All Webinars

Synopsis: A Primer on Negligence and Documentation for Social Workers

Webinar – Wednesday, March 18, 2015

12:00-1:30pm EST 

The first half of the webinar will review the basic principles of law governing a social worker’s potential civil liability in negligence. We will first define the concept of negligence and distinguish it from the concepts of errors in judgment and incompetency. The standard of care expected of social workers in assessing, counselling and supervising clients will then be examined.

The second half of the webinar will begin with a review of the general principles of law governing documentation. We will then review some general guidelines for record keeping. This portion of the webinar will end with a brief discussion of computer records, inclusion of information about third parties, and from third parties, and email communications. 

Click here or see below to watch a recording of the presentation on YouTube.

negligence_documentation_-_powerpoint_slides_-_march_2015.pdf

Detailed information on the presenters, Rina Arseneault, C.M., MSW, RSW and Suzanne McKenzie-Mohr, PhD, MSW, RSW follows the below descriptions of the 3 Part Webinar Series.

Webinar 1:  Developing Capacity to Respond in Intimate Partner Violence Situations

When: January 30 – 11am to 12:00 noon (Eastern Standard Time)

Presenter:  Rina Arseneault, C.M., MSW, RSW, Associate Director,  Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research

Summary of Presentation Our professional and personal experiences, in our various communities, confirm every day that we exist in a world where human interaction, social structures and ideologies have a profound impact on all aspects of gender and family life.   Violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), can occur in any family, regardless of ethnicity, social class, age or cultural group.  Intervening in IPV situations is one of the most difficult aspects of social work practice, and social workers are often the first persons encountered by victims.  Successful interventions rely on effective practices.  What are the issues?  What intervention strategies should we use?  And, what other resources are out there to help?    This presentation will focus on the effectiveness of a trauma-informed lens alongside a gender-based analysis to enhance our interventions.

Learning objectives

- To recognize and understand the complexity of the issue.

- To enhance trauma-informed practice skills for responding to IPV

- To ensure that we, as professionals, are accountable for the role we play in intervening in situations of IPV.

Watch Webinar 1 below: Developing Capacity to Respond in Intimate Partner Violence Situations.

Webinar 2: Acting as Allies to Women Counter-Storying their experiences of Sexual Violence

When: February 25, 2015 – 11am to 12:00 noon (Eastern Standard Time)

Presenters:

Rina Arseneault, C.M., MSW, RSW, Associate Director,  Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research

Sue McKenzie-Mohr, PhD, MSW, RSW, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, St. Thomas University

Summary of presentation:

How stories inform lives “can be a gift or a danger” (Frank, 2010), and there is no more compelling a case for this assertion than the narratives surrounding women’s experiences of sexual violence.  Women’s resistance to harmful master narratives of sexual violence can be crucial to their progress toward living well.  In this presentation, we will explore what women are up against as they work to make meaning of their sexual violence experiences and introduce ways that social workers can support women in narrative repair. By drawing upon feminist-narrative practice principles, social workers can assist women to resist harmful societal framings of their experience and subsequently create and exercise new empowering framings.  We will highlight specific strategies to act as allies to women as they counter-story their experiences in liberating ways.

Learning objectives:

- To explore the effects of dominant rape and sex scripts in women’s lives;

- To introduce and consider feminist-narrative practice principles and strategies that can support women’s efforts toward living well after experiences of sexual violence (e.g., use of metaphor to create new scripts; use of audience to bolster counter-stories)

Watch Webinar 2 below: Acting as Allies to Women Counter-Storying their experiences of Sexual Violence.

Webinar 3: Nurturing Vicarious Resilience to counteract the challenges of IPV Work in Social Workers’ Lives

When: March 27, 2015 – 11am to 12:00 noon (Eastern Standard Time)

Presenters: 

Rina Arseneault, C.M., MSW, RSW, Associate Director,  Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research

Sue McKenzie-Mohr, PhD, MSW, RSW, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, St. Thomas University

Summary of presentation:

Intervening in situations of violence is stressful; the experience of hearing about violence against women, witnessing violence, and living in a culture where violence exists has an impact on a person’s life.  Social workers cannot be immune from vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue.  And yet, alongside the potential negative effects of this work, it can be valuable to also acknowledge ways that our work can deepen our strengths and enhance our lives.  These co-existing possibilities, of being both challenged and also enriched through IPV work, are common realities for social workers.  What do we know about how to counteract vicarious trauma and transform compassion fatigue?  And how can we cultivate vicarious resilience and practice ‘reasonable hope’?

Learning objectives

- To recognize the potential effects of IPV work on social workers’ private and professional lives;

- To explores strategies to strengthen and support our own well-being; and

- To examine critical and collective notions of self-care that highlight work team, institutional and structural change efforts to support the transformation of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue to resilience and growth in our work lives.  

Watch Webinar 3: Nurturing Vicarious Resilience to counteract the challenges of IPV Work in Social Workers’ Lives

Resources:

Developing Capacity to Respond in Intimate Partner Violence Situations - Webinar 1 - January 30-2015.pdf