Communication Skills in Different Disciplines

Discuss about the Communication and Thoughts for Welfare Service.

The essay aims to discuss the importance of the communication skills. Communication skills are essential to excel in any discipline or field. Communication is an intricate skill and is inarguably important for an individual and an organisation.  This world is socially reliant and even on a basic level, interaction between people is required for achieving smallest of a thing.  In the regard, the essay explains three impersonal communication skills of listening, feedback and questioning. Further, the essay discusses the benefits of applying these skills in the sociology sector particularly in the social and welfare service.  Using theories of sociology and communication, the essay explains the usefulness of these communication skills in the chosen discipline.

Social and the welfare service is the discipline that involves the human-to-human interaction. Within this discipline, the extensive application of the three interpersonal communication skills is necessary for effective functionality within the social service. The goal of the social and the welfare service is to engage with the public via open, honest dialogue and interaction while maintaing the ethical principles of   confidentiality autonomy, respect and dignity of the clients/ This goal is not possible without the interpersonal communication skills of listening, feedback and questioning (Boys et al., 2015).

Listening conscientiously is a communication skill to ensure the public welfare in social service. Listening is a skill that require one to deliberately interpret the audio and visual stimuli from an external source to obtain clear idea or information (Wolvin, 2011).  Listening involves the steps of “attending, interpreting, remembering, evaluating and responding” to messages both non-verbally and verbally. Initially one has to acknowledge the prompts and the given information followed by its interpretation based on personal understanding. Then the person in social service recalls the information, evaluates and analyses the information based on the interpretation. Finally, the person responses by demonstrating the perceived information and clarifies the message. While receiving or responding to the message the non-verbal language can be used in conjunction. It will help demonstrate the effective listening. The nonverbal cues may include nodding head, visual attention, eye contact, mirrored behaviour and positive body language. It will help understand the information more clearly.  According to social learning theory, observation and imitation better explains the human behaviour (Jennings & Henderson, 2014).

Applying the listening skills in social work will enhance the welfare of the client. The clients feel more valued and important when they are listened. A social worker must demonstrate the active listening skills. This is an important technique for conflict resolution of the clients, for counselling and training. The social worker must fully listen to the client’s crisis, observe, concentrate and understand the issue. Then the social worker can design intervention based on the interpretation (Wolvin, 2011).  Active listening involves both listening and talking to analyse the behaviour of the client. This is the crux of the communication theory. It helps the service users to feel that they are understood and build mutual trust in the social worker. A service user will feel more comfortable when the social worker use positive body language and express right emotions. It also benefits the social worker to comprehend the state of mind of the client that is aggressive, having hidden pain or in the state of happiness. It will help the social worker to gain mutual trust through listening interpersonal skills (Stacks & Salwen, 2014).

Impersonal Skills and their Application in Social Work

The skill of questioning is important one, for analysis and comprehension where all parties involves demonstrates what is understood and projects the meaning. This soft skill helps both the sender and receiver to gain insight of what is unsaid and send messages accordingly to enrich the dialogue. Asking questions allows one to control the conversation and is a great negotiation tactic. Questioning signals the receivers that they are being listened. It gives them the opportunity to air the differences of perspectives and delve in-depth into the topic. It is an open ended process that helps in correcting mistakes, and explore more ideas and issues. There are different forms of questioning that are straightforward, reflective, testing, open/closed, and objective questions (Stickley et al., 2017).

Applying the questioning skills in social work is beneficial during the interview. Interview in social and welfare service involves meaningful conversation. It indicates the beginning of change. Interviews are important for social workers to build strong rapport with the client to collect necessary data (Vallotton & Ayoub, 2010). Different type of question can be asked for different age group. For example when dealing with child it is better ask questions that will directly not indicate any answer else it will lead to fictitious stories instead of obtaining exact answer. For example instead of asking “did your mom gave you the chocolate?” It can be asked as “from where did you get the chocolate?”  To expand on answers it is better to ask questions open ended questions. It helps in getting answers that the social worker may not have thought about asking even.   When questioning, the social worker can use the psychodynamic theory to understand the reason for a client’s particular behaviour.  It will help the social worker to reach core of the conflict being experienced by the client and better assess the needs (Colarusso & Nemiroff, 2013).

The skills of feedback are an important aspect of interpersonal communication. Feedback helps in better collaborative outcomes. Feedback helps the communicator to know if the message was clearly understood or if there is need of clarification. Based on the feedback if it is identified that there is a misunderstanding of the information the message can be further articulated. Feedback crosses different levels of communication and it becomes both irreversible and constant. It is an integral part of the written communication process, verbal and non-verbal process. Feedback is important to increase the communicator’s self-awareness. It helps in constructive criticism and improves the past performance. Feedback helps in workplace cohesion and effectiveness (Baker et al., 2013).

Importance of Listening in Social Work

Implementing the feedback principles improve collaboration with clients. Social worker can form connections that will help share even intimate informations and allow the clients to open up for honest criticism. To motivate people for change a social worker can give both informal and formal feedback. It will bolster trust in conjunction with the positive behaviour change (Koprowska, 2014). Implementing this skills is not a smooth process. It is recommended to the social worker to distinguish between the different types of personality and skills accordingly. A social worker may use transpersonal theory to help people in crisis to develop stronger ego to overcome adversity. This theory is psychological as well as spiritual and it emphasise on healing (Canda & Smith, 2013). Depending on the personality type, the social worker may sue constructive feedback and be tactful.

In conclusion the, essay has discussed the interpersonal communication skills- listening, questioning and feedback and how they are beneficial in the social and welfare service. The social worker must treat the client with respect and dignity, protect their confidentiality and resolve their issues or crisis without being judgmental. These three skills are beneficial to both the social worker and the service user. These skills empower the service user to build confidence in the social work and engage in partnership. It is beneficial for the social worker to build therapeutic relationships with clients in crisis, design interventions and make future welfare plans for service users. Hence, it can be concluded that these interpersonal skills are crucial to satisfy customers to improve the work performance. If these skills are not implemented effectively, it may lead to misinterpretations about the service.

References

Baker, A., Perreault, D., Reid, A., & Blanchard, C. M. (2013). Feedback and organizations: Feedback is good, feedback-friendly culture is better. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 54(4), 260.

Boys, S. K., Quiring, S. Q., Harris, E., & Hagan, C. A. (2015). Social Work and Law Interdisciplinary Service Learning: Increasing Future Lawyers’ Interpersonal Skills. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 35(4), 410-424.

Canda, E. R., & Smith, E. D. (2013). Transpersonal perspectives on spirituality in social work. Routledge.

Colarusso, C. A., & Nemiroff, R. A. (2013). Adult development: A new dimension in psychodynamic theory and practice. Springer Science & Business Media.

Jennings, W. G., & Henderson, B. B. (2014). Social learning theory. The Encyclopedia of Theoretical Criminology.

Koprowska, J. (2014). Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning Matters.

Stacks, D. W., & Salwen, M. B. (Eds.). (2014). An integrated approach to communication theory and research. Routledge.

Stickley, T., Gosling, J., & Fox, C. (2017). Communication and interpersonal skills 2: emotional engagement. Fundamentals of Mental Health Nursing: An Essential Guide for Nursing and Healthcare Students.

Vallotton, C. D., & Ayoub, C. C. (2010). Symbols Build Communication and Thought: The Role of Gestures and Words in the Development of Engagement Skills and Social?emotional Concepts during Toddlerhood. Social Development, 19(3), 601-626.

Wolvin, A. D. (Ed.). (2011). Listening and human communication in the 21st century. John Wiley & Sons.