify ones personal needs and learn socially
  acceptable means of meeting those needs.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Task focused strategies (continue)
• Model ones behavior after persons who behave in
  an effective and responsible manner.
• Recognize that one does have choices and can
  exert influence on ones own behavior, feelings,
  and life events.
• cuts ones losses and withdraw from
  relationships or situations that are unhealthy or
  stressful and unchangeable.
• Examine the religious and spiritual dimension of
  life and draw on ones beliefs for insight,
  strength, and direction.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Task-focused strategies (continue)
• Identify early signs or indicators of a
  developing problem so action can be taken before
  the problem becomes serious.
• Take positive and appropriate steps to solve
  problems even when such actions are a source of
  fear and anxiety.
• Release pent-up emotion in ways that do not
  verbally or physically harm self or others.
• Take care of ones body and maintain ones
  health.

37
Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Task-focused strategies (continue)
• Delay immediate gratification in order to stick
  with a plan that will attain a more distant but
  desired goal.
• Use mental images of future actions or events to
  mentally rehearse how to handle anticipated
  difficulties.
• Make fair and appropriate changes in ones daily
  activities of living so as not to interfere with
  the needs of others.
• Ignore unjustified criticism by others and remove
  ones self from situations that lead to
  self-defeating or harmful outcomes.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• If the assessment reveals that a client lacks
  necessary coping strategies, the intervention
  plan should focus on helping the client learn
  specific coping skills.
• Defense mechanisms are automatic psychological
  processes that protect the individual against
  anxiety and from awareness of internal or
  external stressors or dangers. (DSM-IV
  definition).

39
Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Defense mechanisms are used to cope with anxiety,
  stress, and the problems of living.
• Defensiveness impairs a persons ability to
  accurately perceive reality and get along with
  others.
• The rigid or excessive use of defenses is a
  barrier to realistic problem solving.
• High levels of defensiveness and distortions of
  reality are characteristic of disturbed
  personalities.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Ego defenses
• Denial screens out certain realities by refusing
  to acknowledge them.
• Rationalization involves the justification of
  inappropriate behavior by manufacturing logical
  or socially acceptable reasons for the behavior.
• Denial and rationalization are predominant
  defenses used by people who are chemically
  dependent.
• Projection views others as being responsible for
  ones own shortcomings or unacceptable behavior.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Ego Defenses (continue)
• Repression refers to a mental process in which
  extremely threatening and painful thoughts or
  experiences are excluded from consciousness.
• Emotional insulation is a maneuver aimed at
  withholding an emotional investment in a desired
  but unlikely outcome. Used commonly by persons
  who have grown up in extreme deprivation.
• Intellectualization involves the use of
  abstractions as a way of distancing ones self
  from emotional pain.
• Regression involves a retreat from ones present
  level of maturity to one that has fewer demands
  and stressors. Common among physically ill
  persons who are experiencing fear or pain.

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Ego defenses (continue)
• Reaction formation is utilized when a person
  defends against troublesome thoughts, feelings,
  or impulses by rigidly adhering to exactly the
  opposite set of thoughts and feelings.
• Displacement refers to transferring troublesome
  emotions (often hostility) and acting-out
  behaviors (violence) from the person who arouses
  the emotion to another less threatening and less
  powerful person or thing.
• Fantasy refers to a person who daydreams
  imaginary achievements and pleasant situations as
  a way of meeting personal needs or counteracting
  painful feelings of inadequacy.
• Acting out is a pattern of thought and behavior
  designed to alleviate stress and inner conflict
  (not a true ego defense).

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Coping Strategies and Ego Defenses

• Guidelines to assist the social worker in
  assessing and responding to a clients defense
  mechanisms
• You must look behind the surface behavior and
  identify and address the unmet needs and pain
  that cause the client to rely on the defense
  mechanism.
• Defenses are mostly learned and habitual an
  individual tends to utilize those defenses they
  have used in the past.
• People hold tightly to their defensive patterns
• It can be difficult to tell where a true
  description leaves off and rationalization begins

44
Assessing a Clients Role Performance

• The concept of social role derives from the
  observation that within a societys structure and
  institutions, certain behaviors are expected of
  persons simply because of a particular status or
  position they occupy in the society.
• Role expectation suggests that for a given role,
  there is a cluster of behaviors that are deemed
  appropriate and acceptable by a reference group
  or by society as a whole.
• Role conception refers to an individuals
  personal beliefs and assumptions about how they
  are supposed to behave in a particular role.

45
Assessing a Clients Role Performance

• An individuals actual behavior while performing
  a role is termed their role performance.
• In order to successfully perform a given role, an
  individual must possess certain knowledge,
  skills, physical and mental abilities, known as
  role demands.
• Inter-role conflict refers to an incompatibility
  or clash between two or more roles.
• Intra-role conflict exists when a person is
  caught up in a situation where two or more set of
  expectations are assigned to a single role.

46
Assessing a Clients Role Performance

• Role incapacity exists when an individual cannot
  adequately perform a role.
• Role rejection occurs when an individual refuses
  to perform a role.
• Role ambiguity exist when there are few clear
  expectations associated with a role.
• Self-role incongruence exists when there is
  little overlap between the requirements of a role
  and the individuals personality.
• Role overload exists when a person occupies more
  roles than they can perform adequately.

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Assessing a Clients Role Performance

• Questions can help the social worker analyze
  problems of role performance and make decisions
  concerning the type of intervention needed.
• What is the nature and degree of the discrepancy
  between actual performance and role expectation?
• Is the discrepancy caused by a lack of knowledge
  or skill?
• If the discrepancy is caused by a lack of
  knowledge and skill, how best can the problem be
  addressed?
• If the discrepancy is caused by rejection or a
  lack of interest in the role, how can the problem
  be addressed?

48
Assessing a Clients Self-Concept

• The term self refers to that private world of
  perceptions and thoughts that each of us has
  about ourselves and our life experience.
• This sense of self is of critical importance to
  our social functioning because how we respond to
  others and to events is strongly influenced by
  how we think and feel about ourselves.
• Self-identity is how we define and describe
  ourselves to ourselves and differentiate
  ourselves from other people.

49
Assessing a Clients Self-Concept

• Self-efficacy has to do with our feelings of
  being competent and effective and in control of
  our lives.
• Self-worth (self-esteem) refers to our evaluation
  of our own value or adequacy as human beings.
• Self-acceptance can be thought of as the degree
  to which we are satisfied and at peace with our
  qualities and attributes, assets and limitations.
• Body image refers to our perceptions and
  evaluations of our own body and physical
  appearance.

50
Assessing a Clients Self-Concept

• To a large degree, ones sense of self is formed
  during early childhood but experiences during
  adolescence also exert a strong influence.
• A persons sense of self ones inner self- is
  an element of spirituality meaning that deeply
  personal thoughts and core beliefs have much to
  do with the meanings we assign to our lives and
  life experiences.

51
Assessing a Clients Self-Concept

• To draw out this type of information, the social
  worker can ask questions that are organized
  around five common emotions
• Who and what do you love?
• Who and what have you lost?
• Who and what do you fear?
• How have you been hurt in life?
• Whom have you hurt?

52
Assessing Family Functioning

• A family will be defined as a group of persons
  related by biological ties, a legal relationship,
  and/or expectations of long-term loyalty and
  commitment, often comprising at least two
  generations and usually inhabiting one household.
• Furthermore, some of the adults of this group
  must have the intention and the capacity to carry
  out all or most of the activities or functions
  common to a family.

53
Assessing Family Functioning

• As people create or join a new family, they tend
  to repeat the behavioral patterns they learned in
  the family of origin
• When people live together for an extended period,
  their interactions become habitual.
• Once the patterns are well established, the
  tendency is for family members to preserve the
  status quo and repeat that which is familiar,
  even when there are obvious problems in the
  familys functioning.

54
Assessing Family Functioning

• The social worker should keep in mind these
  questions when gathering information about a
  familys functioning
• How is family membership defined?
• What facts and realities describe the family?
• Is family functioning supported by the community?
• How well are family functions performed?
• What are the boundaries, subsystems, rules, and
  roles governing family interaction?
• How well does each member fit within the family
  system?

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Assessing Family Functioning

• Questions on family functioning (cont.)
• What are the moral and ethical dimensions of the
  familys functioning.
• What aspects of life are considered beyond human
  control?
• How does the family make decisions?
• What is the mood of the family?
• How do family members handle differentness?
• How clearly do family member communicate their
  own expectations and needs?
• What communication patterns exist within the
  family?

56
Assessing Family Functioning

• Questions (continue)
• Do family members allow other members to get
  close emotionally?
• To what tasks and activities do the adults and
  older children devote their time?
• What are the interpersonal payoffs of troublesome
  behavior?
• Who supports and who opposes change?

57
Multiworker Family Assessment Interviews

• Purpose is to secure an understanding of how each
  family member views the familys presenting
  problem or concern by utilizing more than one
  social worker during family interviews.
• Benefits
• A great deal of information is gathered.
• Family members feel they have been listened and
  understood.
• Consultants are now available to the primary
  social worker.

58
The ABC Model and the Behavior Matrix

• Tools employed to achieve greater precision in
  the observation and analysis of client behavior.
• ABC model the A stands for antecedent, B for
  behavior, and C for consequences.
• Behavior Matrix is an observational tool that is
  comprised of three cells that is designed to
  collect data based on the social workers
  observations of positive and negative behavior
  patterns.
• Both tools are utilized to modify behavior.

59
Using Questionnaires, Checklists, and Vignettes

• A problem-checklist is a data-collection tool
  designed to help the client identify and state
  their concerns.
• The checklist serves as an educational tool.
• The purpose of a questionnaire is to help clients
  quickly identify problem areas to be addressed by
  the social worker.
• A vignette is a brief story to which the client
  is asked to respond.

60
Using Questionnaires, Checklists and Vignettes

• Social workers underutilize these aids in their
  data collection.
• In developing your own tools consider
• Be clear about the purpose to be served by the
  tool.
• The completion of the questionnaire should be a
  relatively easy task.
• The writing of questions requires knowledge of
  possible responses by clients to certain types of
  questions.
• Each question should focus on a single idea.
• Sequence of questions should follow a logical
  order.
• A pretest should be used to determine whether
  clients can understand all items in the tool, can
  complete it in a reasonable amount of time, and
  the data obtained is useful.