Helping Skills For Human Service Workers

This updated and expanded fourth edition continues the theme of the previous edition emphasizing the current supporting research towards the building of relationships, and encouraging productive change between human service workers and their clients. The text arranged the chapters in the following manner: Chapter 1 discusses several basic issues regarding the development and use of helping skills. Chapter 2 explores common modes of response. Chapter 3 encounters several ingredients that foster positive relationships. Chapter 4 presents a step-by-step approach to problem solving. Chapter 5 examines responses that can detract from efforts made. Chapter 6 presents a straightforward approach to establishing goals, objectives, and plans. Chapter 7 describes channels of nonverbal information and commonly encountered nonverbal messages. Chapter 8 highlights endeavors that take center stage before, during, and after scheduled appointments. Chapter 9 considers the needs of several groups such as children and older persons, clients having low socioeconomic status, individuals experiencing psychosis and longstanding issues, and other individuals. New and supporting research for the following topics are included: the helping alliance; client feedback; communication; self-efficacy and stress in helping skills students; responding to negative feelings; methods for implementing plans; person-centered decision making that is required by law (under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) for certain older and disabled individuals; gender; cultural heritage; and ethnicity. In addition, there are multiple-choice questions, as well as short-answer and fill-in-the-response items. Two complete client interviews are included, which will illustrate the value of the skills demonstrated with the person being interviewed. The text is further enhanced by an appendix offering numerous tools such as exercises and forms. This informative book is designed for human resource professionals, counselors, social workers, and other related helping professionals.

If building relationships and encouraging productive change are enterprises you wish to learn, this book is for you. In this new edition, previously titled SUPPORTIVE INTERVIEWING IN HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS, all of the material has been updated with regard to supporting research. The basic system that is presented is simple and straightforward, enabling the reader to keep in mind the fundamental concepts and allowing for the freedom to be flexible, spontaneous, creative, and natural. To increase the reader's understanding, the chapters have been arranged in the following order: Chapter 1 discusses several basic issues regarding the development and use of helping skills. Chapter 2 explores common modes of response. In Chapter 3, several ingredients are provided that foster positive relationships. Chapter 4 presents a step-by-step approach to problem solving. Chapter 5 examines responses that can detract from your efforts. In Chapter 6, a straightforward approach is presented to establishing goals, objectives, and plans. Chapter 7 describes channels of nonverbal information and commonly encountered nonverbal messages. Chapter 8 highlights endeavors that take center stage before, during, and after scheduled appointments. And Chapter 9 considers the needs of several groups: children, older persons, clients having low socioeconomic status, psychotic individuals, and persons experiencing long-standing issues. It will be appropriate for use by human service workers such as social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, counselors and others. Performance in any of these arenas, and a host of others, can be enhanced by the communication skills taught in this book.

In this exceptional new sixth edition, the author has retained the practical framework for offering immediate problem-solving assistance to persons in crisis. Therefore, the goal of this updated and expanded edition is to provide knowledge and methods applicable to particular crisis circumstances. Specific topics include: core concepts that are fundamental to all intervention efforts, crisis theory and the philosophy of crisis intervention, basic communication and problem-solving skills, suicide prevention, assistance for terminally ill persons, bereavement counseling, intervention with crime victims, rape counseling, negotiating with armed perpetrators, group strategies, family and marital interventions, disaster relief, case management, physical facilities, modes of contact, community relations, selection, training, and burnout prevention procedures. The handbook also details a review of the research on crisis intervention and how individual intervenors can build upon that knowledge. Numerous case examples presented in the handbook (with fictitious names) are based on actual occurrences the author has encountered. The techniques in this book are applicable to crisis centers, hotlines, Internet-based services, victim-assistance programs, college counseling centers, hospitals, schools, correctional facilities, children and youth programs, and other human service settings. The Study Questions at the end of each chapter are designed to serve as useful applications of crisis intervention theories and principles. Intended for caregivers whose work involves crisis intervention efforts, this is an informative resource for counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, physicians, clergy, correctional officers, parole and probation officers, and lay volunteers.

Now in its second Canadian edition, this text is a comprehensive guide to the practical skills used in social work and human services professions at the individual, group, team, organizational, and community levels. Featuring a wealth of Canadian examples and activities, this text integratestheory and practice to help students build real-world skills for their future careers.

Helping children, disabled people, the unemployed, the elderly or homeless people can be inspiring work. However you can only help other people effectively if you understand your role clearly and know how to navigate the organisation in which you work. Professional Practice in Human Service Organisations examines what it means to be a professional in human service work, and how to develop excellence in professional practice. Making explicit what is often held as tacit knowledge in day to day practice, the authors explain the dynamics of human service organisations. They outline the challenges worker can face in caring for vulnerable people while at the same time fulfilling expectations of management and funding bodies. They explain the importance of understanding the complex networks of service delivery systems, including the role of information technology. They also examine how workers can maintain professional relations with clients, colleagues and other workers by developing skills in advocacy and in handling conflict, complaints and ethical dilemmas. Professional Practice in Human Service Organisations is essential reading for practitioners new to roles in social work, community work, youth work and related fields.

This concise, useful guide introduces the necessary basic skills helpers need to effectively support and guide persons who need assistance from social services systems. A 'must read' for human services workers, students, and volunteers, this book provides key information, values, and skills needed to be an effective helper. The authors cover topics such as helping persons living with HIV, working with persons with mental illness, and taking care of oneself. Authors Cynthia Poindexter, Deborah Valentine, and Patricia Conway present an eclectic approach and provide useful information for students taking an introductory course in human services or interviewing or for professional facilitators teaching groups of helpers.

This book offers for the first time a clear conception of what social support networks are, why they are important, how they are identified and sustained, where they fit in an overall framework of human services, and their limits and potential in selected fields of practice. Individual chapters explore: child, adolescent, and family services; daycare and early childhood development; divorced and stepfamilies; schools; delinquency prevention and treatment; mental health; service to the elderly; development disabilities; healthcare and health promotion; and drug treatment. The use of social support networks--extended family, friends, neighbors, and other "informal" helpers--is an idea whose time has come in the human services field. At a time when spiraling costs and popular sentiment weigh against any major expansion of services, it is apparent that a service strategy based primarily on the notion of professional helping delivered on a case-by-case basis, usually in a one-to-one relationship, has serious limitations. Professional response to this major work has been uniformly positive: "[The editors] have assembled a book of considerable importanceà brilliant in both scholarship and constructionà will appeal to a broad readershipà "--Gerald Euster, University of South Carolina. "à offers a much needed balance to the focus on individual and internal dynamics which has characterized social work education for several decades."--Eleanor Reardon Tolson, University of Chicago. "Social Support Networks is a valuable contributionà a unique, original, and authoritative book...an exciting, timely, and definitely practice-oriented book with a strong theoretical and research base."--Anthony N. Maluccio, University of Connecticut. James K. Whittaker is professor of social work at the University of Washington. A former childcare worker, therapist, and administrator in residential childcare, he has been a consultant to governmental and voluntary children's agencies throughout the United States. James Garbarino is Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. He was president of the Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, Chicago, Illinois, from 1985 to 1994. He is the co-author of Troubled Youth, Troubled Families, also available from AldineTransaction.

Skills for Human Service Practice: Working with Individuals, Groups and Communities, 2e, comprehensively covers contemporary practice skills used in social work and other human service professions across a variety of contexts.