Decision Making

Caseworkers are expected to utilize critical and creative thinking skills to make personal judgments and explain decisions on a daily basis. Critical and creative thinking skills are important assets of a caseworker's job because they are essential to contributing to making good decision, setting goals, and implementing a plan of action. For example, When a crisis occurs or an event interrupts (Childs goes AWOL), as a caseworker, you have to utilize critical and creative thinking skills quickly to assess the situation, look at the choices, outcomes and come up with the best possible solution. Recently I had a client who was accepted into placement into a therapeutic foster home. The client was discharged from a residential facility where he was residing for six months to stabilize his behaviors such as AWOL issues, verbal and physical aggression and substance abuse (cannabis). On my initial visit to the home, the client was very standoffish and distance. (This is usually common when a child first come into care). As I continue to visit the home, the client began to interact with me through conversations and gestures. As weeks past, I noticed that the child was acting differently than usual. I had to analyze the situation based on what was taking place in the home to allow the behaviors of the child to change. I discussed with the foster parents the child's routine schedule. When analyzing the situation, the child goes out into the community with his friends for long periods of time. He was able to get the freedom that he was lacking from being in a residential facility with set rules and guidelines. The child had difficulties with adapting from a structure environment to a least restrictive environment (minimum rules and guidelines). The foster parents discussed that they had took the child shopping for new clothes and shoes. The foster parents informed me that the child was acting differently as he was rushing to get back home. They had expressed to me that they felt as though the child was up to something because of his need of wanting to get back home. In order for me evaluate the situation, I had to utilize my critical thinking skills to gather the information, distinguish what were facts or opinions, and look at the outcome. After carefully receiving information, I was able to identify the reason for the change in the child's behavior as he was planning to leave the foster home. Both critical and creative thinking played a key factor in contributing to my thinking process in this situation. I used critical thinking skills to analyze the information I was given from the foster parents and my own thought and I was able to use creative thinking skills to gather information from using the child's past experiences.

Decision-making is the process of choosing what to do by considering the possible consequences of different choices (Beyth-Marom, Fischhoff, Jacobs-Quadrel, & Furby, 1991; von Winterfeldt & Edwards, 1986). Reasoning skills are utilized in the decision-making process and refer to specific cognitive abilities, some of which include assessing probability and thinking systematically or abstractly (Fischhoff, Crowell, & Kipke, 1999). There are many different factors that contribute to a person making good decisions such as behaviors, culture, or social factors. When making