Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients

Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients

  • Author: Rooney, Ronald H.; Mirick, Rebecca G.
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press
  • ISBN: 9780231182669
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780231544283
  • Place of publication:  New York , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2018
  • Month: May
  • Language: English
Often in their careers, social workers will encounter clients who are either legally required to attend treatment services or are otherwise coerced or pressured into those services. Practitioners in settings from prisons to emergency rooms to nursing homes to child protection agencies will find themselves with involuntary clients. In an update to this classic text, social workers Ronald H. Rooney and Rebecca G. Mirick explore the best ways to work with unwilling clients.


While work with involuntary clients is common, it can be challenging, frustrating, and unproductive unless practitioners are well trained for it. This book provides a theoretical framework for understanding the legal, ethical, and practical concerns when working with involuntary clients, offering theory, treatment models, and specific practice strategies influenced by the best available knowledge. Animated by case studies across diverse settings, these resources can be used by practitioners to facilitate collaborative, effective working relationships with involuntary clients.
  • Table of Contents
  • List of Illustrations
  • Preface
  • Part I: A Foundation for Work with Involuntary Clients
    • 1. Introduction to Involuntary Practice, by Ronald Rooney
    • 2. Legal and Ethical Foundations for Work with Involuntary Clients, by Ronald Rooney
    • 3. Effectiveness with Involuntary Clients, by Ronald Rooney
    • 4. Influencing Behaviors and Attitudes, by Ronald Rooney
    • 5. Oppression and Involuntary Status, by Glenda Dewberry Rooney and Joan Blakey
    • 6. Trauma Informed Care with Legally Mandated Involuntary Clients, by Joan Blakey
  • Part II: Practice Strategies for Work with Involuntary Clients
    • 7. Assessing Initial Contacts in Involuntary Transactions, by Rebecca Mirick
    • 8. Initial Phase Work with Individual Involuntary Clients, by Rebecca Mirick
    • 9. Task-Centered Intervention with Involuntary Clients, by Ronald Rooney
    • 10. Work with Involuntary Families, by Rebecca Mirick
    • 11. Work with Involuntary Groups, by Michael Chovanec
  • Part III: Practice Applications with Involuntary Problems and Settings
    • 12. Work with Men in Domestic Abuse Treatment, by Michael Chovanec
    • 13. Integrated Health Care and Health Disparities, by Tamara Davis and Adriane Peck
    • 14. Strengths-Based Strategies for Improving Quality of Life Among Dementia-Affected Older Adults, and Their Care Partners, by Justine McGovern
    • 15. Substance Abuse Treatment: A Field in the Midst of Change, by Katherine van Wormer and Laura Parker 16. Work with Unmotivated Clients, by Per Revstedt
    • 16. Work with Unmotivated Clients, by Per Revstedt
    • 17. Bringing Up What They Don’t Want to Talk About: Use of Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for Alcohol and Depression in a Community College Health Center, by Melinda Hohman, Christine Kleinpeter, and Tamara Strohauer
    • 18. Involuntary Clients in Public Schools: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Interventions, by Cynthia Franklin, Laura Hopson and Samantha Guz
    • 19. Work with Involuntary Clients in Child Welfare Settings, by Rebecca Mirick, Julie Altman, and Debra Gohagan
    • 20. Work with Involuntary Clients in Corrections, by Chris Trotter
    • 21. Applying the Involuntary Perspective to Supervision, by Carol Jud and Tony Bibus
    • 22. The Nonvoluntary Practitioner and the System, by Ronald Rooney
  • Appendix
  • About the Editors
  • Contributors
  • Index

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