Week 6: Legal Considerations

Important Note: Please use the media player below to hear an audio course introduction that will give you more background information about the course topic. Also provided is a transcript for you to download and print out.

Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Legal considerations [Audio file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Note:  The approximate length of this media piece is 1 minute.

Accessible player –Downloads–Download AudioDownload Transcript

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Apply legal considerations in field education experience
• Analyze challenges in adhering to legal considerations during field education experience
• Analyze diversity in relation to social work practice
• Analyze cultural competence in relation to social work practice
• Apply social work practice skills

Learning Resources

Required Readings

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Chapter 13, “Legal Issues” (pp. 148-158)

Required Media

Laureate Education. (Producer). (2013). Legal considerations [Audio file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Note:  This audio introduction is located in the “Introduction and Objectives” section. The approximate length of this media piece is 1 minute.

Optional Resources

Click the following link to access the MSW home page, which provides resources for your social work program.

MSW home page

Assignment 1: Week 6 Blog

Refer to the topics covered in this week’s resources and incorporate them into your blog.

By Day 3

Post a blog post that includes:

• Any legal considerations during your field education experience that you may have had to address or that you might address
• An explanation of potential challenges in adhering to legal considerations during your field education experience

By Day 4

Respond to the blog post of three colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

• Validate an idea in your colleague’s post with your own experience.
• Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.

Be sure to support your blog posts with specific references to this week’s resources and provide full APA citations for your references. For more information about posting your blog assignment, click on the Field Education Blogs link on the course navigation menu.

Submission and Grading Information

Grading Criteria

To access your rubric:
Week 6 Assignment 1 Rubric

Post by Day 3 and Respond by Day 4

To participate in this Assignment:
Week 6 Assignment 1

Assignment 2: Process Recordings

A process recording is a written tool used by field education experience students, field instructors, and faculty to examine the dynamics of social work interactions in time. Process recordings can help in developing and refining interviewing and intervention skills. By conceptualizing and organizing ongoing activities with social work clients, you are able to clarify the purpose of interviews and interventions, identify personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, and improve self-awareness. The process recording is also a useful tool in exploring the interpersonal dynamics and values operating between you and the client system through an analysis of filtering the process used in recording a session.

For this Assignment, you will submit a process recording of your field education experiences specific to diversity and cultural competence.

The Assignment (2–4 pages):

• Provide a transcript of what happened during your field education experience, including a dialogue of interaction with a client.
• Explain your interpretation of what occurred in the dialogue, including social work practice theories, and explain how it might relate to diversity or cultural competence covered this week.
• Describe your reactions and/or any issues related to your interaction with a client during your field education experience.
• Explain how you applied social work practice skills when performing the activities during your process recording.

Response 1

 Alysia Barkster  at Wednesday, October 2, 2019 9:14:51 PM

            Interning at a mental health agency, liability often comes into play due to the client’s not always being able to advocate for themselves and having to place many of their life decisions in the hands of the agencies staff. Within the last two weeks of field placement, myself and my supervisor remained in contact with a  potential client as she was awaiting approval to enter services. During this time, the client struggled to manage her mental health. It was apparent during conversations she required psychiatric and crisis stabilization services. Due to being mandated reporters, we believed it was our duty to follow up with the client and ensure she received the attention that she needed at that time. If the client whom we were in contact with daily did not seek crisis services independently, a phone call to the crisis stabilization services and her emergency contact would have been made, as we also have a signed authorization from the client to do so. This client we believe was on the verge of suicide or self harm. As mentioned (Garthwait, 2017), expresses the duty of the professional to prevent a client’s suicide, placing the professional at risk for liability and legal consideration. As mentioned of being mandated reports, my field placement has direct contact with adults that live within assisted living facilities. It is the duty of the professional to report misconduct and mistreatment of clients by other residents, staff, and including our agencies staff.

            Social workers among other staff must follow laws and policies to maintain the functionality of the agency. The client within my field placement as the right to make informal and formal grievances regarding any treatment or lack thereof to be questioned by the agency management. The client also has the right to receive an advocate to properly make such grievances in which is then brought forth to the LHRC-Local Human Rights Committee to assist and provide feedback regarding the final decision, action plan to address the matter if still wanting to proceed with services.

            Challenges within the agency and currently with my field placement have not arose due to careful consideration of the client in all matters. A potential challenge that does often worry me is confidentiality between the client, agency staff, and other parties such as friends, family members, and community resources. According to (NASW, 2019) when social workers provide counseling services to families, couples, or groups, social workers should seek agreement among the parties involved concerning each individual’s right to confidentiality and obligation to preserve the confidentiality of information shared by others. It is my duty and the agency staff to ensure there is consent to share information amongst various parties. If an incident was to occur, I believe I would have the support and assistance of the agency, specifically my supervisor to rectify and address the situation in the best fitting manner.

References

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.) pp. 41-50. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

NASW. (2017) Read the Code of Ethics: Ethical Principles. www.socialworkers.org, 2019, www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English.

Response 2

 Brianna Bothof  at Wednesday, October 2, 2019 9:06:31 PM

During my field work experience, I have encountered two main legal considerations. First, we work with many children and adolescents who are part of open legal cases for child abuse. While we are primarily helping these clients in a therapeutic way, such as processing trauma and providing family therapy, we do need to have basic understanding of the local court system and processes. Occasionally, we will be called to give testimony during these cases.

Another legal consideration I have encountered is providing guidance to clients who are dealing with past offenses and clearing criminal records. Some of our clients are in recovery for addiction and have serious records; part of our job is to support these clients in their attempts to clear up charges and reenter society. For example, I saw a client today who needs to pay a hefty fine from 5 years ago in order to clear up an open warrant in another state. In serving this client, our therapist has helped provide communication with the parole officer, the judge, and the client to understand the process and formulate a plan. Today, I created a debt payoff chart for the client to track his debt and increase motivation towards clearing this legal burden.

The major challenge I see to adhering to legal considerations is staying within the scope of my expertise. I am not a lawyer and do not have legal training; by providing counsel outside of my scope, I open myself up to legal risk (Garthwait, 2017).  Some clients want to ask serious legal questions that really require a lawyer’s advice, but they cannot afford one. I think that by understanding my own role, having clear guideline with clients, and forming helpful relationships with local attorneys, I can best serve my clients (Garthwait, 2017).

References:

Garthwait, C. L. (2017). The social work practicum: A guide and workbook for students (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Response 3

 LeKisha Lee  at Wednesday, October 2, 2019 8:58:49 AM

Week 6 Day 3 

Post a blog post that includes:

• Any legal considerations during your field education experience that you may have had to address or that you might address
  • Just recently we had a college intern and his parent threaten to sue the agency due to the intern allegations of not being compensated. The policy is that we must submit our weekly task every Sunday; specifying what has been done, what needs to be done, and a self-evaluation. In addition to the submission of the weekly task we have “Empowerment calls” every Wednesday night at 9pm to come together as a team to discuss upcoming events, progress with duties/activities that each individual has, and a chance to voice if we need assistance with the tasks given. 
  • There was an urgent email sent out to each individual in the agency administration team regarding the importance of completing all task to get paid weeks before this alleged incident and in order to have access to the next weeks task we must adhere to the policy to get compensated (paid interns) or get hours (unpaid interns). This gentleman failed to provide the weekly task sheet, speak up during the calls, and stated every call that his work was completed. After myself and the CEO did check-ups on the task we found out that some agencies he was supposed to reach out to hadn’t even heard of ABC2 before making the check-up call; and that was one of his main task to spread awareness and invite other agencies to our community field day coming up this month. The parent then calls to voice her concerns, opinions, and matters- in the process of that we get another email regarding a parent call in reference to compensation (no name was released, no specific details about what was said between the parties besides compensation), but the intern decides to let us know it was his parent and he carried it on from there. 
• An explanation of potential challenges in adhering to legal considerations during your field education experience
  • Reporting unethical conduct of colleagues can be a challenging situation. For example, the situation above when the email was sent out originally from the CEO it was only to the interns regarding the parent call and a reminder of policy for completing task. After seeing the email with the language and dispute about what needs to be done; I do not think it should have been resolved that way. In my opinion after the call from the parent, the email regarding the call- I think there should have been a meeting with the entire team in the email, the parent, and the other administrators listed above. 
  • In a situation such as trying to resolve a situation with a CEO and it may not happen; where must one turn to? I think that we as young adults need more training on handling emotions and expressing how we feel in a positive professional way. According to the NASW Code of Ethics, social workers have a legal and ethical responsibility to treat colleagues with respect, collaborate with other professionals to resolve ethical disputes, consult other colleagues for advice and guidance when this is in the best interest of the client, and report unethical conduct of colleagues. 

References

National Association of Social Workers, (2017). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.  Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English.aspx