Assessment Week 2

 I found these readings very helpful. It is always useful to see different ways of writing a report and I liked the one demonstrated in the article. Yesterday (Friday), a man came and spoke to my lab about his forensic interviews and what goes into compiling that report. It is so important to gain as much information as you can in order to conceptualize and represent your client the best you can. One piece that Josh spoke about yesterday was including a personal strengths and support section for his clients. In the forensic world, this can easily be overlooked. After pages and pages of understanding what has led this person to commit a crime, it can be helpful for future clinicians and professionals to also see what the client has going for them. He also spoke on the importance of the psychometric properties of the assessments being used. Of course, a good assessment tool is always necessary, but there is extra pressure to ensure the use of a good measure when a person's freedom (and possibly life) is in your hands. Many forensic tools are standardized on limited samples, but the findings are rarely interpreted with that limitation in mind. The court and lawyers just want the easy numbers, not the "the results say this but actually...". 

I think it is important to also note how influential what we write is. What we write can follow this person and influence later professional's decisions. Should our reports have this much influence? There is so much discretion that is needed in the field, but how much is too much? With too much discretion, things can become too subjective. However, with the caseload and business of clinicians, it is difficult to reevaluate every case that comes through. How do we think critically about every case without exerting ourselves to a damaging degree? 

Grade: 15/15