Assignment Overview

Professionalization and ongoing skills development require planning and forethought. The Leadership and Supervision Action Plan you complete in this assignment represents such planning and forethought. You have an opportunity to draft a workable plan to help you continue to expand your repertoire of leadership and supervisory skills as you continue to develop in the social work profession.

By successfully completing this assignment, you demonstrate your proficiency in the following EPAS and advanced generalist specialized behaviors:

• Competency 3: Advance Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice. 
  • C3.SP.C: Analyze and respond to evolving leadership, technological, political, economic, social cultural, geographical, and environmental contexts to shape the specialization of advanced generalist practice. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 3.  Design goals and objectives related to leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.    
• Competency 4: Engage in Practice-Informed Research and Research-Informed Practice. 
  • C4.SP.A: Apply leadership skills, decision making and the use of technology to inform evidence-based research practice to develop, implement, evaluate, and communicate interventions across the specialization of advanced generalist practice settings.
  • C4.SP.B: Apply leadership skills, decision making and the use of technology to inform program evaluation to develop, implement, evaluate, and communicate interventions across the specialization of advanced generalist practice settings. 
    • Related Assignment Criteria: 
      • 1.  Use evidence-based research to develop an action plan.
      • 3.  Design goals and objectives related to leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.  
• Competency 6: Engage With Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities. 
  • C6.SP.A: Apply critical thinking and decision making in verbal and written communication through the use of leadership and technology when engaging with colleagues, individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 2. Apply critical thinking in the development of goals, objectives, and metrics for each content area, including leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.
  • C6.SP.C: Apply leadership skills and emerging technologies in the specialization of advanced generalist social work practice when engaging with individuals, families, group, organizations, and communities to promote systemic change towards client sustainability. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 4.  Integrate current leadership and technology changes occurring in the profession that create systemic changes toward sustainability.   
• Competency 7: Assess Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities.
  • C7.SP.A: Apply critical thinking and decision making in verbal and written communication through the use of leadership and technology when assessing  colleagues, individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 2. Apply critical thinking in the development of goals, objectives, and metrics for each content area, including leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.
  • C7.SP.C: Apply leadership skills, decision making and emerging technologies in the specialization of advanced generalist social work practice when assessing individuals, families, group, organizations, and communities to promote systemic change towards client sustainability. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 4.  Integrate current leadership and technology changes occurring in the profession that create systemic changes toward sustainability. 
• Competency 8: Intervene With Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities.
  • C8.SP.A: Apply critical thinking and decision making in verbal and written communication through the use of leadership and technology when intervening with colleagues, individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 2. Apply critical thinking in the development of goals, objectives, and metrics for each content area, including leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.
  • C8.SP.C: Apply leadership skills, decision making and emerging technologies in the specialization of advanced generalist social work practice interventions with individuals, families, group, organizations, and communities to promote systemic change towards client sustainability. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 4.  Integrate current leadership and technology changes occurring in the profession that create systemic changes toward sustainability.  
• Competency 9: Evaluate Practice With Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities. 
  • C9.SP.A: Apply critical thinking and decision making in verbal and written communication through the use of leadership and technology evaluations with colleagues, individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. 
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 2. Apply critical thinking in the development of goals, objectives, and metrics for each content area, including leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.
  • C9.SP.C: Apply leadership skills, decision making and emerging technologies in the specialization of advanced generalist social work practice evaluation with individuals, families, group, organizations, and communities to promote systemic change towards client sustainability.  
    • Related Assignment Criteria: 
      • 3.  Design goals and objectives related to leadership and technology change in advanced generalist practice.
      • 4.  Integrate current leadership and technology changes occurring in the profession that create systemic changes toward sustainability.  
  • C9.SP.D: Analyze and respond to evolving leadership, technological, political, economic, social cultural, geographical, and environmental contexts to shape the specialization of advanced generalist practice evaluation.  
    • Related Assignment Criterion: 
      • 3.  Design goals and objectives related to leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.

Assignment Description

For this assignment, learners develop an action plan that includes two goals for each content area identified in the Unit 8 assignment, at least two objectives related to each goal, and metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness and achievement of each goal. Learners use the principles related to developing SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-limited) goals and objectives. It is important, when designing goals and objectives, to take into account leadership and technological changes that are occurring in the profession of social work.

Assignment Instructions

For this assignment, develop your action plan specifically to improve upon your leadership and supervisory skills. 

Begin your work for this assignment by reflecting on your Unit 8 assignment where you reviewed the text, articles, additional resources, and used several NASW resources to develop your model of best practices in social work supervision and leadership skills with a theoretical foundation. You then completed a self-reflection of your strengths and areas for development in these content areas:

• Developing effective organizational and interpersonal communication skills.
• Managing time and tasks effectively.
• Managing different personalities and conflict.
• Hiring, performance evaluation, disciplinary action, and termination.
• Maintaining ethics, confidentiality, and liability.
• Practicing professional development, self-care, personal reflection, and self-correction.
• Developing and managing an effective culturally competent practice including organizational culture and environment.
• Being a collaborative leader in training supervisees in the effective use of technology. 

As you prepare the written paper for this Unit 10 assignment, use the following guide.

Section 1

Create an evidence-based action plan.

• Use the eight categories identified above as subheadings in Section 1 of your paper.  
  • To aid in your development of this assignment, use the multimedia piece on SMART goals from this unit’s study activity, as well as your text, course readings, new articles you have reviewed, and other internet resources including (but not limited to) NASW Best Practice Standards for Social Work Supervision, the NASW, ASWB, CSWE & CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work, and the NASW Code of Ethics. These resources will be helpful as you complete your assignment.

Apply critical thinking in the development of goals, objectives, and metrics for each content area, including leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.

• Under each subheading, you create: 
  • Two SMART goals for each content area in the Unit 8 assignment, and also listed in this activity.
  • Identify at least two SMART objectives to aid your achievement of each goal.
  • Identify the metrics you select as a way of evaluating the effectiveness and achievement of each goal. Be sure you choose evaluation methods that help you determine degree of change (improvement or decline) and easily identifies if the goal is met.  

Here is one example to help you get started:

Developing effective organization and interpersonal communication skills.

• Goal 1: I will be recognized by my colleagues as having excellent professional interpersonal communication when expressing my thoughts, desires, and concerns. (Evaluation method:  Likert scale of 15 with one representing communicates inappropriately, three representing communicates adequately, and five representing communicates with excellence. Goal is achieved when all evaluations earn a score of 4 or higher.) 
  • Objective 1: I will ask two colleagues and my supervisor to share their observations of my ability to express my thoughts, desires, and concerns. (Evaluation method: Likert scale of 15 scale that matches Goal 1.  Each will also be asked to give suggestions for areas for development.)
  • Objective 2: I will use the suggestions for areas of development from Objective 1 to update my action plan so I can develop excellent professional communication when expressing my thoughts, desires, and concerns. (Evaluation method: Assess each new item in the action plan in 3 months using the Likert scale that matches Goal 1).

Use the principles related to developing SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-limited) goals and objectives. When designing your goals and objectives, it is important to take into account the leadership and supervision best practices and technology practices you included in your Unit 8 assignment. 

Use the example above to guide your work; however, you may not use the goal as one of your own. Also, the example offers one option for establishing goals, objectives, and metrics. Think outside the box; do not design every item in your action plan to look exactly like this one.

Section 2

Design goals and objectives related to leadership and technological change in advanced generalist practice.

• Your assignment submission must also address how you use and evaluate leadership and technology to respond to evolving change in leadership, political, economic, social cultural, geographic, and environmental contexts that shape advanced generalist practice. In Section 2, discuss how you intentionally incorporate leadership skills and the use of technology in supervisory skills in order to promote advanced generalist practice. 

Section 3

Integrate current leadership and technology changes occurring in the profession that create systemic changes toward sustainability.

• Social workers have an obligation to design sustainability into the intervention with clients. The model serves equally well in many systems. For example, supervisors have the same obligation when working with supervisees. In Section 3, explain how you will use your leadership skills and technology to sustain the supervision and leadership skills you develop as you use your action plan. How will you sustain your leadership and supervisory skills? How will you evaluate sustainability of your skills?

Additional Requirements

The assignment you submit is expected to meet the following requirements:

• Written communication: Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
• APA formatting: Resources and citations are formatted according to current APA style and formatting standards. Include a title page, reference page, headers, and appendices as applicable. For example, the list of questions used for the consolation should be in an appendix. Reference the appendices as needed within your paper.
• Cited resources: Minimum of five scholarly sources. All literature cited should be current, with publication dates within the past five years.

Feedback****

Good overall discussion and analysis of leadership and supervision. However, to improve your paper in section 1, be sure to extend Section 2 and include goals with your analysis of best practices of organizational and interpersonal communication skills, managing time and tasks effectively, and maintaining confidentiality and liability with examples and resources. Keep in mind this section of your paper can assist you with developing additional goals and objectives for your next assignment. The content areas will be used to help with development of the SMART goals and objectives for your Unit 10 action plan and the personal strength and challenges. 

Thanks,