Critical Incident Analysis : Critical Accident Analysis

Social Work is a helping profession that strives to help the community on micro, mezzo, and macro levels. It is an investment of self to offer services and help to those in need. Areas of service can include, but are not limited to, traumatic situations, family situations, and child protection. As in most social service professions, the field of social work can often times take a toll on the emotional and physical stability of a social worker. One side effect from working in a helping profession is compassion fatigue. As a result, the National Association of Social Workers stresses the importance of self-care and its vitality in ensuring the social worker does not get burnt out by the profession.

Group work is important in social work as it promotes understanding of the social contexts of people’s lives and identifies strengths of the oppressed to pursue social change (Dominelli 2008).

With a master 's level education in social work, I see myself envisioning clients’ health and well-being. As a student, I will study and practice techniques, beyond a generalist perspective, that will allow me to give clients hope and the ability to see something greater than what they are facing. Upon completion of a Master of Social Work direct practice degree and certificates in gerontology and mental health programs, I intend to become a licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I will competently incorporate specialized skills in different professional settings while developing my knowledge of a wide range of social issues and professional standards. With commitment, I wish to develop skills that will enable me to create or find hidden resources and services for my future clients, create platforms through counselling for victims of trauma.

PART B: FIRST MARKER COMMENTS – to identify strength, weakness and specific action required.Name 1st Marker ______________________________________ Date

Experiencing hardships and my resilience to overcome them is the main reason I chose to pursue a Master’s of Social Work (MSW) degree. My familiarity with asking for resources, as a former foster youth, a number of my interactions involved social workers. I utilized resources as a transition aged youth; and I believe it was those same resources that kept me focused on my future and school. I became homeless at eighteen years of age and it was transitional housing, through The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that gave me hope and direction.

Social workers deal with intense situations daily. It is important that social workers are aware of how they are affected by these interactions. Priscilla Dass-Brailsford explains in her book, that countertransference, vicarious trauma (VT), secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue and satisfaction, and burnout are all different ways that counselors can be affected (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). This is where it is important for social workers to have a plan of self-care and stress management resources to use.

In this paper I will identify the need for the group that was chosen. Part of the discussion will concentrate on the three key values used in the group approach with this population. The other will address models and theories of group practice, and the approach used by this group. The paper will also look at the key challenges or obstacles in group interventions with this population. Using the worksheet planning guide for social work group’s eight headings will be discussed. Briefly the readings from the course syllabus will be used in the development plan and incorporated in the paper will be the plans for an initial group session. Based on the skills inventory three critical skills will be addressed. Lastly a critique of a proposed group will be conducted.

Should law enforcement agencies have a written policy or guidelines related to post-incident video viewing?

Prior to the July 1, 2015, CIRP meeting, Deputy Brown’s PPI record reflected he “shall be temporarily removed from the field until completion of the Critical Incident Review process,” under case number SP 2380864. The same special condition record was in Brown’s PPI record at the time of his third shooting. It appears there could be some type of liability, based upon the perception that the Sheriff’s Department continued to permit Brown to work field duties (the term “field duties” not currently defined) when his PPI record reflected otherwise.

As social workers, we want to learn about how to develop a mutual aid group together. Our group chose to do this in a mutual aid group focused on managing stress, as well as recording group process and development. This group analysis and reflection paper will be based on the description of the participants as well as identifying, describing, and explaining the analyzing of the group processes and key concepts. Included will also be a facilitator’s reflection from my behalf of the third session of the mutual aid group.

Catastrophic incidents are uncommon but devastating when they occur, so planning to respond to these incidents is a critical DHS responsibility. Whether naturally occurring or man-made, a catastrophic incident will require similar efforts across the Department. Furthermore, there will be “cascading” or second-order effects that will require risk management. Regardless, the magnitude of an incident will put extraordinary demands on the Department.

Social work is one of the approaches in assisting people to adjust to society with its complex rules and structures, while it involves individuals and groups that struggle to survive. According to Rogers (2013), social work is not simple due to a variety of challenges, the human behavior being one of the most serious ones, as people do not have straightforward problems. In this respect, analysis and application of social theories facilitates the mission of a social worker through standard ways in which people and groups tend to solve their problems in the context of society and its institutions, informing social work practices. Symbolic interaction theory and conflict theory are among approaches that can be effectively utilized in social work to identify and explain possible interactions between individuals and groups, involving institutions and their role in human well-being, stability, and satisfaction gained from life.

Our review of research on the apprehensions and anxieties of graduate Masters of Social Work students entering practice encompasses studies from 1990 through 2015. Processing the information that would be productive for valid search our research team used three search engines that produce the evidence-based material. The search engines used included: Google Scholar, Ebsco Host, and JSTOR through Arkansas State University One Search. The relevant search terms selected for this study included: stress with social work students (584hits), anxiety and MSW students (601 hits), fitness to practice, graduate education, profession (791 hits). Next we took into account the number of entries being considered; however, usually it is a small percentage of entries that are found to be relevant to the topic one is searching. Adding the search terms into various databases yielded a result of a total of 1976 articles. The first 20 results per entry were examined for relevance. Among these entries, only 10 were found relevant to the formulated question being observed. Articles that may have been prevalent yet excluded were due to no funding for the research and many of the additional articles were from other than the United States. Additionally, articles must have been written in English to be considered.

Groupwork can be defined as a method of social work that is utilised in order to help individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences and to help cope with their personal group or community problems (Konopka, 1972). The role of groupwork places emphasis on sharing thoughts, ideas, problems and activities, allowing social action groups for instance, to “empower members to engage in collective action and planned change efforts to modify particular aspects of their social or physical environment” (Toseland & Rivas, 2014, p. 38; Pyles, 2009; Staples, 2004). Therefore, reflecting on the processes of groupwork is an essential mechanism for all professionals in order to develop better communication skills, conflict resolution and enhance future performance. This essay will reflect upon the task group processes that were conducted this semester, while evaluating my own role within the group and what was learnt working within a small group.

The social work profession evolved from individuals and/or families experiencing several stressor events. Since the 1940s, the crisis theory has paved the way for those individuals and/or families experiencing stressor events. Crisis Theory and intervention fundamentally explains how individuals and/or families respond to traumatic events and what way or manner interventions can be applied to help those experiencing crises. According to Hepworth et al. (2016), “Early crisis intervention theory spanned the life course to include grief and loss reactions, role transitions, traumatic events, and maturational or biopsychosocial crisis at various developmental stages” (Hepworth, 2016, P.385). The theory suggests that certain life events create roadblocks and increases the possibility of interpersonal disturbances (Selig, 1976).