Planning Change Strategies in Social Work

Goal Setting and Intervention Planning

According to Hepworth (2017), goals are a strategy for the realization of outcomes that are essential for systematic process-oriented approaches when working with a client in social work practice. In addition to developing goals and creating a contract, working with individual clients also involves planning intervention strategies to help achieve the desired outcomes. Goal setting and intervention planning are important elements in working with individual clients in my social work field site. The field site recognizes the significance of establishing goals and engaging in intervention planning as a crucial factor in enhancing the effectiveness of social work practice and professionals. To this extent, goal setting is used as a process of specifying what is to be achieved. All social workers in my field site are required to establish goals when working with clients. These goals are established based on the specific issues facing the client and the desired outcomes. The established goals act as a road map that guides social work practice and interventions for the client.

Once goals are established, intervention planning is carried out. In this case, the social work professional collaborates with the client to identify intervention strategies that could help achieve the desired outcomes. Planning intervention strategies is a process that involves matching the strategies to the client’s specific issue and the desired outcomes. Collaboration with the client during this process is considered central to the identification and use of effective strategies. Social work professionals at my field site are encouraged to work together with clients when planning intervention strategies. Through collaboration, social work professionals ensure that the intervention strategies reflect the client’s needs. Additionally, the collaboration provides a premise for the client to be actively involved in the entire process and enhances the likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes.

Challenging Elements of Goal Setting and Intervention Planning

Even though goal setting and intervention planning are deemed crucial in social work practice when working with individual clients, there are some challenging aspects of these processes at this stage of the learning process. One of the elements of goal setting that is challenging at this stage of the learning process is client participation. Hepworth (2017) notes that goals can either be contained in the legal mandate or expressed by the client. An important part of the goal setting process is client participation, which is the premise for the professional relationship between the social worker and the client. Client participation remains a challenging process at this stage since listening to a client is a time-consuming process. The process is relatively time-consuming because of the complexities involved in the client’s story and experience. Due to these complexities, the development of a goal during the goal setting process remains challenging. Additionally, the involvement of the family in the goal setting process is also challenging because of the complex family dynamics that impact social work practice.

The other element that is challenging at this stage of the learning process is the identification of appropriate intervention strategies for clients. While working with clients in planning intervention strategies is relatively easy, the identification of a suitable intervention is quite challenging and complex. This is primarily because of a lack of adequate knowledge, skills, and experience to effectively match existing approaches to a client’s needs and the desired outcomes. According to Hepworth (2017), social workers and other professionals in this field should possess adequate knowledge and skills in order to identify and use suitable approaches with clients. This is critical because of the complexities associated with clients’ problems. The lack of adequate knowledge on different approaches and skills on how to use them generates challenges when trying to identify and use effective intervention strategies.

Planning Change Strategies

Goal

Client X.Y. will improve her academic performance and better control her temper. The first step in working with the client involved listening to her as she shared her story and experience. During this process, relevant follow-up questions were asked to identify the client’s problem and her desired outcome. While working with the client to identify a goal or goals for herself, she explicitly stated her desired to improve her grade and social skills. The client has a low self-esteem that has affected her academic performance and interactions with her classmates and friends. When interacting with others, she tends to be aggressive and irritable and has difficulties in controlling her temper. Even though she is academically gifted, she has struggled to get better grades. Therefore, improvement of academic performance and social skills is the goal of the therapy.

Intervention

Solution Focused Brief Treatment (SFBT) focused on helping the client to make good decisions and develop solutions for academic and behavioral problems. This approach is a suitable intervention since it is based on the idea that shifting perspectives helps people to release their untapped unconscious resources (Hepworth, 2017). The use of this approach entails assisting clients to question self-defeating perceptions and develop new and more productive perspectives. For Client X.Y., the use of this process would entail identifying self-defeating constructions that result in academic and behavioral issues. The client’s poor academic performance despite her capabilities is influenced by some self-defeating constructions. Additionally, the behavioral issues are brought by her perceptions that result in poor social skills. These perceptions can be addressed through the development of new and more productive constructions. The new constructions will serve as solutions through which the client releases her strengths and positive attributes in academics and behaviors.