Competency Based Assessment and Interviewing

Introduction
Many assessment tools and interviewing skills are available to the clinical social worker within a mental health setting. This paper will examine one such assessment tool, the competency based assessment, and its applicability in a mental health setting. A comparison will be made between this advanced assessment method and a generalist social work assessment. Interviewing people who have mental health concerns can offer challenges for clinical social workers. Several interviewing techniques that can help with some of these challenges will be outlined.
Assessment
Assessment is a basic skill of generalist social workers. As my current place of employment does not employ any defined assessment, I will utilize information from a generalist text and a sample assessment. The parameters of a generalist assessment are often defined by the specific practise agency (Birkenmaier, Berg-Weger, & Dewees, 2011). The assessment is utilized to identify relevant information such as demographics and the major areas for work such as the client’s goals (Birkenmaier et al., 2011). Many theories such as psychoanalytic or strengths perspective can influence a generalist assessment based on the assessing social worker’s theoretical preference (Birkenmaier et al., 2011). The sample generalist assessment used focuses on the client’s: living skills; health and disability; educationemployment; legal issues; housing; significant relationships; understanding of the issue; demographics; and crisis management (National Council of Social Service, 2006). The social worker has the opportunity to delve further into those areas if deemed necessary by their agency (National Council of Social Service, 2006).
The competency based assessment...

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