This text can be used in all clinical skills courses and practica across the human services. It is designed to teach students the fundamental interviewing tools (e.g., empathy, reflection, summarizing, etc.) that comprise professional clinical contact. After orienting students to their responsibilities as new practitioners, the author presents, in clear and concise language, essential clinical communication tools in a unified format. Each section presents: (1) the name of the tool, (2) rationale for use, (3) exemplary dialogue between therapist and client demonstrating actual usage/s of the tool, (4) tutorial commentary embedded in the dialogue example, (5) dialogue debriefing, and (6) suggestions for variations.

Introduction to Social Work Practice orients the students to the role of the professional social worker. The first chapter delineates the differences between being a good friend and being a good clinician in terms of social/emotional factors, professionalism, and self-disclosure. The second chapter covers techniques for building a trusting working environment that is conducive to processing sensitive issues along with an overview of key therapeutic communication skills. The remaining five chapters detail an easy-to-remember five-step problem-solving model to guide the clinical process: 1. Assessment, 2. Goal, 3. Objectives, 4. Activation, 5. Termination.

Key features include:

- role-play exercises

- brief essay and response questions to build and test key communication skills

- discussion points

- glossary of terms

- diagrams and charts that graphically represent the flow of the helping process.

The workbook presumes no prior clinical experience and uses no technical psychological jargon. It teaches fundamental communication skills while emphasizing key social work values, ethics, and issues of multicultural populations and diversity throughout.