Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to increase your social work and critical thinking skills in conducting an initial assessment. In the assessment phase of social work we gather, organize, and make sense of the information the client has provided. This provides the foundation to develop the contract or treatment plan to initiate addressing the concerns impacting our client. Even though assessment is an ongoing process, we must document this phase. As social workers, we refrain from including labels that stigmatize our clients. It helps to keep in mind to write notes in a manner that would be acceptable and appropriate for the client to read.
There are 3 parts to this assignment:
First Part A: Instructions
First, using the D-A-C (focus on D-A for this section) submit a 3-5 written summary of your interview as outlined below. Do not leave any sections blank or designated N/A.
There’s 3 parts to this assignment:
D-A-C
Description, Assessment, and Contract
Description
- Client Identification
- Person- name, age, gender, ethnicity
- Family/Household- marital status, family/household composition
- Community/Support systems
- Presenting Issue(s)
- Assets, Resources, and Strengths
- Referral Source and/or Collateral Information
- History
- Developmental
- Personal, Familial, Cultural
- Critical Events
- Sexual
- Substance Use (past/current)
- Medical/Physical/ Biological (past/current)
- Legal
- Educational
- Employment
- Recreational
- Spiritual/Religious
Assessment
- Presenting issue- Nature, duration, frequency, severity, and urgency
- Risk/Protective factors; exceptions
- Contributing factors
- Client
- Situational, environmental, system
- Motivation and readiness for change
- Challenges and barriers
- Risk assessment
- Case formulation (social worker’s assessment of case)
Second Part Second, create and a multi-systemic ecomap of your “client”. Include ecomap symbols and relationship lines for a minimum of eight (8) systems for your “client’s” ecomap. Remember to think systemically with a person-in-environment focus. Avoid listing individual family members or friends as independent systems.
Third part: Third, create a three-generational genogram Do not forget to include siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, children, grandchildren for each generation—you can get creative and add family members as well.
The course readings (textbook and journal articles) provide instructions on this and gives examples, please make sure you refer back to the textbook and readings for more assistance.
Your genogram and ecomap can be created in one of two ways:
- You can draw the ecomap m using paper, pen, pencil, etc., and then scan your page(s) to an image (JPG or PNG) format or PDF format. (Please keep your scanning resolution to 200dpi or less.)
- You can digitally create them using the Microsoft PowerPoint software (or an equivalent, such as Google Slides, which can export to PPT or PPTX format). If you choose this option, then you are encouraged to use shapes, lines (and various line styles), symbols, color, images and text notes.
