Competency 7: Assess Individuals, Families, Groups,
Organizations, and Communities

Assessment is the cornerstone of social work practice. Competency 7 entails the collection, examination, and consolidation of information about clients to construct a plan consistent with their strengths, needs, and goals. Whether social workers are working with individuals, families, groups, organizations, or communities, they must use critical thinking, cultural humility, and evidence-based practice to make ethical and accurate assessments.
 
In my field practicum at the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia (ECNV) and New Hope Housing of VA, I observed that assessment is the process of data collection and making sense of people’s lives. Through my practice and learning at George Mason University (GMU), I gained a better understanding of how assessment is connected with engagement (Competency 6), policy practice (Competency 5), and research-informed practice (Competency 4).

By competency 7, I will explain how the field experience taught him/her about the importance of comprehensive, client-focused evaluation, with the 2022 CSWE EPAS standards and the NASW Code of Ethics.
 
Assessment of Individuals: An Individual in His/her Environment
Through ECNV, I was able to work with disabled clients and the issues they encounter to find employment, mobility, and independence. The final client I am going to introduce is a middle-aged woman with a physical disability and visited us for assistance to obtain a conducive home. Initially, it appeared to be a relatively simple issue, but upon conducting a detailed assessment, I discovered that:

• Had lost her job she was financially short.
• She had mental illness such as depression and anxiety.
• She had no one to come to her and had to belong to society.

This helped me realize that one issue usually has a relation to some other environmental and personal issues. I utilized the bio-psycho-social-spiritual (BPSS) model learned at GMU and analyzed her case and provided the following recommendations:

• Assessed her with economic relief programs to reduce her economic distress.
• Referred her to counseling services to assist her with her psychological issues.
• Helped her to contact disability advocacy groups to build her social support.

This is due to the fact that I could see how an accurate assessment leads to appropriate treatments. Instead of focusing on housing, I tried to work with the entire individual and how he or she can enhance housing, employment, and other areas.
 
Assessing Families: Recovery in an Environment of Trauma and Social Justice

Working in New Hope Housing, I had the opportunity of working with crisis families, at-risk families for homelessness, eviction, and economic crisis. There was one case that I remember until today, and that was the case involving a mother and three children who were evicted from their house because of domestic violence.

During my assessment, I learned that:

• The children were having behavioral problems, which are always the case whenever children are disturbed.
• The mother was unable to work full-time because she did not have anyone to take care of the children.
• They did not have a home to return to because they had been turned down for shelter by some market restrictions.
Implemented in GMU, I was actually able to include trauma-informed assessment, and this implies my approach was:
• Positive in the sense of emphasizing the strength of the mother and attempts at ensuring her kids are resettled.
• Culture-aware in being sensitive to the patient's race, how racism has impacted where she resides.
• Non-judicial by participating in decision-sharing with the family instead of for them.
This case demonstrated that assessment is not only the process of discovering problems but also the process of discovering potential and creating solutions.

Evaluating Groups: A Study of Social Relationships
During my time at ECNV, I co-facilitated a disability support group. Prior to setting up the group sessions, I conducted an initial needs assessment to ascertain:

• What is of most concern to the members (e.g., job, advocacy, anxiety).
• Why did they not participate equally (e.g., no transportation, impracticality)?
• How they might participate (e.g., group discussion, group activities).

This assisted us in creating a better group experience to make the participants feel heard and understood.
The same at New Hope Housing, I assisted in evaluating the housing needs of the community regarding homelessness through:
• Conduct a survey of the shelter residents to identify their needs and how they can be addressed.
• Collaborating with other agencies to understand the housing policies and overall challenges that are present.
• Utilizing demographic information to understand the needs of the community and requesting necessary resources to meet the needs.

From these experiences, I realized that group and community assessments are applied in social work practice to guide more universal interventions.
 
Bridging Research, Policy, and Assessment

Assessment is not data gathering but data analysis to effect change. In my field practice, I valued the connection between competency-based assessment and research (Competency 4) and policy practice (Competency 5).

For instance:

• At the time that I was working at ECNV, the assessments of transportation barriers that I gathered informed disability rights advocacy at the policy level.
• In New Hope Housing, my trend analyses of eviction were used to guide fair housing policy debates.
The CSWE 2022 EPAS standards emphasize the assessment to practice, and the experiences above demonstrate that data-informed advocacy is a core component of social work practice.

GMU: The Ethics of Assessment
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The NASW Code of Ethics mandates that the assessment must be:
• Equitable and non-discriminatory, neither biased nor prejudicial to the clients.
• Client-centered: The client is the center of the assessment, and it is conducted in an acceptable way for the client.
• Culturally responsive, with sensitivity to the social justice issues and the position of the client in the social justice context.
By GMU's social work program, self-appraisal was learned by me through a process of assessment. This is so that one understands self and personal biases because when one is assessing, one needs to have self-appraisal.

Conclusion:

Assessment as a Meritorious Social Experiment
Competency 7 has been the most thrilling aspect of my social work career. Working at ECNV and New Hope Housing has taught me that assessment is not merely a form one fills out, but a means of understanding the world and its people.

Based on my experiences, I have determined that:

• Cultural humility and active listening to honor the client in family, community, and environment.
• An ecosystems approach that unifies the individual, family, group, and community.
• Collaboration with research and policy to ensure evidence-based and systemic interventions.

In my future practice as a social worker, I will:

• Conducting ethical and person-centered assessments to meet the needs of individuals and families.
• Applying patterns and research findings in the struggle to make change for the community members.
• Ensure that assessment is culturally responsive, client-centered, and individualized on the basis of the client's needs.
Lastly, assessment is the foundation of good and proper social work practice, and I am honored to be applying these findings.