preview

Social Work Reflection Paper

Decent Essays
Open Document

To successfully engage a client system the social worker must be able to establish rapport. I started off on the right foot by introducing myself in a warm and friendly manner. I smiled, leaned in towards the client and initiated a handshake. Unfortunately, I quickly wound up on the wrong foot. While I knew the client’s name, I neglected to ask the client how she would like to be addressed and I never used her name throughout the whole interview. Respect is an important component to establishing rapport and my client may have found my actions to be disrespectful. Also, I should have engaged in a brief warm-up period with some small talk but instead, I sat back in my chair and jumped right into finding out what brought her in to see me. I continued by saying, “but before we do that, I just have to set some ground rules.” I don’t like my choice of words. Ground rules are usually set to avoid potential conflict. Using this phrase may make a client feel uncomfortable. Instead, I should have engaged in some small talk and then went right to the topic of confidentiality starting with, “Before we begin, I want you to know that everything we talk about during our sessions is confidential…” A good time to ask, “What brings you here today?” would be immediately after the discussion of confidentiality. Although it was a rough start, I was pleased with the rest of the session for the most part. I used many active listening skills during our session while attending to my client’s

Get Access