Client Centred
- 1. The client is the expert on themselves. Brian Tranter, Manager, The Bridge Youth Service
- 2. Client Centred Practice The difficulty lies in the practice of young people inviting others to take control, to take responsibility and in how they actively work at disowning responsibility for both what they do, and the outcomes of their behaviors and the thinking that goes into what they do and what happens after it.
- 3. The difficulty for young people is that often they have not yet learned how to be responsible, how they are making choices, how they have a place, a voice and a position of power over themselves and within the world they live. this is particularly the case for the young people we work with.
- 4. So the practice of working at placing them at the centre can be in itself a different experience for young people. This is because it promotes their power over what they do and how they respond.
- 5. A client centered approach requires the worker to be armed with questions. Questioning is a process which hands over the responsibility for the answers and the thinking to the person being asked. Developing a client centered approach requires the worker to constantly and consistently be working at invitations to responsibility.
- 6. Client Centred Practice Is Asking about their thinking. Asking about how they arrived at their thinking. Challenging their ideas. Being curious and interested about their life and the way they live it. Being curious and interested about what they are trying to achieve. Asking questions around intentions and outcomes. Acknowledging what they are doing well. Always checking with them about your thinking in regard to them.
- 7. Client Centred Practice IS Respectful. Engaging. Works at providing new information. Addresses the power imbalance suffered by many young people.
- 8. Client Centred Practice Is Not Arguing for change Knowing what is best for the young person. Blaming Finding out the cause of behaviour and getting them to do something to address that cause and the behaviour related to it. Deciding what should happen. { Exceptions to this include all duty of care requirements related to protection from impending or occurring harm}