Make a great first impression for new patients as a hospice social worker

Your chances of success as a hospice social worker increase when patients and their family members like you. You will have more opportunities to help them, and you’ll have a stronger footing in your organization. Previous posts addressed the clinical purpose of the initial hospice social worker assessment. Now we can look at how to create a great first impression during the initial meeting.

Because you are a social worker, you already know plenty about how to connect with patients. But here are some suggestions you may still find helpful:

  1. Calm fear of the unknown by clarifying your role as a social worker.
  2. Listen, listen, listen, listen.
  3. Don’t be unusual.

Clarify your role as the hospice social worker

Either the social worker or the spiritual care coordinator will face the biggest obstacles in being  allowed in. I work in the Bible belt where most people are quicker to comprehend the role of a chaplain than that of a social worker. A good step towards connecting with them is telling them what a hospice social worker does.

My first call to new patients usually isn’t to invite myself over, but to introduce myself and how I help. I let them know that my job is to get to know them so that I can help the team understand how they’re doing emotionally, and to see if they need anything to help reduce stress.

Listen, listen, listen.

The next step to being a likable social worker is to listen. You will get plenty of opportunity to do so because the initial assessment involves asking prescribed questions. As they answer, listen with genuine interest. Show interest in who the patient. Many people will idealize their loved one’s character, and you can validate that. Listen as they speak, and pause thoughtfully before you speak.

Don’t be too unusual.

This can be difficult for us. If weirdness didn’t drive you to social work, doing social work may have made you unique. 

Unfortunately, there are people out there who feel uneasy about unique people, at least at first. Later, when they are already appreciating you for all you have done for them, it’ll be safer to show your unique approach, but I wouldn’t start out a new relationship that way.

Once I met a new patient who declared an enthusiasm for learning new things. I told her that we can facilitate learning opportunities and I gave the example of Cantonese to illustrate the extent of the variety that we can provide. She asked why Cantonese would ever be something she’d want to learn. I gave an example– and she expressed interest. I told her that it was just an example and that there are lots of things we can facilitate her learning, but she maintained for the rest of our visit that she wanted Cantonese.

The following Monday my director assigned 3 new patients to our other social worker, even though one was in my area. Later she explained that she was hesitating to assign me patients because I was recommending that a patient learn Cantonese.

This event illustrates that unless we’re sure that our uniqueness is welcome, it’s good to err on the side of saying expected things. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s the Wikipedia article on idiosyncrasy credits.

But you already know this stuff.

As social workers we know a lot about being engaging with people. This post merely provides a couple gentle reminders for how to succeed in getting started with new relationships with patients. We can dispel fears by clarifying our role. We can listen. And we can meet patients where they’re at with their expectations.

A fourth strategy is to get them excited about what you can do for them. I’ll share a convenient and effective trick for accomplishing this when we return on Monday. You can sign up using the form below to receive article in an email Sunday afternoons.

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Turn the page to

Hospice social workers: Help patients get more out of your service by listing what you provide

Go back to

The ASSESSMENT part of the hospice psychosocial assessment