Micro Practice Skills

Kwabena Frimpong-Manso (Ph.D)

WHAT ARE MICRO SKILLS

• They are used for working with individuals.

• in social work the practitioner’s major tool is one's self and one's ability to interact effectively with clients and other professionals

• Training must focus on the interactive skills necessary to be effective.

Effective communication

• Relationships with clients are built on good communication and jointly planned work

• Social workers therefore need good communication skills: attentive listening, empathetic responses

and interviewing skills

Effective communication

• Social workers communicate with clients to:– gain information, – convey critical information– make important decisions

Interviewing Skills

• Social workers spend more time interviewing than any other activity

• Interview is a purposeful exchange between a social worker and service user or potential service user in which ideas, attitudes and feelings are exchanged

• Can take place face-to-face, telephone or via a video link

• There is a difference between a planned and initial interview

Interviewing skills-Types

• Structured Interviews

• Unstructured Interviews

• Mixed Interview

Interviewing-Purpose• Information Gathering: obtaining and

imparting information• Decision making: study and assessment

of the client’s situation/ problem• What the problem is• What factors contribute to it• What can be changed or modified

• Therapeutic: Interview as a direct tool for giving help• To effect change in the client situation/social situation• Such interviews use measures to effect change in

feelings, attitudes and behaviour

Interviewing skills

• Interviewing at the beginning stage of the helping process– Preparatory Reviewing– Preparatory Arranging– Preliminary Planning (prime purpose of

gathering info.)– Introducing and seeking introduction– Clarifying purpose– Establish Relationship

Interviewing skills

• The developmental stage:– Organising Descriptive Information

– Analyzing

– Synthesis

– Reflecting a Problem

– Developing an Intervention Approach

– Summarizing

– Advising

Interviewing skills

• The Final / Concluding Phase– Reviewing the Process– Evaluating – Sharing ending Feelings and Saying Goodbye– Recording and Note-taking

Basic Rules of Interviewing

• Basic understanding of human nature, behaviour and motivation

• The setting of interview is of vital significance: ensure privacy, relaxing and comfortable and free from distraction

• The relationship between the interviewer and interviewee is of utmost importance

• Listen to silence for it can be more evocative than words.

Talking

• Speech, voice, language (body language) effectively to ensure a smooth interview

• They convey whether you are interested in the client or not.

• The quality of your pronunciation, sound and pitch of your voice communicate a great deal to the clients

• Choice of words– Readily understandable to clients

– Descriptive and observational rather inferential

Listening • Listening is Not the Same as Hearing-

hearing is sounds whilst listening includes focus

• Listening means:– paying attention not only to the story but how it is told, – the use of language and voice– and how the other person uses his or her body

• Required Skills– Stop Talking– Prepare Yourself to Listen– Put the Speaker at Ease– Remove Distractions– Be Patient

Questioning

• Asking the right questions is a foundation of any social work interview

• Types of questions to solicit client information:– Further responses: Use words, phrases and non

verbal gestures to encourage client to continue (e.g. mm, please go on, tell me more)

– Closed ended questions (e.g. Did you call the benefits officer)

– Open ended questions– Leading questions-Putting words in clients mouth

– Paraphrasing:

RECORDING • What is a Process Recording? A process

recording is a written record of an interaction with a client.

• ElementsPertinent information-name and date of interviewState objectives of the interview

Elements Continued

-Description of what happened

-A record of verbal and non verbal events-Observations and Analytical thoughts in the

interview- (E.g., "I wondered what would happen if I said such-and-such. I chose not to but I wondered whether I should have raised it”)

Elements continued

• Future plans- Identification of unfinished business, identification of short and longer-term goals.

• Identification of questions for field instruction- helping them become autonomous workers

THANK YOU