Laura Schleif

Ethical Behavior and a Multicultural Approach in Human Services: A Review Indiana Wesleyan University Interviews in Human Services Professor Wynn Laura Schleif May 6, 2018 We learned a lot more in the past four and a half weeks discussing how to do proper interviews with clients. I have really enjoyed this class and the lessons including practicing with volunteers how to ask questions. If I could have done something different it would have been to try to find someone who is of a different culture in order to work on asking questions to someone with a different background than mine. However I still had a chance to use some of the things we learned like positive psychology. In my last video interview I discussed with the “client” how to practice taking negative thoughts or second guessing and changing around to something positive. Other suggestions would have been working on getting a good night’s sleep, eating healthy foods, and exercising. Another facet I used with interviews is ethics and letting my “clients” know that anything they say is between us (and the camera) and I’m not going to be talking about it outside of the video. Obviously we weren’t talking about anything too deep, however, I wanted to be able to assure them from the start that nothing they say will told out of confidence. This is a big part of the ethics of interviewing to me because it helps to build the trust and rapport with the client to know that they can trust the person they are speaking with. Along with keeping confidential records comes other things we have learned were the National Organization of Human Service’s ethical standards. I really enjoyed reading about the standards for ourselves, our colleagues, our clients and the public. Some might seem common sense but they make a lot of sense like keeping a client’s records and information confidential until the point they may put themselves or others in danger. Or how to help their clients by keeping up to date on social issues and treatments that could best help the clients, and advocating for changes to legislation that is detrimental to the populations we work with. Or when we see a colleague do something that could be unethical to go to them and speak in private about it. I think these are all great steps that will help me as a human services worker to do best for my clients and for the public. There are definitely areas where I need to grow still. One of them I think is with the is interviewing portion and advising. Clients will often want to seek out advice on their problems and ask what they should do. Part of my responsibility is to help them be independent and gain self-efficacy by helping them come to the solutions by themselves. This is true for clients dealing with addictions, and doing motivational interviewing. Being able to ask them questions and steer the session to help them to contemplate their addiction and find ways to overcome it. Advice can come in the form of treatment options in this case, but not in any other way like telling someone they need to get treatment and this is where to go. We have to let them guide the interview. I feel like I getting better at this but even in the last video interview I really struggled not to just tell him what to do. I had to work out ways to phrase my questions to get him to look at his reasons for his feelings, to look back at his history and childhood in order to work out what he could do for the future. Another thing for me to work on will be working with people of different cultures. I know I will need to be working with people who had different backgrounds and childhoods and be able to show them I’m their advocate and want to help them. What I feel are my strengths gained are in asking questions. I’m finding ways to paraphrase and ask follow up questions to get more information. I do this all the time when I have a conversation with someone, but this is more pointed to keep on focus of the topic or issue and I think I’m getting a firmer grasp of it. I also feel a strength could be my empathy for my clients. I feel what they feel quite often, this is something I do in general, but I think that when they are telling me what is going on and their issues and struggles I can feel their anxiety or anger or sadness and I believe that comes across when I speak with them and ask them questions. I like to think it lets them know that I am there for them, and hope it helps to build a rapport and trust with them. I’ve learned a lot in this course, much more than I thought I was going to, which is a great thing. I’ve learned how to do open ended questions, paraphrase feelings and content, and how to help lead a client to figuring out a solution to their problem by talking through it. I really appreciated learning about motivational interviewing as well and how it can help people struggling with addictions. Lastly, learning about rules for ethics and treating clients and how to work better with clients from other cultures and to remind myself to learn about people from other backgrounds, be empathetic and understand we didn’t all have the same beginnings but I can help them to be more independent and healthy moving forward.