Social Work with Individuals and Groups Questions and Answers

Answer: A

This is empathy.

Empathy is the ability to enter into another person's frame of reference, putting oneself in his or her shoes, and to understand that person's feelings and experiences as he or she experiences them, while keeping one's own separateness. Carl Rogers made accurate empathy one of the core conditions of a helping relationship.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone, an emotional reaction from one's own position rather than an understanding of the other's. Projection is the defence mechanism of attributing one's own feelings to someone else. 'Self-experience' is one's own experience, the opposite of entering another's.

Answer: B

The key is Only (i): the principle plainly violated is confidentiality.

A client's HIV status is private information given in the counselling relationship. The social worker may disclose it only with the client's valid consent, or, in a narrow exception, to prevent serious, foreseeable and imminent harm, and even then only what is necessary (the NASW Code of Ethics, 1.07). Telling the wife out of anger, after the counselling has failed, is neither: it is a breach of confidentiality.

Informed consent concerns the client's agreement to services and to the use of information, and the key does not count it here. Autonomy and dignity are also affected by such a breach, so options C and D can be argued, but the key keeps to the one principle the facts name directly.

What could not be confirmed: no source was found that limits the breach to confidentiality alone. The answer follows the University's key.

Answer: B

This is positive reinforcement.

In operant conditioning, positive reinforcement means adding a pleasant consequence, such as praise, after a behaviour so that the behaviour becomes more likely. Praising a client for submitting a task on time is meant to make on-time submission more frequent.

Negative punishment is removing something pleasant to reduce a behaviour, the reverse of praising it. 'Positive instigation' and 'positive morale' are not terms from learning theory; morale is a group's general confidence and spirit, not a consequence given for a behaviour.

Answer: C

An important purpose of casework is to bring about the desired change in the person's life and her social environment.

Social casework, following Mary Richmond and later Helen Harris Perlman, aims to improve the client's social functioning by working on both sides of the person-in-situation: helping the individual to cope better and changing the circumstances around her. Its purpose is change in the person and the environment together.

Getting resources and arranging treatment are means that casework may use towards that purpose, not its purpose. Writing a case history is a recording task in the process.

Answer: A

The answer is both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

The statements describe transference in casework. The client transfers onto the worker feelings that originally belonged to significant people in his or her life, such as a parent, because the worker reminds the client of them (R). Recognising this, the worker cautiously takes on the symbolic role of that person, so that the client can re-experience and work through the unresolved conflict in a safe relationship (A).

The worker's symbolic role exists only because of the client's transference, so the Reason explains the Assertion, which rules out the option saying it does not and both options with a false statement.

Answer: C

This was an in-depth interview.

An in-depth interview is an unstructured or semi-structured conversation in which the interviewer explores the person's experiences, feelings and concerns at length and in detail, following what the person brings up rather than a fixed list of questions. Speaking at length with the client about her various challenges and concerns is exactly this.

A structured interview follows a fixed schedule of questions in a set order. A pre-interview is a preliminary contact before the main interview. 'Long interview' describes only the duration, not the method.

Answer: C

The assistance is called clarification.

Clarification is the casework technique of helping a client understand himself or herself, the problem and its causes more clearly, for example by pointing out connections between feelings, behaviour and circumstances. It is used when the client cannot see the nature of the problem or what is causing it.

Ventilation lets the client express pent-up feelings, which relieves tension but does not explain the problem. Exploration gathers the facts of the situation. Confrontation points out contradictions in what the client says or does and is used when the client is avoiding something, not when the client simply does not understand.

Answer: A

Social group work helps individuals to enhance their social functioning.

The standard definition, from Gisela Konopka, is that social group work is a method of social work which helps individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful group experiences and to cope more effectively with their personal, group or community problems.

Conflict can occur in groups, but growth through conflict is not the defining aim. Coping with members' financial problems and training them in counselling skills are narrow activities, not what defines the method.

Answer: A

An effective group has a democratic group leader.

Social group work rests on democratic values, and the classic leadership studies of Lewin, Lippitt and White found that democratically led groups showed more satisfaction, cooperation and originality than autocratic or laissez-faire ones. A democratic leader shares decisions, encourages participation and helps members take responsibility, which makes the group effective.

Sub-groups can form in any group, but they do not make a group effective and may split it. Limitless freedom is the laissez-faire pattern that left groups disorganised in those studies, and obedient members belong to an autocratic group.

Answer: D

The duration should be based on achievement of specific objectives of the group.

Social group work is purposeful: the worker and members agree on objectives at the start, and the group moves through its stages until those objectives are met, after which it moves to termination. The length of the process follows from that purpose.

Letting the group continue as long as it wants risks dependence and drift; the worker's convenience puts the worker's needs above the members'. A duration fixed rigidly before the process begins ignores how the group actually progresses towards its goals.