Social work narrative interview

            I am collecting social work roles in substance abuse for a training project that I am carrying out and I carried out an interview on Mr. Fife. I listened to him paying close attention to all what he had to say and assured him that I will not interrupt him as he talked. However, I took a couple of notes in which I later asked him questions about. This interview enhanced me to understand his credentials, the experiences that he have encountered in his line of work, his job roles, some of the values that are necessary for in this profession and the major value conflicts that arises in this work and how to deal with these conflicts.

1. Fife is a very articulate as well as passionate expert about his work and most of his discussion during the interview was pertained to substance use and the way social work helps in the control of their use so as to attain mental health. He holds a MPLSW and works with the Bluegrass mental health broad agency. His main role in this agency is to offer therapy for the drug abuse services for all the populations that are within the centre of Kentucky. He works with other twelve counselors with whom they serve about sixteen counties. He is therefore one of the drug abuse therapist where he ensures that any outpatient who visits the agency for help gets quality services with close monitoring of the patient so as to ensure that the therapy is a success. One of his values in this line of work is confidentiality. He thus upholds a higher level of confidentiality between him and his patients. Therefore, anything that needs to be disclosed can only be done if and only the patient signs a document giving him the permission to do so. According to him, this responsibility that is bestowed upon him is one that is immense in regards to mental illness as they deal with an overwhelming number of patients who thus create pressure in the environment. As a professional he insisted that he has to start support groups for the substance abuse patients and also for those who live with these patients as this would help them to cope with them and helping them to get out of the feelings of rejection by their loved ones as they are encourage one another in the support group.