This 400513 – Social Work And Health Autumn written assignment is to be presented in the form of a professional report. There are many types of professional report that social workers may write, including reports requested by courts, the coroner, and presenting assessment and intervention information for client records or case reviews.
Question 400513 – Social Work And Health Autumn
For this assignment, you will need to imagine yourself in the position of a hospital social worker who has completed a bio-psycho-social-cultural assessment with the person at the center of the case study. You are writing a professional report as part of referral to a colleague in the community. That colleague may be an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker or another professional (such as a psychologist, psychiatrist, occupational therapist, or specialist counselor service).
A report accompanying referral is a representation of your professional judgement and an introduction for your client to this new professional. So it’s also part advocacy to encourage your colleague to accept your referral, so you need to make your reasoning clear and explicit.
The case studies are at the end of the AASW AMHSW criteria and application form (attached below). There are six case studies and you can choose any of them.
Things to remember
- it is good practice to give the person a copy of your referral report. Keep this in mind as you write – write it in a way that you would be happy for that person to read!
- you will need to analyse the information in the case study in order to develop a clear assessment as your rationale for your referral. That means more than summarizing descriptive information.
- you will need to incorporate your knowledge from the social work literature to analyse the information available in the case studies
- all the case studies have partial information – avoid making stuff up if it’s not there, work with what you have. You may note that some important elements will require further assessment
- this is another short assignment so you will need to be concise and precise. Please stick with formal prose, though.
A couple of resources for developing and structuring an assessment
Singer, J. B. (Producer). (2007, January 22). Bio-psychosocial-Spiritual (BPSS) assessment and Mental Status Exam (MSE) [Episode 2]. Social Work Podcast [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://socialworkpodcast.com/2007/02/bio-psychosocial-spiritual-bpss.html
Drisko, J.W. & Grady M.D (2012) Appendix A An Outline for a Biopsychosocial Assessment and Intervention Plan in Evidence Based Practice in Clinical Social Work New York, Springer Science+Business Media pp.259-302 (pdf below) – especially look at sections I- V, VII, VIII, X
There is no specific structure required. What you will need to do is have some structure and a clear presentation of the client situation, your assessment of their health and well being needs, and a summary formulation that provides a clear rationale for why you are referring them to your colleague for additional support as part of a discharge plan.