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Role plays, Assessments and Summary of Learning Paper Sheena Patrick Communication Skills for the Human Services Professional/BSHS/322 11/14/2010 Role plays, Assessments and Summary of Learning Paper For any professional to be good at his or her job practice is important. In the field of human services we will experience many situations that we are not prepared for, but if we practice similar situations we can react accordingly to any situation we are in. Role plays help the professional gain a level of comfort with how they talk, look and communicate with the other person.
The assessment afterwards can offer insight for the human services professional on how his or her facial cues, body gestures express feelings and emotions. The assessment can also help the professional learn how and when to lead the conversation in order to maintain a steady flow of dialogue. Throughout this assignment I learned that my perception or point view will not always coincide with the other person but can work to create an environment where we learn from each other.
Each team member role played a scenario and assessed how competent they were in using things such as eye contact, posture, paraphrasing and confirming emotions. Majority of team members marked competent in maintaining good eye contact, greeting the individual allowing the individual ample time to talk. Some members had a hard time relaxing during the scenario when they had to talk to someone that they knew.
Majority of the team members also need to work on maintaining a comfortable posture and keeping direct contact with the other person without coming across as intimidating. We also agreed that the interview process made us nervous and intimidating at times because it was a new situation. Once I started the role play as being a supervisor who had to discuss with my employee feeling ‘burnout’ on the job I was able to relax. I think that it will be easier to work with strangers as I will not know them and we will not have a relationship of any kind.
Each interviewee felt they were in comfortable enough space away from the supervisor in the situation. Two guest-reviewers rated the interviewer as needing improvement in posture; they crossed their legs apparently enough that it bothered and caught the attention of the guest. Nerves played a huge part in each of the role plays; guest-reviewers were able to easily notice the comfort level the interviewer. Each team member was marked competent in greeting the other person and explaining the purpose of the interview.
Although I had previously discussed with my guest the importance of the role play, when we were actively doing the role play forgot to re-inform her of what we were doing. As a group we all agreed that controlling our nerves was a hard thing to do; we had to overcome our fears and become the human service supervisor. At the beginning of the interview a few team members agreed that smiling too much because they knew the guest reviewer was a problem but we were easily able to adjust as the interview went on.
One team member complained about not knowing how to be authoritative when trying to reprimand an employee. During the interview a team member described having a hard time knowing the right things to say without hurting the person’s feelings. Even though we want the employee to realize that he or she need to perform better on the job we have to also keep in mind the other person’s feelings. I had created a line of questioning for the interview but had gotten side track with trying to allow the person ample enough time to explain her emotions about the situation.
The role plays have given each team member the opportunity to work on becoming a better professional. We all are in agreement that with practice and time we will obtain the knowledge base and skill to do a competent job. I was easily distracted by during the interview with all the commotion that was going on around us while I was conducting the interview. I need to make sure that while I allow the individual to express him or herself I must also control the flow of the conversation.
I agree that videotaping and practicing different types of role plays will help each of the team members grow as professionals. As a team we learned how to effectively communicate with another person. Even though it was not real it gave the opportunity to experience a real life situation that people experience every day. I would like to work a role play where the guest reviewer was a angry to see how I would handle the situation. I know that we will have to work with difficult clients or employees and getting this practice in early would also be helpful.