Chemical dependency therapist skills for your resume and career

Technical skills like the ability to perform statistical analyses are critically important for most Psychology-related jobs. This allows a candidate to collect and analyze data but also to interpret and understand other existing data. A strong statistical background can also help set a candidate apart from their peers in the application process. This includes understanding when and how to use various parametric and nonparametric statistics to be able to answer questions regardless of the data one is working with.

Most of our graduates in the field of Family Science and Human Development are in this field because they want to help professions that work with children, individuals, and families. Thus, there are several skills they should have when they graduate and enter the workforce. First, they need to have excellent interpersonal and communication skills. If you want to work with people, that is an absolute given.

Second, students should demonstrate their ability to adapt to new challenges and changes, including technology skills. When working with children and families, the natural ebbs and flows of family life, across the life course, necessitate flexible professionals and who can still be useful under changing circumstances. Third, skills make you stand out in working with people, like conflict management and leadership skills. Employers want to see that graduates are not only "book smart" but have the experience to use these skills when needed on the job.

There are technical skills that may stand out to employers, but as social workers, I think those technical skills together with "soft skills," can make an applicant really stand out to employers; social workers can combine their research skills with evidence-informed care and organizational quality improvement efforts, while being able to lead, build relationships, and think critically. In the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, our graduates will need to be able to fluidly navigate between employing telehealth methods to performing their work safely in-person when engaging and helping clients. To be effective, social workers will also need to understand the reverberating effects of the deep-seated roots of racism in our country and be willing to honestly confront and address those issues in whatever role they assume. Social workers are needed now more than ever.

The "change theory" used in social work practice follows several steps, including engaging, assessing, planning, intervening, evaluating, terminating, and following up. Soft skills are most likely to occur in engagement, intervention, and termination. Social workers are trained to "start wherever the client is," understanding that clients can be individuals, families, groups, communities, or organizations. Social workers are trained to respect the client as the expert in their needs, honor self-determination, use a strengths-based approach, and respect difference while using inclusion. The training turns into soft skills such as being empathetic, warm, genuine, and respectful. Social workers also develop skills in knowing when to listen and when to nudge the client toward action. Social workers are trained to intervene and, when change is completed, to terminate. Helping clients know when to end services also requires soft skills of talking about hard topics, seeing a brighter future and setting goals, recognizing when change is happening, and saying goodbye respectfully.