Author: Will
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Where Your California Duty to Protect Actually Comes From
Read more: Where Your California Duty to Protect Actually Comes FromYou already know the name Tarasoff. Every California law and ethics course you’ve sat through has walked the 1976 decision, the shift from a duty to warn to a duty to protect, and the long academic argument about what the court actually meant. That history isn’t background material. The duty comes from the case law,…
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Implicit Bias in Social Work: Follow Your Gut?
Read more: Implicit Bias in Social Work: Follow Your Gut?Your brain builds associations from what it’s exposed to, repeatedly, over years. Faces with contexts. Names with outcomes. Presentations with categories. This happens without your consent and largely without your awareness, and it’s the same machinery that lets you read a room in three seconds or know a client is in trouble before he says…
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DBT for Social Workers: What is Radical Acceptance?
Read more: DBT for Social Workers: What is Radical Acceptance?Ruth sits in session fifteen, visibly exhausted. She’s learned the survival skills—the breathing exercises that help her sleep, the grounding techniques that get her through the worst spirals. And she’s still suffering. “I can manage the anxiety now,” she says. “I can get through the day without falling apart. But I’m still fighting the same…
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The Words You Choose Today Might Follow Someone for Years
Read more: The Words You Choose Today Might Follow Someone for YearsKeisha worked at a community mental health center serving a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. The agency’s records system came with documentation templates—dropdown menus built to keep charting consistent across providers. Most of the fields were fine. One kept bothering her. The template had a section called “Barriers to Treatment” with pre-populated checkboxes: “Lacks motivation.”…
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When Boundaries Bend: Dual Relationships in Social Work Practice
Read more: When Boundaries Bend: Dual Relationships in Social Work PracticeDr. Patel runs a thriving private practice in downtown Chicago where she rarely encounters clients outside the office. Two hundred miles away, in a rural Illinois town, social worker Maria Lopez can’t buy groceries without running into three families from her caseload. Both face boundary challenges, but their realities couldn’t be more different. That difference…
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When Your Home Becomes Your Therapy Office
Read more: When Your Home Becomes Your Therapy OfficeYou’re three minutes into a session with Isabel when your cat jumps onto your desk, knocking over your coffee mug. Behind you, your teenage daughter’s TikTok music starts blaring from upstairs. Isabel laughs and says, “Your house feels so homey—nothing like those sterile office buildings.” Your stomach drops a little because Isabel just learned you…
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When Understanding the Problem Is the Problem
Read more: When Understanding the Problem Is the ProblemSome clients come in already knowing too much. Nathaniel was 38, a high school assistant principal, and he had been to the emergency room three times in four months convinced he was having a heart attack. Each time, the workup came back clean. His physician diagnosed panic disorder and referred him to therapy. By the…
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Preventing Burnout and Secondary Trauma in Social Work
Read more: Preventing Burnout and Secondary Trauma in Social WorkYou picked this field because you care. That’s not a weakness — but it is a risk factor. Social workers carry other people’s pain as part of the job description. Crisis calls, trauma disclosures, chronic grief, impossible systems — the emotional weight accumulates whether you’re tracking it or not. And when it goes unaddressed long…
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From “What’s Wrong With You?” to “What Happened to You?”
Read more: From “What’s Wrong With You?” to “What Happened to You?”Stephanie had been working at the domestic violence shelter for three years when the organization decided to become “trauma-informed.” At first, she wondered what would change — weren’t they already helping trauma survivors? But as she learned more, she began to see her work differently. She noticed how clients positioned themselves in the common room,…
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Staying Calm When They’re Not: De-Escalation Techniques for Social Workers
Read more: Staying Calm When They’re Not: De-Escalation Techniques for Social WorkersTyler bursts into the waiting room, face red with anger: “This is bullshit! I’ve been waiting forty-five minutes and nobody’s told me anything! Where the hell is my social worker!” The waiting room stiffens. Conversations stop mid-sentence. Situations like this require immediate de-escalation skills that can mean the difference between a productive session and a…