Final Paper – Risk Assessment, Safety Plan and Case Management Plan with Resources

Final Paper Should Include the following items below and be in this order:

1. Introduction

2. Biopsychosocial Assessment (Social Work specific with a person-in-environment perspective)

3. Risk/Lethality Assessment

4. Safety Plan

5. Case Management Plan providing for the specific needs of this client (shelter, legal services/protective order, housing, income, employment, child care, etc.) using actual local resources from your community and citing to the course materials to support the recommendation

6. Conclusion

7. Reference List

8. Appendices - can be the resource directory with contact information, the lethality assessment, the safety plan

That is the order of the paper, that should be the order of the headings, and the natural order of the planning process.  

Concerning the actual intake process, depending on the client’s capacity to address this information due to the severity and how recently the violence occurred, it might take one to three meetings to walk them through all the information because their nervous system and amygdala is on high alert.  You might need to do some breathing practice, progressive muscle relaxation or self-care exercises with them to help them get out of fight-or-flight so they can focus their prefrontal cortex/executive center on planning (which goes offline in fight-or-flight and puts them in survival mode).  Meet them where they are, and don't force them to address this information, until they are ready.  You may need to employ some motivational interviewing techniques to help them see the benefit of engaging in this process for their safety.  You can google motivational interviewing techniques.  

You can google social work biopsychosocial assessment and get the template (from a credible source!) for what to include in that assessment.  The social work BPS assessment template is a bit different that other disciplines because of the person-in-environment approach which is unique to social work.

Once you know the parameters of the case, you can conduct the lethality assessment to identify what risks need to be addressed in the safety plan.  Develop the safety plan to be followed if and when violence escalates in the home.   Go over it with the client so they commit it to memory, because you never write a safety plan down where the abuser can find it.  Then the case plan addresses how the unique needs of that client will be addressed, and in what priority order according to their unique assessment.

Lastly, through your work with the Social Work Control Wheel - Cross-Cutting Issue discussion board, you saw that UNIVERSAL SCREENING is one way to help protect victims.  WHEREVER you go to carry out your social work, I hope that you will advocate with your agency to include universal screening for family violence in your intake procedure.  And you will help your agency receive in-service training to learn how to do this process for all of your clients who screen positively, to keep them safe and alive.