Reference no: EM132100756

Many human services professionals say that they "want what's best for my clients" and sometimes self-determination seems counter intuitive to this sentiment and can be a challenge when you truly care about clients. Allowing clients to direct their life and stepping back and accepting their choices can be hard when you feel that they are not doing what is in their best interest. For me, allowing the client to have self-determination was sometimes what I struggled with the most. As a helper, we are to provide information, access to resources, advice when appropriate; however, it is the choice of the client to use all of these things. I would occasionally have clients who chose to ignore my advice and chose to not access resources/services that I felt would help them. Another aspect of self-determination is knowing when to step back and allow the clients to do things for themselves. In my work with clients with disabilities, it was common to have clients who were protected and sheltered their entire lives because they had a disability. This limited their perception of self-determination. When these clients would make a request that they could do themselves (like ask me to make a call on their behalf or speak to a professor on their behalf), as tempting as it was to just do it for them, I recognized the importance of having them take responsibility for things that were fully in their range of ability. In doing this, it allowed the clients to build a positive sense of self-efficacy. To the class- what are some ways to promote self-determination with clients?