Social Work 8888

The readings this week on reflective listening really make me think about my previous role as a mental health practitioner at a residential facility and my current role as a case manager working with children. Most of us work under organizations and follow their rules and policies. However I feel that these rules and policies are not client centered. As a practitioner I would continually work with my clients to bring about change so that they can reach goals and go back out into the community and live productive lives. I honestly did not use motivational interviewing techniques because I was not trained on them. Many organizations that work with clients diagnosed with severe and persistent mental illness do not train their staff enough on reflective listening or motivational interviewing.
In the Hohman article it was stated that there are four principles in motivational interviewing. The first one is to express empathy; “accurate empathy is achieved through reflective listening”. I feel that this is a great point and empathy has worked great for me when I have worked with Somali clients. The second principle is to develop discrepancy between the client’s behaviors and their goals. The third is to roll with resistance. This principle is interesting because we as social workers want change for our clients and a lot of the times they are not ready for that change so they engage in resisting behaviors. The last and most important principle is to support self-sufficiency. We as social workers give our clients hope and confidence that they reach their goals. To me this is what social workers do they affirm clients successes and strengths to help them achieve change.
I really enjoyed the article on racial micro-aggressions. Reading this article I think about growing up in the US as a Somali Muslim woman and the types of micro-aggressions I faced personally and professionally. Growing up as a teenager I experienced many micro-assault situations. For example people