Please help! Case management questions

Exercises for Chapter 9

Exercises

These exercises can also be filled out online at CengageBrain.com.

Exercises I: What Is Wrong with These Questions?

Instructions: Read the questions that follow and decide what makes them bad questions. In writing your criticism, look for questions that assume there is only one answer, inflict values on the individual, make the person defensive, make assumptions, cut off discussion, or change the subject.

A woman is telling a worker why she has come to the shelter tonight. Right in the middle of her gripping tale about what was going on at home only a few hours before, the worker says, “How long has this been going on?”
A worker has listened to a young mother talk about how she dropped out of school and got pregnant and has no skills. Finally the worker interrupts to ask, “Did you have to get pregnant? Didn’t you know about birth control?”
A man calls and says he is depressed. He has felt depressed for some time and is now thinking of suicide. The worker asks, “Where is your wife? Are you divorced?”
A man is telling you about the night he witnessed a murder. The victim was his brother-in-law, and although he was never very close to him, he feels that maybe he could have stopped his death in some way. The worker asks, “Why don’t you just go and ask the police?”
A woman has come into temporary shelter with a lot of debts. She has been out looking for work today and is discouraged about not finding anything yet. She sits down tiredly in the worker’s office and talks about what her day was like. The worker asks, “Did you have to get so many debts?”
A man wants to know if his wife is all right after she has been raped. He is sitting with a worker in the waiting room while his wife is being seen in the emergency room. The worker answers his question with one of her own: “How much does your wife mean to you?”
A patient in a partial hospitalization program for the chronically mentally ill tells the worker that when the group went to the mall, one of the patients took a pair of socks without paying for them. The worker asks, “You told someone right away, didn’t you?”
A woman is telling about the time her coworkers waste when the supervisors are out at meetings all day. The worker responds, “Why don’t you say something?”
A woman tells a worker about a long and difficult marriage she has endured. She mentions abuse, both verbal and physical, and talks about her own failing health in recent months. The worker asks, “Why can’t you just bring yourself to divorce him?”
A man is trying to sort out whether or not to leave his employer. He feels that the small company is poorly run and that he could do a better job if he went out on his own. On the other hand, he likes his employer, and he feels sorry for him and the mess he’s made of his business. He knows that if he leaves, things will really fall apart. The worker asks, “Don’t you value loyalty?”

Exercises II: Which Question Is Better?

Instructions: Read the following questions and decide which of them are better than others. Place a check mark next to those you think are good questions, and then explain why you think they are better than the ones you did not check.

□	1. The worker to a woman in the hospital waiting room whose baby just died of pneumonia: “How old was your baby?”
□	2. The worker to a woman who is grieving after her husband died in a hunting accident: “Could you tell me about your husband?”
□	3. The worker to a teenage boy who is afraid of failing a math course and losing an opportunity to get a scholarship: “Can you tell me a little bit about this math course?”
□	4. The worker to a young woman who has just discovered her best friend and her boyfriend have been seeing each other behind her back: “Can you tell me something about your best friend?”
□	5. The worker to an elderly woman whose dog of 15 years has died: “Couldn’t you get another one?”
□	6. The worker to a man who is requesting food for his family after running out of unemployment compensation and being unable to find a job: “Can you describe the sort of work you would be looking for?”
□	7. The worker to a woman in a shelter who has been out searching unsuccessfully for a house or apartment for herself and her two children: “Where all did you look?”
□	8. The worker to a single mother who has been referred for parenting skills training: “Could you tell me something about the problems you have been having with Johnnie?”
□	9. The worker to a man with intellectual disabilities whose mother, with whom he has always lived, died unexpectedly: “What did your mother die of?”
□	10. The worker to a woman who was accosted and assaulted in her neighborhood and is afraid of calling the police: “Can you tell me a little bit about what happened tonight?”

Exercises III: Opening Closed Questions

Opening Closed Questions I

Instructions: Following are some vignettes in which the worker asks closed questions. Write an open question you think might work better in each situation, and be prepared to tell why you think the closed question is not useful.

A human service worker in the emergency room is talking to a man who was hit on the head before he was robbed. He seems to be having trouble getting the story out, but he wants to tell the worker everything that happened. The worker has been with the man a long time. She thinks that it is late and that the man ought to get to bed and rest now. The worker cuts off the discussion with, “Aren’t you tired, Mr. Jones?” What open question would you have asked Mr. Jones to help him wrap up his story?
The human service worker is trying to learn what happened that resulted in Mrs. Peters being without housing. Mrs. Peters says she has been “on the street a while now.” The worker asks, “Have you been on the street for 2 years, 3 years?” What open question would you have asked to learn more about what happened to Mrs. Peters to make her homeless?
The human service worker is on the phone with a woman, the victim of child abuse. The woman tells how she has felt recently, how she needed to call, and then sighs and says, “Oh, I don’t know how to begin.” The worker asks, “Did your father do this to you?” What open question would you have asked to help the woman start telling the story in her own way?
An older man has just lost his job after repeated warnings to come to work sober and seek help for his alcohol addiction. He has decided that he should get help now. “Too little, too late,” he says with resignation. “I should have been here 6 months ago.” The worker asks, “Why did you ever let it get to this?”
A child is talking to a youth worker while he waits for his mother to get a place to stay. “We’ve lived in 16 places,” he announces, “and I’m only 7.” The worker says, “What school did you go to last?” What open question would you have asked to help the child talk about what all this moving has been like for him?
A man calls a hot line and tells the mental health worker he wants to die. The volunteer asks, “Does this have to do with being abused as a child?” The man is startled and says, “Why, uh, no. Not really.” The worker asks, “Well, what’s the problem?” What open question would you have asked to help the man talk about what was troubling him?

Opening Closed Questions II

Instructions: Put yourself in the place of the worker in the following vignettes, and decide what question you would ask in each situation. Write an open question that you think might work better than the one asked by the worker, and be prepared to tell why you think the closed question is not useful.

A worker is interviewing a man in the food bank. He tells the worker that he and his children have not eaten for 24 hours and that he has spent most of that time getting referred around town until he finally got a voucher to come to you for food. The worker asks, “Why don’t you have any food?” What would you ask?
A woman is referred to the social service department in a large hospital after having a stroke. She is somewhat incapacitated and has had a lot of therapy while hospitalized. Now she is going home and needs therapy at home. The worker asks, “What kind of therapy do you want?” What would you ask?
A 16-year-old girl was brought in by her parents after they caught her and some of her friends huffing glue and gasoline. The girl is reluctant to talk and seems a little petulant about being brought in. The worker asks, “Huffing glue. So tell me, you did it to get high, to be one of the crowd, to be smart? What would you ask?”
A man and woman have been referred by the county Children and Youth Services for parenting skills training. They are poor and have had their four children removed from the home. They have been told the children will be returned when they complete the course and demonstrate they can use the skills they learned in supervised visitations. The worker asks, “Are your children good kids?” What would you ask?
An elderly woman has been having trouble caring for herself in her own home. Twice now, in the middle of the night, she has called an ambulance and has been taken to the hospital for chest pains. When her heart is checked, she is found to be in good health, if a little frail. The worker who is looking into what could be going on asks, “Are you afraid to stay at home alone?” What would you ask?
A young woman and her baby have been given a voucher for temporary shelter after she lost the apartment in which she was living. She was evicted for back rent, and her rent fell into arrears only when she was laid off several months ago. She has worked, but she cannot earn quite what she was making before. The worker doing the intake interview asks, “What kind of work have you been doing?” What would you ask?

Exercises IV: Try Asking Questions

Instructions: Look at the case histories that follow and, for each one, write four closed questions and four open questions that you might ask the client.

Annette came to your office needing her prescription filled. She was in Marywood Hospital, a private mental hospital, and was discharged on Tuesday. She was given prescriptions, but has no money to fill them. She has no job and probably is eligible for prescriptions paid for by the county. You open a case on her.

Your Closed Questions to Open Her Case Are:

Your Open Questions to Learn More about Her Are:

Marie was a client of a partial hospitalization program. She was loud and demanding, but she often felt hurt upon learning that others were afraid of her or reacted to her as if she were angry. As a result of an encounter in the partial program, she is sent to you, her new case manager, to see if there are ways to help her that might work better. You need to understand more clearly what has happened from her perspective and what sort of program she might fit into.

Your Closed Questions to Become Acquainted with Her Case Are:

Your Open Questions to Learn More about Her Problems and Desires for Treatment Are: