Reflective Practice 3.0: Creating a Culture of Curiosity

Reflective Practice 3.0: Creating a Culture of Curiosity

David Melnick, LICSW

3 Formal CEs in cultural competency/anti-oppressive practice approved by NASW VT

NASW Vermont Chapter is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0683.

Social Workers have a long tradition of emphasizing the importance of Reflective Practice as both a professional responsibility and a safeguard for providing equitable services to our clients. An unexamined professional easily falls prey to the common pitfalls of clinical practice—externalizing blame, over-surveilling our clients, becoming reactive, helpless and hopeless, and implementing harmful interventions without due diligence to our own biases. We are obligated to ask regularly, “Who benefits when we do not have the time to reflect?”Reflective Practice requires consistent effort to direct our curiosity and inquiry inwardly, for the purposes of improving our practice, moderating our stress, revealing blind spots, and building equitable systems of care. Anyone who works in the human services fields knows that we are required to hold an enormous amount of pain, both our clients as well as our own. To hold this pain requires intentional individual and organizational commitment to Reflective Practice.In this workshop we will discuss three useful and practical frameworks for understanding and implementing Reflective Practice (both individually and organizationally). These three frameworks—attachment theory, the Johari Window and the “4E Protocol”—will help us revitalize efforts at Reflective Practice, while equipping us with specific practice tools. We will also be provided with a list of ‘gold standard’ questions that have both immediate and generalized utility across many different practice settings. This workshop is appropriate for those social workers who work in all types of settings, from agency work to private practice.

Learning Objectives:

1. Define Reflective Practice and explain its significance as a professional responsibility and ethical imperative in social work and human services.

1. Identify the risks and consequences of neglecting reflection in clinical and organizational settings, including increased bias, reactivity, burnout, and inequitable service delivery.

1. Explore and apply three core frameworks—attachment theory, the Johari Window, and the 4E Protocol—to support ongoing personal and organizational reflective practice.

1. Analyze the impact of unprocessed emotional labor in human services work and understand the role Reflective Practice plays in holding and managing both client and practitioner pain.

1. Utilize a set of “gold standard” reflective questions to enhance self-awareness, uncover blind spots, and improve clinical judgment and intervention.

About the Presenter

Dave Melnick, LICSW is the Director of the Transforming Trauma Collaborative at the NFI Family Center. For the past 40 years, Dave has worked in a variety of clinical settings including outpatient, residential treatment, and in public and day treatment schools. Along with his focus on Developmental Trauma, Dave has expertise in family therapy, adolescence, attachment, Reflective Practices, and Trauma-Informed Systems. He has provided trauma-informed services to over 250 schools in Vermont, as well as those in NY and Quebec. In 2015, the ChildTrauma Academy (CTA) acknowledged that Dave had completed NMT Training Certification through the Phase II level, and between 2017-2021 he was a Fellow at the CTA. Dave teaches graduate classes for the Vermont Higher Education Collaboration (https://www.vthec.org/) and is a presenter and consultant in Vermont, New York, California and Canada. Dave received his master’s in social welfare from UC Berkeley in 1988 and is licensed in both the state of Vermont and New York as a clinical social worker.

If you would prefer to pay by check, please email Emryn - elessie.naswnh@socialworkers.org

You will be sent the zoom link and any handouts prior to the workshop.

Questions? Email Lynn - lcurrier.naswvt@socialworkers.org

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