12.3 Field Instruction I: Ending Phase — Termination, Monitoring, Evaluation, Documentation and Supervision
Key Takeaways
- The ending phase carries twenty items in the Practice I paper, the single heaviest sub-topic in Field Instruction I.
- The blueprint requires exemplifying theories and interventive roles, illustrating models of monitoring and evaluation, principles and types of documentation and supervision, and selecting the most prescribed of each.
- Termination in field instruction is driven by the student's placement calendar as often as by goal attainment, which makes advance preparation mandatory.
- Monitoring tracks implementation while evaluation judges achievement, and single-system designs and goal attainment scaling are the practical evaluation tools.
- Transfer to a continuing worker requires a written transfer summary and, where possible, a joint session, not a note left in the file.
12.3 Field Instruction I: Ending Phase
Blueprint anchor. Sub-topic 3. Ending Phase (Termination; Monitoring and Evaluation; Documentation; and Supervision) carries 20 items — the largest sub-topic in the Social Work Practice I paper. Its four competencies cover exemplifying theories, models, approaches, principles, interventive roles, skills and techniques for a specific client situation; illustrating social work models in monitoring and evaluation together with the principles, skills and types of documentation and supervision; and selecting the most prescribed of each.
1. Types of Termination
| Type | Trigger | Professional requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Planned, goal-attained | Objectives achieved | Review gains; consolidate; plan for maintenance |
| Planned, time-limited | The agreed number of sessions or the placement period ends | Announced at contracting; countdown maintained throughout |
| Transfer | Worker leaves; case continues with another worker | Written transfer summary; joint session where possible |
| Referral out | Need exceeds the agency mandate or the worker's competence | Warm handover; confirm the receiving service accepted |
| Client-initiated / dropout | Client discontinues | Attempt contact; document; leave the door open |
| Administrative | Eligibility ends, client relocates, agency programme closes | Explain; refer; document |
| Death of the client | Bereavement support to the family; worker's own grief addressed in supervision |
The field instruction reality. A student's termination is almost always time-limited and transfer, driven by the academic calendar rather than by the client's progress. This is not a defect to be concealed; it is a condition to be managed by announcing the end date at the first contact and by preparing the transfer from the mid-point of the placement onward.
2. Client Reactions and Worker Tasks
| Reaction | Presentation | Worker response |
|---|---|---|
| Denial | Avoids discussing the ending | Name the ending repeatedly and gently; keep the countdown explicit |
| Regression | Symptoms return as the end nears | Interpret as a reaction to ending; do not extend on that basis alone |
| Anger | Missed appointments, criticism of the worker or agency | Accept the feeling; do not defend; connect it to the loss |
| Sadness and grief | Expressed loss | Normalise; acknowledge the relationship's value |
| Flight into health | Sudden claim that everything is resolved | Test the claim gently against evidence |
| Relief | Especially in mandated cases | Accept without interpreting it as rejection |
| Clinging / new problem | A fresh crisis presented at the last session | Assess genuineness; if real, transfer rather than extend informally |
Worker tasks in termination: review the work and the gains; attribute the gains to the client; consolidate learning; identify residual needs and plan for them; anticipate relapse and rehearse responses; complete referrals and transfer; conduct the final evaluation with the client; handle the goodbye directly rather than by fading out; and process one's own feelings in supervision.
[!IMPORTANT] Never terminate by disappearance. An unannounced last session is the most damaging ending, particularly for clients whose histories include abandonment. Field instruction items are frequently built on a student who "just stopped coming" at the end of the placement.
3. Monitoring and Evaluation Models
| Monitoring | Evaluation | |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Continuous, throughout the case | At review points and at closure |
| Question | Is the plan being implemented? | Did it achieve the goals, and why? |
| Data | Contacts made, tasks completed, referrals actioned | Outcome measures against baseline |
| Use | Immediate adjustment | Closure decision; practice learning |
Practical Evaluation Tools for a Single Case
Single-system design (SSD). Take a repeated measure of a target — frequency of a behaviour, a standardised scale score, or a self-anchored rating — during a baseline phase (A) and during intervention (B). Plot it. The AB design is the standard practice form. Its strength is that it works inside ordinary casework; its limit is that it cannot exclude other causes of change.
Goal attainment scaling (GAS). For each goal, define five levels before intervention begins: much less than expected, less than expected, expected outcome, more than expected, much more than expected. At closure, rate the actual outcome against the scale. Its strength is that it individualises the outcome measure to this client's goals rather than forcing a standard instrument.
Client satisfaction and feedback. Necessary but not sufficient: satisfaction measures the experience of service, not its effect.
Formative and summative. Formative evaluation during the case improves it; summative evaluation at closure judges it.
4. Documentation: Principles and Types
Principles. Accurate, factual and evidence-based; timely; relevant to purpose; objective, distinguishing observation from inference; respectful in language; complete; legible and signed; confidential and securely stored in compliance with data privacy law; and non-discriminatory and gender-fair in wording.
| Type | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Intake record | First contact and immediate action |
| Social case study report | The comprehensive assessment document, used administratively and often judicially |
| Progress notes | Ongoing contacts; commonly structured as subjective, objective, assessment and plan, or as data, assessment and plan |
| Process recording | Verbatim session account with the student's feelings and analysis; the pedagogical instrument of field instruction |
| Case summary | Condensed account for review, transfer or referral |
| Transfer summary | Assessment, work done, current status, outstanding tasks, and recommendations for the receiving worker |
| Closing summary | Reason for closure, outcomes against goals, residual needs, referrals made |
| Statutory reports | Reports required under child protection, juvenile justice, protection order and adoption frameworks |
5. Supervision in the Ending Phase
Kadushin's three functions all appear at closure: administrative (case records complete, transfers effected, statistics submitted), educational (final evaluation of the student's competencies against the placement objectives; review of process recordings across the placement to show development), and supportive (processing the student's own loss, guilt about leaving, and anxiety about clients' futures).
Forms of supervision the blueprint expects candidates to name: individual, group, peer, and consultative or specialist supervision; conducted through scheduled conferences, live or joint sessions, observation, recording review and case presentation.
The student's terminal evaluation should be a two-way document: the supervisor's assessment of the student, and the student's assessment of the placement's learning opportunities, both signed.
6. Worked Practice Application
The hospital case closes as the student's placement ends. The father is in rehabilitation; the mother is vending four days a week; the 17-year-old is back in school on a modified schedule; the hospital balance is under a negotiated arrangement; the family's remaining needs are the father's continuing rehabilitation and the household's still-fragile income.
Ending-phase execution.
| Task | Action |
|---|---|
| Advance preparation | The end date, disclosed at first contact, has been referenced in each of the final four sessions |
| Review and attribution | Gains reviewed with the family; the mother's negotiation of the school arrangement and the son's return are attributed to them, not to the student |
| Evaluation | Goal attainment scaling applied to the three original goals: income stabilisation rated at expected outcome; school re-entry at more than expected; discharge planning at expected outcome. A self-anchored distress rating by the mother, recorded weekly, is plotted as an AB series |
| Residual needs | Father's rehabilitation continuity; household income fragility; the 17-year-old's risk of re-withdrawal at the next financial shock |
| Relapse anticipation | With the family, identify early warning signs and the specific contact to make if income collapses again |
| Transfer | Written transfer summary to the continuing medical social worker, with a joint session so the family meets the successor before the student leaves |
| Documentation | Closing summary completed; statutory reporting obligations checked; records secured |
| Supervision | Final conference: the student's over-identification with the mother, identified in the middle phase, is reviewed with the process recordings that show the change; the student's guilt about leaving is addressed directly |
The examinable judgement. The student did not extend the case informally when the mother presented a new worry at the final session. She assessed it, judged it genuine, and routed it into the transfer summary and the joint session — which is what "select the most prescribed" practice means when the ending is driven by a calendar rather than by the client's readiness.
At the final session a client presents a new crisis. The student's placement ends the following week. What is the most appropriate response?
A student defines, before intervention begins, five outcome levels for each goal ranging from much less than expected to much more than expected, and rates the actual result against them at closure. This evaluation method is:
Which termination practice is most damaging, particularly for clients with histories of abandonment?