Introduction
Interviewing is an art which is practiced in many
situations with varying degrees of satisfaction to the
interviewer and interviewee. Many people representing
many different professions conduct interviews. Some
people because of the nature of their work spend a
substantial part of their time in interviewing such as
lawyers, counselors, doctors, journalists etc. However,
social caseworkers, according to Garret are interviewers
par excellence. For social workers, interviewing is a
pre-eminently important activity. They spend more time
in interviewing than in any other single activity. It is
the most important, most consistently and frequently
employed social work skill. For them interviewing is an
art as well as a science and in order to be successful
practitioners they have to be adept at this art and
understand the science behind it.
Social casework employs a variety of approaches in
attempting to help the client. All casework interviewers
have to make the interviewee feel at ease, all have to
help the interviewee talk about the difficulties, all have
to guide the interview so that its purposes are achieved,
all have to start and end the interview in a way which
maximizes helping. This chapter describes the general
art of interviewing as adapted and enacted by the social
caseworkers.
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