Over the course of your HUS program you have been asked to write, write, write. As we know, only by practice do we become comfortable at a particular skill. For some of you, the writing demands have been relatively easy to navigate. Perhaps you began the program with a high level of confidence in your writing abilities. For others, the writing has been more difficult. Through your consistent exposure to required writing assignments of all kinds, luckily, at this stage in the program, you have become more skilled, more efficient, and perhaps have even begun to like writing. Now that you are past the midpoint of your internship, you have been exposed to a particular form of writing that is required by your agency. Regardless of your placement, all agencies require documentation and the chapter outlines the reasons that proper documentation is an essential component of all HUS practice. There are many ramifications to documentation, including legal ones, so it is imperative that you keep factual records, records that say enough, but not too much. There are numerous components in the chapter that will guide you in becoming a skilled practitioner who keeps appropriate records.
For this journal entry about writing and documentation:
Describe some of the documents that are required at your internship agency. What purpose do they serve?
Explain what important components you or other staff members may include in these documents. Describe key points you might add to your notes in these forms or strategies that may be useful when filling out these documents.
Sum up this entry with three reasons that proper documentation is an important and necessary component of HUS practice.
***Note: If you did not have a lot of experience with documentation, feel free to write about what other individuals in the organization had to document. You can also explain what your role might be like in the future if you are documenting your interactions with clients, etc. in your current internship agency or other human services organizations.
