Social Work Assessment and Intervention Plan
You are a student social worker on placement at the Stargate Community Mental Health Service. It is Friday morning and you are asked to see a new client who has transferred to the service – Matt Hughes.
The receptionist calls you to say that Matt has arrived for his pre-arranged appointment.
Your agency provides short to long term mental health specialist assessment, intervention, case management and support to those living within the designated geographical area who have mental health issues. The client, Matt enters your office and he takes a seat. During the interview you gather the following information about his current situation.
Matt is a 32 year old man who has recently been transferred to your service as he has recently moved into the area. Matt has a diagnosis of schizophrenia and has experienced both positive and negative symptoms*. He has been a longstanding client of Westside Community Mental Health Service located on the other side of the city. You have been asked to see Matt through the centre’s Intake process for newly referred clients. Matt had prearranged this interview with your service with the assistance of his previous case manager at Westside Community Mental Health Service.
You have received the following information from the referring service: Matt was well known to Westside Community Mental Health Service. He has had numerous in-patient admissions since he was 20 years old when he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia. Matt has a history of having difficulty with using medication as prescribed and periodic primary and secondary homelessness.
A community mental health clinician used to visit Matt every two weeks or so for case management and support and Matt would also see a psychiatrist for a medication review every 3 or 6 months, depending on his recovery. Matt has been open to receiving support from Westside and reports that he had a great relationship with his case manager, Sherrie. He says of Sherrie:
“She was the best social worker. She helped me understand recovery and to do things to take care of myself. Sometimes I have had difficulty in managing the sad things in my life. It all becomes too much and then the voices start to become too hard to argue with. Sherrie helped me talk to myself in a nicer way and this helped me think more of myself. I think I gave up on myself until she came along! But she told me it wasn’t all her and it’s all in me but she helped it come out, but I’m not too sure! [laughs]. She helped me find accommodation rather than being in refuges and even found a place for me in a supported accommodation house, but I made friends at the boarding house I was in so I didn’t want to leave. I’m starting again now though! Sherrie helped me make this appointment and helped me sign something that means you can get my file – have you got it?”
You respond that Stargate has received this information from his previous case manager.Part A: Social Work Assessment and Intervention Plan
You are required to analyze the information from your chosen case study and complete the assessment report template below. You should use the multidimensional assessment framework from Harms (2010) to guide your assessment and explore relevant areas for the client. In formulating your assessment of the client’s situation and your intervention plan, you are required to apply one theoretically informed practice approach covered in this unit (eg. Strengths based, psychodynamic, task-centered, crisis intervention, solution-focused, critical approaches including anti-oppressive practice, empowerment & advocacy approaches.
Recommended readings for PART A:
You are required to utilize your weekly readings in formulating your assessment and intervention plan [Week 4: Harms, (2010), Chapter 1; Martin, (2010), Chapter 1 & Maidment & Egan (2016), Chapter 10 and Week 5 Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2017 for genograms]. You are also encouraged to source other social work literature to broaden your understanding of social work assessment and intervention planning – please refer to the references provided in the back of the Unit Outline.Word limit: 1000 words. The template and genogram are not included in the word count. Please write succinctly in sentences or paragraphs for each section shaded in pink. Please use TIMES NEW ROMAN 12 font with single spacing.