Evidence Based Social Work Practice in Mental Health
Social Work practitioners every day interact with individuals who are challenged by personal, societal, environmental barriers to life, and in amidst this face inequities and injustice as part of life (Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, 2011). It is the role of the social worker to use their therapeutic and facilitation skills to assess the clients risk and then work with the appropriate interventions in order to help promote social change for the individual and their family.
Within social work practice a single definition for the term assessment is not clearly available given different perspectives and ideologies undergirding different social work disciplines (Crisp, Anderson, Orme, & Lister, 2005). The literature however does indicate significant commonalities when discussing assessment across different authors (Cournoyer, 2000; Crisp et al., 2005; Dominelli, 2009; Holman, 1983; Meier, 2003; O'Connor, Wilson, & Setterlund, 1995; Parker & Bradley, 2003; Turner, 2002). These commonalities are encompassed in the work of Milner and O’Byrne (Milner & O'Byrne, 2002) which can be summarised as preparation, data collection, weighing the data, analysing the data and utilising the analysis when working with a specific client. A useful definition that we will use for the purposes of this essay is:
Assessment – the collection and processing of data to provide information for use in making decisions about the nature of the problem and what is to be done about it – is a cognitive, thinking process; it involves thinking about data that have been collected. The outcome of assessment is a service plan, which provides a definition of the problem for work, objectives or solutions to be achieved, and an action plan to accomplish the objectives (Comptom, Galaway, & Cournoyer, 2004, p. 134).
It would be fair to say that most practitioners cannot separate assessment from intervention and risk management. Assessment is in fact the pathway most
Within social work practice a single definition for the term assessment is not clearly available given different perspectives and ideologies undergirding different social work disciplines (Crisp, Anderson, Orme, & Lister, 2005). The literature however does indicate significant commonalities when discussing assessment across different authors (Cournoyer, 2000; Crisp et al., 2005; Dominelli, 2009; Holman, 1983; Meier, 2003; O'Connor, Wilson, & Setterlund, 1995; Parker & Bradley, 2003; Turner, 2002). These commonalities are encompassed in the work of Milner and O’Byrne (Milner & O'Byrne, 2002) which can be summarised as preparation, data collection, weighing the data, analysing the data and utilising the analysis when working with a specific client. A useful definition that we will use for the purposes of this essay is:
Assessment – the collection and processing of data to provide information for use in making decisions about the nature of the problem and what is to be done about it – is a cognitive, thinking process; it involves thinking about data that have been collected. The outcome of assessment is a service plan, which provides a definition of the problem for work, objectives or solutions to be achieved, and an action plan to accomplish the objectives (Comptom, Galaway, & Cournoyer, 2004, p. 134).
It would be fair to say that most practitioners cannot separate assessment from intervention and risk management. Assessment is in fact the pathway most