CLINICAL ASSESSMENT FOR
SOCIAL WORKERS
Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Second Edition

Catheleen Jordan, University of Texas, Arlington
Cynthia Franklin, University of Texas, Austin

Preface

Social workers and other helping professionals search for new and better ways to alleviate client problems. Early social workers like Mary Richmond urged professional social workers to use the scientific method and explore new methodologies. As social work has developed so has our understanding and appreciation for scientific methodology.

Clinical Assessment for Social Workers: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods will enable practitioners and students in the helping professions to learn more about assessment technology for children, families, and individual adults. We review available assessment models, and new advances in measurement and interviewing.

We do not assume that the reader adheres to a particular theoretical orientation or epistemology. We believe assessment data may be collected using a variety of different formats. Having a repertoire of tools for performing assessment, derived from different perspectives, allows helpers more flexibility in data collection. For example, some clients might readily provide information by filling out a standardized questionnaire, whereas other clients might be happier sharing information through a genogram or an ecological map.

Clinical Assessment is designed for graduate and undergraduate social work students, as well as for social work practitioners and other related helping professionals–licensed professional counselors, marriage and family counselors, and psychologists. This book shows how to incorporate testing and measurement into practice and conduct empirically-based assessments on clients.

Every chapter in the second edition includes new and authoritative contributions from specialists. We have added more information about gay and lesbian families, mistreated children, and people with health-related problems. In an effort to assist the reader chapter introductions, summaries, and review questions have been added. The book also includes extensive references, sample forms, samples of integrative skills assessments, and examples of standardized measures.

Chapters 1 and 2 in the first edition have been combined in chapter 1 of the second edition to strengthen the tie between assessment theory and technology. Linking assessment and intervention, including treatment planning information, has been strengthened and moved to the front of the book in chapter 2. Moving the information forward will allow the student to get an overview of the assessment-to-treatment process from the beginning. The new chapter 11 adds information about the use of clinical research methodologies, which are so important in today’s managed care environment. Chapters 6, Children and Adolescents, and chapter 7, Adults, now both end with a section on processing the movement from assessment to intervention including treatment planning. Chapter 9, Assessing Families who are Multistressed, includes new populations. The chapter also now reviews the assessment issues related to gay and lesbian families, mistreated children, and people with health related issues such as substance abuse and HIV-AIDS. The new chapter 10, Assessing Multicultural Clients, recommends alternative strategies for practice when the clientele is multicultural. Some of the appendices in the first edition are now part of the chapters in the second edition.

The authors would like to thank Meredith Hanson, Barry Ackerson, and Patricia Sherman for their insightful and helpful reviews of the manuscript. We want to thank Barbara W. White for her help in preparing the manuscript and Janie Hickerson for contributing a case study in chapter 9. We also wish to thank our publisher, David Follmer, for having confidence in us during the writing of the first book and for having patience with us during the writing of the second edition.