PRC Social Worker cheat sheet

Erikson's eight psychosocial stages pair a crisis with each life phase; resolution of each crisis yields a virtue (trust vs mistrust in infancy yields hope).

Piaget's stages in order: sensorimotor (0–2), preoperational (2–7), concrete operational (7–11), formal operational (11 and older).

Kohlberg's three levels: preconventional (punishment and self-interest), conventional (social approval and law and order), postconventional (social contract and universal principles).

Bronfenbrenner's nested systems are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem; assessment maps stressors and supports at each level.

Maslow's hierarchy from bottom: physiological, safety, belonging and love, esteem, self-actualization; lower needs generally dominate until reasonably met.

Ainsworth attachment classifications are secure, anxious-ambivalent (resistant), avoidant, and disorganized; disorganized is most associated with maltreating or frightening caregiving.

The family life cycle includes leaving home, joining families through marriage, families with young children, launching children, and later life.

Person-in-environment assessment requires attention to both intrapsychic and environmental factors; DSM-5 criteria exclude normal reactions such as uncomplicated bereavement.

The Social Security Act of 1935 created old-age insurance (Social Security), unemployment insurance, and federal matching grants for state public assistance and child welfare.

PRWORA (1996) replaced AFDC with TANF: a block grant with work requirements and a 60-month federal lifetime limit on cash assistance.

Means-tested (selective) benefits require an income or resource test (SNAP, SSI, Medicaid); universal benefits are available to all (public education, Social Security).

SSI is a means-tested cash benefit for aged, blind, or disabled people with limited income and resources; Social Security (OASDI) is an earned entitlement.

Medicare is federal health insurance for people 65 and older or with qualifying disabilities; Medicaid is a joint federal-state program for low-income people.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (1997) requires a permanency hearing within 12 months and a termination petition when a child has been in foster care 15 of the most recent 22 months, with exceptions.

Title IV-E funds foster care and adoption assistance; Title IV-B funds child welfare services and family preservation.

Policy analysis frameworks (e.g., Bardach's eight steps) move from problem definition to assembling evidence, selecting criteria, projecting outcomes, and choosing among alternatives.

The planned-change process: engagement, assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, termination, and follow-up.

Motivational interviewing uses OARS-open questions, affirmations, reflective listening, summaries-to elicit and strengthen client change talk.

Crisis intervention is time-limited and aims to restore precrisis functioning; assess lethality and safety first, then mobilize supports and coping.

Solution-focused brief therapy emphasizes exceptions, scaling questions, and the miracle question rather than extended problem analysis.

Tuckman's group stages are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning; conflict typically peaks in storming.

Task-centered practice is brief (roughly 6–12 sessions), structured, and built on explicit target problems and negotiated between-session tasks.

The strengths perspective assumes every client and environment holds capacities; assessment documents competencies, resources, and aspirations, not only deficits.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy links thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; cognitive restructuring tests and replaces distorted automatic thoughts.

Field education is the signature pedagogy of social work; students are supervised by an agency field instructor and supported by a faculty liaison.

A learning contract states the student's learning objectives, activities, supervision arrangements, and evaluation methods and is negotiated early in placement.

Process recordings-verbatim or near-verbatim accounts of interviews, including the student's reactions-are used in supervision to build skill and self-awareness.

Parallel process occurs when dynamics from the client-worker relationship are reenacted in the student-supervisor relationship.

Transfer of learning is application of classroom concepts to field situations; integrative field seminars are designed to support it.

Formative evaluation provides ongoing feedback during placement; summative evaluation is the final judgment of competency attainment.

Because the field instructor evaluates the student, therapy or personal-friend roles with that student are inappropriate boundary crossings.

HIPAA allows disclosure of protected health information without authorization for treatment, payment, and health care operations; other uses require authorization or a legal exception.

NASW's six core values are service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence.

Valid informed consent requires client capacity, disclosure of purposes, risks, benefits, and alternatives, voluntariness, and documentation.

Confidentiality limits include imminent danger to self or others, suspected child or elder abuse and neglect, court order, and written client authorization.

The Tarasoff duty to protect or warn arises when a client poses a serious threat of violence to an identifiable third party; state law governs the specifics.

Mandated reporting laws require the social worker to report suspected child abuse or neglect to designated authorities within a statutory time frame; the worker reports rather than investigates.

Reamer's ethical decision-making sequence: identify the problem, examine relevant values and principles, rank duties, generate options, evaluate, consult, then decide and document.

Dual or multiple relationships are not automatically unethical but are prohibited when they risk exploitation or impaired professional judgment.

NASW Standard 1.05 requires social workers to obtain education about and seek understanding of client cultures and to recognize personal biases.