Social Work Interview Skills Essay

Social Work Interviewing Skills
Today’s skills session on social work interviewing skills covered the uniqueness of social work interviewing in comparison to interviews conducted in professions such as the police, doctors, employers, etc. It covered also different types of questioning and how to paraphrase. Another area covered was, what to avoid when interviewing a service user and the use of silence. I leant that interview skills are fundamental in social work and social work interviewing is unique. Social workers empathize with clients because of their knowledge of the client group and the need of help to alleviate their problems. Empathy however does not equate accepting that the client is right in what they have done or that the social worker is condoning their actions. Empathy relates to the issue of ‘trusting’ and ‘believing’ the client. In as much as a social worker should seek to establish trust in the relationship, this does not necessarily mean they should believe
It enables client to clarify what has been documented by the social worker. I learnt that the use of words or expressions such as ‘that’s brilliant’ can be misinterpreted by some clients to mean that you agree with what they have done. I often use expressions like that in conversations. I am now aware that it can be misunderstood and would to guard against it. We watched a Youtube video, two social workers called out to a service user flat for an initial assessment. They were refused entry by friend because he had a bad experience with social workers in the past and his child taken away. In the end the social worker left and I thought, if I was in that hostile situation what would I have done? Like we were told at the start of the session, for social workers to develop interviewing skills they require constant practice and building up the skills and it come naturally eventually. This is similar to mastering the skills to drive a