Developing Your Communication Skills In Social Work

A step-by-step guide to developing effective communication skills with a diverse range of service users and professionals.

Effective communication is a vital part of the social worker's job. This welcome new edition of a classic text provides students and practitioners with essential advice and guidance about communicating and interacting in a range of social work settings. Based on the author's extensive personal and teaching experience, the text offers a succint introduction to a variety of communication techniques, including symbolic, non-verbal, verbal, written and electronic forms of communication. Importantly, it discusses the perspectives of service users and explores their experiences and interpretations of how a social worker looks, acts and speaks, thus giving a real insight into the implicit messages being conveyed. New to this edition are Putting it into Practice activities and further reading suggestions, designed to support learning and understanding and to enable readers to reflect critically for practice. Written in an appealing narrative style that cannot fail to draw the reader in, Communication in Social Work is an engaging and comprehensive book suitable both for social work and social care students and for newly qualified practitioners wanting to refresh their thinking and skills.

Are your students struggling to get to grips with what social work actually looks like in real-life practice? Are they wanting to know more about how they can develop the right skills and implement the right theory in many different practice situations? Then you have come to the right place! This book will provide your students with everything they need to know and more, helping them develop and hone their skills and make the best start in their practice placements. To get the most out of this book and access more materials to support them through their social work degree, visit the companion website at https://www.study.sagepub.com/rogers to read journal articles, access ‘how to..’ guides and helpful links, as well as hear first-hand from frontline social workers, services users, carers and more.

Communication and Interpersonal Skills in Social Work are at the heart of effective social work practice. This book offers students a solid grounding in the core knowledge and skills of communication needed for effective practice. The book takes the key theories in communication and explains them in a systematic and practice-related way, essential for both undergraduate and postgraduate students to develop a critical understanding of the subject. This crucial fifth edition supports students with core communication skills by providing in-depth coverage closely interwoven with learning features that engage, stimulate and challenge. Working with children, adults and those with learning difficulties are all fundamental aspects of the book making it useful to students of all disciplines.

This book gives students a solid understanding of the key issues involved in effective communication within social work settings. Now going into its second edition, it combines practical examples with a clear theoretical approach and demonstrates the subtleties of communication with specific and diverse service users and carers.

This book supports and develops the communication and interviewing skills of professional practitioners and student practitioners in social work, counselling, and the health professions. Combining work on personal and social constructs, the search for meaning, and ecological theory, this book both provides an integrated discussion of practice and presents a balanced approach when discussing psychological, biological, and social influences on individual well-being. Furthermore, it emphasises the influence of social contexts on behaviour and well-being, as well as valuing and encouraging the application of practitioners’ prior experience and learning (APEL) to new knowledge and understanding. Containing a range of practice examples to stimulate learning, this book promotes a collaboration between the professions, and welcomes the contributions of people who use services, patients, and clients. Communication and Interviewing Skills for Practice in Social Work, Counselling and the Health Professions will be of interest to all undergraduate and postgraduate social work students, as well as new and experienced professional health care practitioners.

· In what ways is counselling relevant to contemporary social work? · How do counselling skills integrate with social work roles and responsibilities? This book examines these skills and their applicability, drawing from social work and counselling theories and methods using clear, practical examples. Skills are discussed with reference to social work knowledge and values illustrating how, when used competently, contextually and sensitively they can appropriately underpin good social work practice. Questions and activities for self development are linked to the practices discussed. This new edition ofCounselling Skills in Social Work Practicehas been thoroughly revised to reflect the National Occupational Standards for social work which identify the importance of communication skills and a developmental understanding of people in their social contexts. The chapters are linked to the six key roles for social work practice. This book builds on the strengths of the first edition, as well as addressing the challenges of practice in relevant legislative and policy contexts. The book includes: · Evidence of how the competencies which underpin counselling practice are directly transferable to effective social work practice · Practical advice on communication skills · Examples of how to build effective working relationships; a whole chapter is now devoted to the specific skills required for working within inter-agency and multi-disciplinary teams This book is key reading on the subject of ethical and effective social work for those teaching, studying or practising in the field.

This book explores: · What is meant by communication skills · What communication skills are · What they look like in practice · The differences in communicating with service users and professionals, such as children, guardians, peers and emergency workers · Why they are important It includes a wide range of theories, multiple case studies, reflective tasks, and exercises. It will develop your critical thinking and reflection skills, and help you develop your own communication style. Presented in a chronological style which acts as a working tool that you can dip into and out of. Each chapter is structured in a way that encourages you to build on your knowledge, so it begins by taking you right back to basics to learn core theory and practice techniques before getting you to critically reflect on the use of different skills in different settings and with different service user groups. The end-of-chapter skills audits help you to reflect on what you have learnt, what your strengths are and what you need to work on more.