Organize role-plays with classmates, including reactant/ambivalent clients of various types; students in the social worker roles should practice motivational interviewing strategies to help the clients resolve their ambivalence.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The four types of clients listed below are often reluctant, at least initially, to engage in a relationship with a social worker, and students can role-play one or several of these:

• Mandated children and adults
• Oppositional clients
• Substance abusers
• Sex offenders
• In working with these clients, students should be evaluated on their capacity to demonstrate the skills noted below:
• Allowing the client to state the cause of referral from his or her own viewpoint
• Expressing empathy for pressures experienced
• Avoiding labeling the client in negative ways
• Identifying non-negotiable legal and agency requirements
• Affirming client rights
• Reaffirming choices and negotiable options

Not using authority to impose a personal standard of conduct, but only exercising the precise level of authority delegated by the sanctioning body.

The instructor can see how well the student/social workers can utilize strategies from the four categories of motivational interviewing listed here:

• Eliciting self-motivational statements
• Strategies to handle resistance
• Decisional balance
• Building self-efficacy