MSW Direct and Indirect Practice 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A social worker is lobbying city council to increase affordable housing. This represents which level of macro practice?
- Program development
- Social action (Correct answer)
- Community liaison
- Needs assessment
Correct answer: Social action
Lobbying elected officials to change housing policy is social action, a macro-level strategy for systemic change.
Question 2: In task-centered practice, the social worker and client collaboratively identify:
- Childhood trauma origins of current problems
- Specific, time-limited tasks to address identified problems (Correct answer)
- Unconscious defenses interfering with change
- Environmental barriers beyond the client's control
Correct answer: Specific, time-limited tasks to address identified problems
Task-centered practice focuses on agreed-upon, concrete, time-limited tasks that address problems the client acknowledges.
Question 3: A social worker notices a pattern of racial disparities in child welfare removals in their agency. Addressing this through organizational policy change is an example of:
- Micro-level intervention
- Countertransference management
- Mezzo-level systemic advocacy (Correct answer)
- Clinical supervision
Correct answer: Mezzo-level systemic advocacy
Changing organizational policy to address racial disparities is mezzo-level advocacy targeting institutional systems.
Question 4: Which of the following is a contraindication for brief, solution-focused therapy?
- Situational life stressors
- Active psychosis or severe mental illness (Correct answer)
- Adjustment disorder
- Mild anxiety with intact functioning
Correct answer: Active psychosis or severe mental illness
Active psychosis or severe mental illness typically requires more intensive, longer-term treatment than brief models can provide.
Question 5: A social worker serves as a liaison between a school and child protective services during a neglect investigation. This indirect practice role is called:
- Broker
- Mediator
- Coordinator (Correct answer)
- Enabler
Correct answer: Coordinator
Coordinating communication and services between two agencies to serve a shared client is the coordinator role.
Question 6: Prochaska and DiClemente's transtheoretical model identifies which stage in which a client has changed behavior but continues to work to prevent relapse?
- Preparation
- Action
- Maintenance (Correct answer)
- Contemplation
Correct answer: Maintenance
The maintenance stage follows action and involves sustaining behavioral change and actively preventing relapse.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes the role of supervision in direct social work practice?
- Evaluating client outcomes for program reporting
- Ensuring worker competence, ethical practice, and professional development (Correct answer)
- Managing caseload size to reduce burnout
- Providing therapy to workers experiencing secondary trauma
Correct answer: Ensuring worker competence, ethical practice, and professional development
Supervision ensures competent, ethical practice and supports professional development through administrative, educational, and supportive functions.
MSW Direct and Indirect Practice 4
A social worker is lobbying city council to increase affordable housing.
This represents which level of macro practice?