Skills For Helping Professionals

Written specifically for non-clinical undergraduate students, but also relevant to graduate studies in helping professions, Skills for Helping Professionals, by Anne M. Geroski focuses on helping students develop the skills they need to effectively initiate and maintain helping relationships. After exploring the literature identifying critical components of helping relationships and briefly reviewing developmental and helping theories, the text covers such topics as the helping process, self-awareness, and ethics in helping, and then focuses on specific helping skills such as listening and hearing, empathy, reflecting, paraphrasing, questioning, clarifying, exploring, and offering feedback, encouragement, and psycho-education. The final chapters focus on individuals in crisis and helping in groups.

Essential Interviewing Skills for the Helping Professions reaches beyond most other essential skills for clinical interviewing books with its emphasis on social justice, attention to the role of microaggressions in clinical practice, and the upmost importance of practitioner wellness as integral to longevity in the helping professions. Each chapter addresses interviewing skills that are foundational to the helping professions from mental health to physical health, includes detailed exercises, addresses social justice, and discusses practitioner wellness opportunities. Sometimes clients' stories are fraught with trauma, other times their stories are bound within generations of substance addiction or family violence, while other clinical stories present personal and social obstacles that arise from years of oppression at the hands of prejudice and discrimination. This book therefore goes beyond the basic ideas of choosing when to use an open question or to reflect emotions by covering how to integrate social justice and knowledge of power, privilege, and oppression into the interviewing arena. Essential interviewing skills require the practitioner to not only purposefully listen to the client's story, but also to be self-aware and willing to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them. The work of the clinical interviewer is a continuous challenge of balancing listening, responding, action, and self-awareness, and this book is designed to help.

This book presents a three-stage model of helping, grounded in 25 years of research, that can be used to assist individuals who are struggling with emotional or transitional difficulties. To master the skills they need to lead clients through the Exploration, Insight, and Action stages, students are given both theoretical guidance and opportunities for formulating solutions to hypothetical clinical problems. Grounded in client-centered, psychoanalytic, and cognitive-behavioral theory, this book offers an integrative approach. Tables and lists supplement the text, along with clinical examples.--From publisher's description.

In this exceptional new sixth edition, the author has retained the practical framework for offering immediate problem-solving assistance to persons in crisis. Therefore, the goal of this updated and expanded edition is to provide knowledge and methods applicable to particular crisis circumstances. Specific topics include: core concepts that are fundamental to all intervention efforts, crisis theory and the philosophy of crisis intervention, basic communication and problem-solving skills, suicide prevention, assistance for terminally ill persons, bereavement counseling, intervention with crime victims, rape counseling, negotiating with armed perpetrators, group strategies, family and marital interventions, disaster relief, case management, physical facilities, modes of contact, community relations, selection, training, and burnout prevention procedures. The handbook also details a review of the research on crisis intervention and how individual intervenors can build upon that knowledge. Numerous case examples presented in the handbook (with fictitious names) are based on actual occurrences the author has encountered. The techniques in this book are applicable to crisis centers, hotlines, Internet-based services, victim-assistance programs, college counseling centers, hospitals, schools, correctional facilities, children and youth programs, and other human service settings. The Study Questions at the end of each chapter are designed to serve as useful applications of crisis intervention theories and principles. Intended for caregivers whose work involves crisis intervention efforts, this is an informative resource for counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, physicians, clergy, correctional officers, parole and probation officers, and lay volunteers.

Readers will be introduced to the three core approaches of counselling, coaching and mentoring, and shown how they work across a variety of settings, including therapy, teaching, social work and nursing. Part 1 takes readers through the theory, approaches and skills needed for helping work, and includes chapters on: The differences and similarities of counselling, coaching and mentoring Foundational and advanced skills for effective helping Supervision and reflective practice Ethical helping and working with diversity Part 2 shows how helping skills look in practice, in a variety of different helping professions. 10 specially-written case studies show you the intricacies of different settings and client groups, including work in schools, hospitals, telephone helplines and probation programs.

Critical thinking values, knowledge and skills are integral to evidence-based practice in the helping professions. Those working in this area must be able to think clearly, on a daily basis, about decisions that may have a major impact on their clients' lives. Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals, 3rd Edition, is designed to engage readers as active participants in honing their critical thinking skills, learning a coherent decision-making process, and comprehending its underlying principles. There are many books on evidence based practice and critical thinking, but none integrate the two as well as Eileen Gambrill and Leonard Gibbs, two renowned professors and evidence-based practice thinkers. And no others provide such a variety of hands-on exercises, with their rich opportunities to learn how to implement vital steps in making important decisions. In addition to the exercises, the authors incorporate unique material exploring the use of propaganda in the helping professions, which is integrated with discussions of related research on judgment, problem solving, and critical thinking. For students in social work, nursing, counseling, and similar areas, this new edition of a unique textbook is a fun and mentally stimulating way to sharpen and maximize their innate decision-making skills and their abilities to apply an evidence-based approach to their daily work, so that their clients will get the best care possible.

The professional helper should be a teacher, a mentor, a motivator and a guide when assisting helpees find solutions to their life situations. Most clients have within themselves the answers to most if not all of their life situations; quite often, what they need is someone to assist them in sifting through and evaluating the various possible responses for a situation. This revised and expanded new edition continues the theme of the first edition in providing a basic understanding of the various kinds of helping relationships and characteristics that an effective helper must possess. An overview of the major issues the United States has encountered, and to some degree successfully overcome with the involvement of the helping professional, is presented. Part I covers personal skills that a helper should possess such as understanding self, understanding human behavior, cultural differences, disabilities, religion, and resources. Part II discusses the impacts of the changing roles of helping professionals, roles in cultural evolution, and future challenges for helpers. Part III provides an analysis of theoretical views for helping relationships. A discussion of the theories are provided to enable helpers develop their own professional approaches to helping clients. Other topics include understanding individual and family counseling, preparing the helper to provide the best professional and ethical services possible, a sound understanding of human behavior, how to conduct the helping relationship from the standpoint of process, establishment of goals, and the implementation of these goals. The Professional Helper will be a beneficial text to all counseling students, as well as students in social work, human resources, psychology, sociology, and human relations.

A primary role of student affairs professionals is to help college students dealing with developmental transitions and coping with emotional difficulties. Becoming an effective helping professional requires the complex integration of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and professional awareness, and knowledge. For graduate students preparing to become student affairs practitioners, this textbook provides the skills necessary to facilitate the helping process and understand how to respond to student concerns and crises, including how to make referrals to appropriate campus or community resources. Focusing on counseling concepts and applications essential for effective student affairs practice, this book develops the conceptual frameworks, basic counseling skills, interventions, and techniques that are necessary for student affairs practitioners to be effective, compliant, and ethical in their helping and advising roles. Rich in pedagogical features, this textbook includes questions for reflection, theory to practice exercises, case studies, and examples from the field.

Helping Skills Training for Nonprofessional Counselors provides comprehensive training in mental health first aid. Through a trusted approach, grounded in evidence-based psychological research and counseling theory, this training manual provides step-by-step instruction in helping skills written exclusively for nonprofessionals. Focusing on the basics of nonprofessional counseling, the author has written an easy-to-read text that pinpoints strategies, action steps, and investigation procedures to be used by nonprofessionals to effectively aid those in distress. The LifeRAFT model integrates multi-theoretical bases, microskills training, evidence-based techniques, and instruction on ethical appropriateness. It also includes case studies, session transcripts, and practice exercises. With undergraduate students in applied psychology and nonprofessional counselors being the primary beneficiaries of this text, it is also ideal for anyone seeking training to effectively respond to mental health crises encountered in their everyday lives.

Promotes an in-depth understanding of adolescent development that can be immediately applied to effective treatment Adolescence is a distinct and complex stage of development, and successful interventions with this population require an in-depth understanding of the many forces affecting them. This is a practical, thorough, yet concise survey of adolescent development for early career professionals in psychology, mental health counseling, social work, marriage and family therapy, education, and nursing. Based on in-depth theoretical and empirical understanding of adolescent physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development, the text demonstrates how this knowledge can be applied immediately to treating adolescents in any setting. The only book of its kind, it is a welcome alternative to purely clinical books because its strategic focus is on understanding normal adolescent development and appreciating the crucial difference between adolescent developmental issues versus clinical issues. Comprehending this important difference is an integral aspect of successful interventions with adolescents. The book provides an overview of historical perspectives, major theories and research, and current best practices in the profession. It addresses topics in adolescent development, with a particular emphasis on how physical, cognitive, and socioemotional developments interact in an integrative process. Particularly helpful features include a section in each chapter, "Adolescent Development in the Real World," which highlights interviews with professionals who, in their daily work, apply the concepts discussed in the text. The "In Their Own Words" feature provides interviews with adolescents from various gender and ethnic groups, providing first-person accounts of how specific issues are manifested in life. Other hallmarks of this text include easy-to-understand language, discussion-oriented critical thinking tasks, and suggestions for further reading. Readers will come away with a deep theoretical and empirical understanding of adolescent development, as well as how to apply and implement these concepts in any adolescent or adolescent-related mental health setting. KEY FEATURES: Presents concise yet in-depth coverage of adolescent development with a focus on applying this knowledge in practice Facilitates a deep theoretical and empirical understanding of the key concepts in physical, cognitive, and socioemotional adolescent development Emphasizes the interaction of physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development Includes interviews with professionals who demonstrate how they apply the book's concepts in their work with adolescents Provides first-person accounts from adolescents from different cultural, ethnic, and sexual orientations