Welcome to Unit 6: Managing Crisis Robin C. Cooper, LCSW

Announcements 3 more seminars!!! Review grade book Check announcements Questions???

Unit 6 Seminar Discussion-Continuation Teresa Project-let’s review!

Unit 6 Project For this project, you will need your Unit 3 project (if for some reason you did not submit it for a grade, contact your professor) notes from HN210 and information from this unit’s discussion and seminar questions. Apply the coordination of service plan that you created in Unit 3 to the following scenario. Explain how you will use the plan to assist the client and her family to alleviate their crisis and receive appropriate services. The suggested format for the project is provided below the scenario.

Unit 6 Project Scenario: You have been working with Teresa and her six children for the past few months. In this time, you have watched the family thrive while living in public housing while Teresa worked part-time in a local day care center. Recently, she lost her job and was evicted from public housing because her uncle moved in with them illegally. Currently, she and her six children live with her new boyfriend in his house. You know that you have to help her find other housing because there are too many people to live legally in the house (there are only two bedrooms in the house).

Unit 6 Project You call her at the house to give her some referrals for housing, but when she answers the phone, you hear yelling followed by a click. You decide to call back to leave a message; no one picks up, and you leave a brief message for her to call you back. To be safe, you do not say anything more than your name, knowing that she knows how to reach you. However, you are disturbed by what you heard.

Unit 6 Project 2 days later, Teresa appears in your office with a black eye, broken nose, and bandaged hand. She tells you that she fell and will be fine soon. She apologizes for not calling you back and tells you to not worry about her or the children because they would continue to live with her boyfriend. He is paying the bills now and has promised to buy all of the children new school clothes; they have never had new school clothes before. You are shocked by her appearance and ask her again about the bruises. She tells you that she may have fallen accidentally when her boyfriend pushed her, but that it was her fault because she knew better than to anger him.

Unit 6 Project Project Format: Using the guidelines that you developed for making and evaluating referrals: Identify Teresa’s main problem in this scenario. Identify the barriers that will keep her from resolving the main problem. Create an intervention plan that addresses her three most immediate needs and that provides a timeline for service implementation (set goals for meeting the needs), then describe how you would evaluate the effectiveness of your interventions.

Unit 6 Project While the text is your main source for this project, you should use a minimum of two other research articles from peer-reviewed journals that you found in the KU Library. This project should be written adhering to the guidelines of Standard American English and should be between 800 and 1000 words long, not including the title page and the reference pages.

Unit 6 Project You are required to give credit to the sources you use and to use proper APA formatting. Refer to the APA Quick Reference for help with APA, or refer to the Kaplan Writing Center or your instructor. Remember that all work must be your own, and plagiarism is not tolerated. Be sure to review the plagiarism policy in your syllabus.

Unit 6 Outcomes Evaluate client needs in crisis situations Apply crisis management strategies to provide ethical services to clients

The most effective human service professionals realize that clients feel out of control due to lack of coping mechanisms regarding the situation. Crisis stabilization means helping the client to reassess the crisis situation and find some part of the problem that is within his or her control.

Crises take many forms, including eviction, cessation of assistance benefits, arrests of minors or partners (or clients), and substance abuse/mental health emergencies.

Assisting clients in a crisis can challenge human service professionals to make unethical or even illegal decisions out of a desire to help clients. Understanding and adhering to ethical boundaries is important for all human services professionals. Q: Can you think of an example?

Making effective referrals for clients in crisis requires planning: Human service professionals conduct research to create databases of the names of “point of entry” professionals in key agencies. When a crisis occurs, immediate referrals can be made.

Human service professionals are expected by clients to solve problems immediately, but not every emergency requires immediate intervention. Clients have been trained to overreact to any situation that threatens their daily lives, often as a result of their involvement with social services. It is in these times that clients can re-train their reactive behaviors with assistance from the human service professional (e.g., a client might insist that he is about to lose his unemployment benefits and will lose his housing and his family, when in fact he can apply for an extension of benefits). Case Examples: What is a crisis?

Sometimes these crisis situations remind human service professionals of experiences that they have had, tempting them to share this information with the client. It is best to continue to focus on the client and his or her problems rather than to divulge personal information (remember this is called self-disclosure). When professionals self-disclose, the immediate focus of the interaction shifts from attention on the client to attention on the professional, and this is counter- productive to effective client service. Examples?

Questions?