Clinical social work is a specialty practice area of social work which focuses on the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental illness, emotional, and other behavioral disturbances. Licensed clinical social workers provide a holistic approach to individual and family therapy by incorporating the entire system into practice. Social workers who provide these services have obtained a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in social work from an accredited university and 2-3 years post graduate internship.

Basic Skills Training (BST) Services are provided by those with a high school diploma and experience in social and/or human services.

BST services are interventions designed to reduce cognitive and behavioral impairments and restore recipients to their highest level of functioning. BST services help recipients acquire constructive cognitive and behavioral skills through positive reinforcement, modeling, operant conditioning, and other training techniques. BST services reteach recipients a variety of life skills. BST services may include the following interventions:

a. Basic living and self-care skills: Recipients learn how to manage their daily lives; recipients learn safe and appropriate behaviors.

b. Social skills: Recipients learn how to identify and comprehend the physical, emotional and interpersonal needs of others-recipients learn how to interact with others.

c. Communication skills: Recipients learn how to communicate their physical, emotional, and interpersonal needs to others. Recipients learn how to listen and identify the needs of others.

d. Parental training: Parental training teaches the recipient’s parent(s) and/or legal guardian(s) BST techniques. The objective is to help parents continue the recipient’s RMH care in home and community-based settings. Parental training must target the restoration of recipient’s cognitive and behavioral mental health impairment needs. Parental training must be recipient centered.

e. Organization and time management skills: Recipients learn how to manage and prioritize their daily activities.

f. Transitional living skills: Recipients learn necessary skills to begin partial independent and/or fully independent lives.

Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PSR) Services are provided by individuals with a bachelor’s degree in a human services field.

PSR services are interventions designed to reduce psychosocial dysfunction (i.e., interpersonal cognitive, behavioral development, etc.) and restore recipients to their highest level of functioning. PSR services target psychological functioning within a variety of social settings.

PSR services may include any combination of the following interventions:

a. Behavior management: Recipients learn how to manage their interpersonal, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to various situations. They learn how to positively reflect anger, manage conflicts, and express their frustrations verbally. They learn the dynamic relationship between actions and consequences.

b. Social competency: Recipients learn interpersonal-social boundaries and gain confidence in their interpersonal-social skills.

c. Problem identification and resolution: Recipients learn problem-resolution techniques and gain confidence in their problems solving skills.

d. Effective communication: Recipients learn how to genuinely listen to others and make their personal, interpersonal, emotional, and physical needs known.

e. Moral reasoning: Recipients learn culturally relevant moral guidelines and judgment.

f. Identity and emotional intimacy: Recipients learn personal and interpersonal acceptance. They learn healthy (appropriate) strategies to become emotionally and interpersonally intimate with others.

g. Self-sufficiency: Recipients learn to build self-trust, self-confidence and/or self- reliance.

h. Life goals: Recipients learn how to set and achieve observable specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-limited life goals.

i. Sense of humor: Recipients develop humorous perspectives regarding life’s challenges.