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Clinical social worker skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
3 min read
Quoted experts
Brenda Ingram-Wallace Ph.D.,
Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen
Clinical social worker example skills
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical clinical social worker skills. We ranked the top skills for clinical social workers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 27.9% of clinical social worker resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a clinical social worker needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 clinical social worker skills for your resume and career

1. Social Work

Here's how clinical social workers use social work:
  • Maintained and delivered quarterly data to District Lead Social Worker to facilitate program development and funding allocations for the Superintendent.
  • Supervised undergraduate Social Work Interns Provided individual therapy with various chronic and acute mental disorders with approximately 175 clients.

2. Patients

Here's how clinical social workers use patients:
  • Provide individual psychotherapy for patients enrolled in study protocol utilizing evidence based interventions such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.
  • Assisted patients with personal difficulties which predisposed them toward mental instability or interfered with obtaining maximum benefits from medical care.

3. Behavioral Health

Here's how clinical social workers use behavioral health:
  • Provided emergency behavioral health services on an on-call basis to include screening patients for safety and appropriateness of psychiatric inpatient hospitalization.
  • Evaluated, diagnosed and arranged dispositions for child, adolescent and adult behavioral health populations in the Psychiatric Emergency Department.

4. Patient Care

Patient care entails the diagnosis, recovery, and control of sickness as well as the maintenance of physical and emotional well-being through the use of healthcare providers' services. Patient care is described as services provided to patients by health practitioners or non-professionals under guidance.

Here's how clinical social workers use patient care:
  • Provided clinical assessment, treatment planning, coordinating with treatment team regarding patient care and facilitated individual and group therapy sessions.
  • Performed psycho-social assessments, identified barriers to patient care and provided solution-focused interventions as well as discharge planning services.

5. Community Resources

Community resources are a set of resources that are used in the day to day life of people which improves their lifestyle in some way. People, sites or houses, and population assistance can come under the services offered by community resources.

Here's how clinical social workers use community resources:
  • Conduct initial assessments for program appropriateness and provide case management, treatment collaboration, referrals, and linkages to community resources.
  • Facilitated discharge planning for individual returning to the community, which included locating community resources for individuals and their families.

6. MSW

Here's how clinical social workers use msw:
  • Trained and supervised a MSW student/active duty officer during his clinical rotation.
  • Supervised MSW student from the University of Pennsylvania and composed written evaluations.

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7. Discharge Planning

Here's how clinical social workers use discharge planning:
  • Coordinated discharge planning with other disciplines thereby ensuring that discharge plans were executed in a timely and appropriate manner.
  • Provided case management and discharge planning; conducted individual, group and family therapy for partial hospitalization and inpatients.

8. Psychosocial Assessments

Here's how clinical social workers use psychosocial assessments:
  • Implemented psychosocial assessments, completed legal admission forms pertaining to hospice benefit and relayed information to other team members regarding patient.
  • Conducted psychosocial assessments, mental health/mental status examinations and made treatment planning recommendations as well as internal and external client referrals.

9. Home Health

Here's how clinical social workers use home health:
  • Initiated referrals for other services such as hospice, home health, mental services, long term placement, etc.
  • Referred patient's for home health care, DME and Skilled Nursing facilities as a part of the discharge process.

10. Family Therapy

Here's how clinical social workers use family therapy:
  • Provide individual and family therapy to adolescent residents of co-ed residential treatment center, serving mentally ill and behaviorally disordered youth.
  • Conduct group psychotherapy, psycho-educational groups, family therapy and/or individual therapy sessions, as well as recreational therapy as needed.

11. Rehabilitation

Here's how clinical social workers use rehabilitation:
  • Coordinated outside referrals for clients in need of psychiatric care, medication management, addiction rehabilitation and various other services required.
  • Provided aftercare/follow-up services to Veterans discharged from the Substance Abuse Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program to the Charlotte area.

12. Mental Illness

Here's how clinical social workers use mental illness:
  • Facilitated support and interventions with members and their families with significant severe emotional disorders, mental illness and inadequate coping skills.
  • Provided life consultation skills based on clinical bio-psycho-social assessments to clients with developmental disabilities, mental illness, and/or personality disorders.

13. Social Services

Here's how clinical social workers use social services:
  • Assess Veterans for Community Nursing Home eligibility, Medical Assistance Eligibility, Department of Social Services, Social Security Administration.
  • Provided individual and family counseling sessions for social services consumers as a contract provide serving families during their reunification process.

14. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how clinical social workers use mental health:
  • Provided case management services, completed Social Security Applications, and secured housing for homeless individuals with a mental health diagnosis.
  • Provided consultation to local community hospitals to determine mental health services needed to patients receiving care at physical health care facilities.

15. Community Agencies

Community agencies stand for the organizations operated to provide human service in the community.

Here's how clinical social workers use community agencies:
  • Coordinate with resident's physicians and Community agencies to set up needed services/equipment for residents while in facility and following discharge.
  • Develop and maintain positive working relationships with community agencies/facilities to enhance the availability of resources and to facilitate patient access.
top-skills

What skills help Clinical Social Workers find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on clinical social worker resumes?

Brenda Ingram-Wallace Ph.D.Brenda Ingram-Wallace Ph.D. LinkedIn profile

Associate Professor of Psychology; Director of Counseling Services, Albright College

Internships and practicums, where you can work with clients and incorporate some technology aspects, will help recent graduates stand out from their peers. Possessing familiarity with therapeutic computer applications and their utility for various mental health concerns will be a plus.

What soft skills should all clinical social workers possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for clinical social workers?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Obviously, mastering the technology used in teletherapy and virtual counseling is essential. Further, the use of computer programs for therapy notes, documentation, and diagnosis is also important. Assessment and psychometric abilities are also important as psychotherapy research has been very clear about the important role of outcome measurement and objective assessment in psychotherapy. When prospective clinicians demonstrate the ability to work with numbers (and the software needed to make them useful), they show an openness to the objective assessment of their work.

What clinical social worker skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Lillian Wichinsky Ph.D.

Associate Dean, University of Nevada - Reno

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

What type of skills will young clinical social workers need?

Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D.Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D. LinkedIn profile

Professor, The University of Texas

Graduates of the social work profession need to be able to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and mobilize communities to bring about social, economic, political, or environmental change, in addition to being involved in social policy development.

Skills in research, to study social issues, with the intention of developing social policy or micro-level approaches to practice to improve people's lives, and training in relation to multiculturalism, cultural competence, cultural humility practice is vital.

Key skills include:
-Collaboration
-Critical thinking
-Ethics in evidence based-practice
-Assessment, intervention, and evaluation
-Social work competencies to inform behaviors.
-Administration and management
-Community practice
-Policy practice

What technical skills for a clinical social worker stand out to employers?

William WestonWilliam Weston LinkedIn profile

Professor, Centre College

The ability to write clearly and think critically. The deep sense that other people in other cultures, and other positions in our own culture, see the world differently, enabling students to respond to a broad range of people appropriately.
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about clinical social worker

List of clinical social worker skills to add to your resume

Clinical social worker skills

The most important skills for a clinical social worker resume and required skills for a clinical social worker to have include:

  • Social Work
  • Patients
  • Behavioral Health
  • Patient Care
  • Community Resources
  • MSW
  • Discharge Planning
  • Psychosocial Assessments
  • Home Health
  • Family Therapy
  • Rehabilitation
  • Mental Illness
  • Social Services
  • Mental Health
  • Community Agencies
  • Clinical Supervision
  • Veterans
  • Treatment Modalities
  • Individual Therapy
  • Clinical Services
  • Excellent Interpersonal
  • Therapeutic Interventions
  • Compassion
  • Autism
  • DSM
  • Child Abuse
  • Therapeutic Services
  • Crisis Management
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Domestic Violence
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Foster Care
  • Community Services
  • Intake Assessments
  • Substance Abuse Issues
  • Excellent Organizational
  • Clinical Assessments
  • Emotional Support
  • Nursing Home
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Eating Disorders
  • Risk Assessments
  • Mental Health Assessments
  • Team Work
  • Diagnostic Assessments
  • Psychosocial Evaluations
  • Group Therapy Sessions
  • DBT
  • Therapy Counseling

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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