As mentioned previously, when clients begin services with a social worker, they may be overwhelmed and unsure of how to proceed. To help minimize client anxiety—to help your client move forward from “I don’t know where to begin”—you will utilize the skills of prioritizing, planning, and contracting. The emphasis is on working with the client rather than working for the client. The client must feel empowered and vested in this process to be successful. 

Prioritizing will help you and the client determine which problem(s) to work on first. You will then help your client translate these problems into needs, setting goals, and identifying resources to help them meet these needs. Developing either a written or oral contract will make clear the expectations you have of them and what you, as the social worker, are agreeing to accomplish. In this Assignment, you work through each of these important steps toward client success.

 

Prioritizing, Planning, and Contracting

A Client I would like to work with

Different therapists like to work with different types of clients. I primarily would like to work with a client with any type of anxiety and trauma issues including PTSD and depression and more recently transgender teens and severe mental illness. My main reason for seeing this type of client is that it provides me an opportunity to help a person who is suffering and learn new intervention strategies. I wish to work in an outpatient group practice with is primarily anxiety and depression clients and during my part-time practice in nursing facilities that have patients with chronic disorders, like borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, , and. My absolute favorite population is working with victims of trauma. I have specialized in several therapies to help clients with mental health issues using scientific backings. This may be the most difficult job difficult but I like seeing the positive impacts of different treatment methods that helps a client change from having super frequent and intense symptoms to a significant better to tremendous recovery. I hope to see a client doing better.

How I would Prioritize, Plan, and Contract with my Client

Prioritizing

In social work, client’s needs are often numerous and most often are critical. With limited resources and time to address the needs of a client with anxiety and depression, I will be obliged to decide which needs should be first addressed. This is known as prioritization. Even though all the client’s needs may be important, they have to be addressed according to the urgency: some in a short timeframe, some immediately, and others more long term (Jilke & Tummers, 2018). The first step of prioritization is my persona safety and the client’s safety. If the client is suicidal or can harm others, it will be critical to consider the most effective ways to handle the situation. I would engage with the client concerning sorting out his or her needs according to how long the problem will be solved and needs to be met. When the client feels ownership of the decisions made, he or she will be motivated to create goals and accomplish them to achieve recovery.

Prioritizing significantly provides a different approach towards working with a client. To accomplish the prioritization of needs, social workers need to engage with the clients in the progress. Because different programs have specific steps for prioritization of client’s needs there is a need for a general approach that be used during the process (Jilke & Tummers, 2018). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can be used as a guide for prioritizing the needs of a client with trauma and anxiety. The needs provided in most cases extend beyond medical care including social, psychological, safety, and self-actualization needs.

Planning

Planning is a critical aspect for social workers when working with clients. To ensure a successful recovery with my client, I must come up with a treatment plan that includes specific instructions and goals (Taylor & Devine, 2020). While creating the treatment plan, I will consider my client’s socioeconomic status, relationships and support in his life, his or her upbringing, and financial circumstances. The most important part of planning is assessment. During the assessment, I will look out for any signs related to anxiety and depression and discuss with the client the reasons and circumstances that may be the cause of his or her problem. After that, we have to clearly understand the goals that will be critical towards recovery. The goals should address the client’s trauma and anxiety. The wen can select effective interventions such as Cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, and self-care activities that will help the client reduce his mental health problem.

Planning provides a different approach for treatment while working with a client. It needs a solid grasp of various methods in social work, emotional responses, awareness of feelings, and patterns of interaction. Planning for trauma-based interventions needs to be client-centered based on individual’s wishes and needs and with clear goals (Taylor & Devine, 2020). Also, intervention needs to be timely and employ universal services and specialists.

Contacting

Another critical aspect that should be considered is contacting the client. Contacting is critical for the relationship between me and my client. In this case, I will attempt to define the goals and issues for work and come up with effective plans to achieve the final goals and identified issues. During the contracting phase, I will also use my skills to reflect on the issues before we both agree on specific issues or problems to address. We can also identify the action and steps needed for goal accomplishment. This is followed by identifying the most suitable means of measuring progress. We will finalize the contract by concisely reviewing the most critical elements within the service agreement that we both approved. The service contract covers critical issues for an action plan, goals, work evaluation means, and action steps (Isaksson, Blomqvist & Winblad, 2018). Contracting will help create relationship boundaries between me and while adhering to the professional work conditions and standards.

Contracting also provides different approaches when working with clients. Contacting needs accurate communication to understand the explanatory hypotheses of the client. The is also a significant need to identify the issues that the clients do not mention during the process of exploration stage (Isaksson, Blomqvist & Winblad, 2018). Also created goals should be measurable, specific, realistic, action-oriented, and timely. The need for practical actions is significant to accomplish specific goals and reach an agreement with a client. Generally, the approaches used during contracting are different from other processes such as planning and prioritization.