Role-play and skills development in family therapy training

Abstract

It is essential for social work students to learn different counselling theories and to master the core skills of each counselling approach. Skills development was a major component of social work teaching in counselling practice. Bolger (2014) considered video-modelling as an effective means for social work students to improve their counselling skills. Fukkink, Trienekens, and Kramer (2011) conducted a meta-analysis of 33 studies during the period from 1973 to 2009 to investigate the effect of video playback on learning interaction skills. The results demonstrated the significant effects of video playback because it offered opportunities for a person to review his or her performance. This study was about a module specially designed in a social work degree program to enable social work students to develop core skills in clientcentered therapy, solution-focused therapy and structural family therapy. The three counselling approaches were taught in a core social work subject. Role-plays, based on scenarios designed by the students, were recorded as video and played within workshop’s presentation. Students were required to role-play the skills in any one counselling approach. Peers and tutor provided feedback on role-plays. 60 students, divided into four groups, were enrolled in the role-play workshops and their written feedbacks were collected. Most students valued for their skills development in this role-play teaching method. Student participation and engagement were high. Future change to the role-play method should address the anxiety facing students on being recorded, the amount of workload and the time students spent on fulfilling the course requirement.