The purpose of this assignment is to orient and accustom you to thinking about individuals and systems as interdependent and provide you with a three-dimensional lens for understanding your clients. Assessments are the most common tool social workers use to organize the information they have gathered about their clients. This will ultimately lead to your conceptualization (or clinical formulation) of why your client is experiencing a particular problem at a particular moment. Interview an immigrant from a racially or ethnically diverse background and create an assessment that highlights the intersection of racial identity, ethnicity, and acculturation. This can promote empathy and a deeper understanding of the immigrant experience. • Presenting ProblemFocus on how the client and referring source define the problem • Current and Historical Information ◦ History of the presenting problem ◦ Family History, Social History, Medical History, Psychiatric History, History of suicidality, Sexual History, Gender Identity Issues, Racial Identity, Trauma History, Substance Use, Legal Involvement, Cultural Issues, Religion, and Spirituality, Other? • Risk and Protective Factors ◦ Personal – strengths, adaptability, coping, interests ◦ Social – family, communities ◦ Financial, institutional, housing, environmental • Clinical FormulationWrite a formulation/case conceptualization based on the information you gathered. This section is where you take your descriptive information and present your hypotheses. The formulation should involve your creative thinking, including your understanding/conceptualization, pulling all relevant data into an integrated, cohesive statement, including how the past affects the present, how the current behavior reflects both past and present patterns of behavior, and how all the systems involved have affected the client’s current functioning.
