29
REPORT WRITING FOR SOCIAL WORKERS:
SPECIAL NEEDS IN THE BUSINESS COMMUNICATION COURSE
Diana C.
The University of Akron
As good writing skills become increasingly important
for professional success, students in majors other than
business are enrolling in the basic business communica-
tion course in ever greater numbers. In a survey to
determine how well the basic course was serving the
needs of students in various majors, Smeltzer and Gebert
(1986) found that the types of communications written on
the job differ among professionals, and, therefore, profes-
sionals require different emphases in their college com-
munication training to adequately prepare them for the
professional writing they will do. One important area of
differing need was in report writing. Business graduates
rated their trainingin reportwritingbetter than the other
professionals rated their training in report writing.
Smeltzer and Gebert concluded that &dquo;one universally
designed course titled ’Communication for the
Professions’ will not meet the needs of the different
professions&dquo; (p. 7).
Although business communication instructors are
aware that students will face varied writing tasks on the
job, few instructors are familiar with all possible writing
requirements in all professions. A general knowledge of
on-the-job writing in areas outside business, however,
will enable an instructor to adjust assignments so that all
students in the course can benefit from training relevant
to their fields. Among those who need a special emphasis
in report writing training are students majoring in social
work.
The most important document the social worker
writes is the court report which requests custody of
children or some court intervention in a case. Since the
daily records of a case are a continuing log, the court
report is the document that presents an organized discus-
sion of the facts and an evaluation of the situation. It is
not only the document that is the readable record of a
case, it also, and more importantly, is the document that
must save lives. Amid the crowded court dockets and
overworked district attorneys and judges, the social
worker carries the responsibility of presenting the
evidence and rationale for agency actions. The multiple
readers of a court report often have conflicting objectives.
A request for temporary custody of an abused child, for
instance, is used by the prosecutor as the summation of
primary evidence to plead the case, by the judge as a
source of information for decision making, by the defense
attorney as the document that must be refuted, and by
Reep
other involved counselors, in or out of the agency, as the
document of record. Because the court report is the
document that most affects the work of the agency, the
social worker’s professional writing skills have been
called &dquo;crucial&dquo; to the functioning of a social service
agency (Cohen, 1986, p. 399). And in a survey of people in
various professions, 92 percent of the social workers
surveyed indicated that effective writing was every im-
portant or critically important&dquo; to their work (Kirtz &
Reep, 1986). Zb write effective court reports, students
need practice in that specific report structure, and they
need intense practice in certain style matters.
REPORT STRUCTURE
Because cases often stretch over months or even years,
social workers write serial narratives of relevant events,
visits with clients, actions of clients, interviews with all
involved parties, and evaluations of counselling sessions.
These chronological narratives can be dozens of pages
long. Social workers have little choice but to record events
as they occur, but when putting the facts into a court
report, they must abandon the chronological structure for
a topical structure, a shift that is usually difficult for them
because they have been writing the chronological record
for so long. In addition to topical organization, they must
provide a summary opening a vital section of the court
-
report because it provides the overall view of the case and
judges often rely heavily on it. The opening summary
should include the journalism five Ws:
Who - the clients for whom the agency is requesting
court action
What - the specific request of the agency
Where - the location and identity of the agency
When - the time of the requested action
Why - the main reasons for the request, including
previous court actions
The following sample illustrates the required informa-
tion in an opening paragraph:
Washington County Children Services Board requests
Temporary Custody of Betsy Jones, effective immedi-
ately. This agency received Emergency Custody on April
4, 1988, which has continued to date. The mother, Susan
Jones, has a history of violent behavior, alcohol-related
problems, and an inability to provide routine medical
care for her child, Betsy. The father, Lloyd Jones, has
 30
been charged with child endangerment, and that
criminal case is pending. Because of the mother’s refusal
to attend counselling or cooperate with Agency recom-
mendations, Temporary Custody is necessary to protect
the child.
Following this summary opening, the court report
should present the facts of the case in topical order rather
than the original chronological order gathered by the
social worker. Each agency has designated standard
topics for court reports, but the social worker also is
responsible for grouping information in ways relevant to
the particular case. Here the social worker must use
analytical skills both to group and rank the information
for greatest impact on the judge and greatest usefulness
to the prosecutor who is presenting the agency’s case.
The final section of the court report is the concluding
summary which repeats the specific request, restates the
main problems in the case, and mentions deadlines or
future plans. This conclusion reinforces the summary
opening as the following example shows:
Since criminal charges against the father, Lloyd Jones,
are still pending and the mother, Susan Jones, refuses
to cooperate with Agency recommendations,
Washington County Children Services Board requests
immediate Temporary Custody of Betsy Jones. The child
should not return home until the mother attends paren-
tal counselling regularly and receives alcohol abuse
counselling. The Agency also requests a 90-day evalua-
tion to review the cooperation of the mother.
To help prepare students majoring in social work for
the court reports they will write, the instructor can focus
report assignments in areas most relevant to their future
writing tasks:
1. Observation R,eports - Students in social work
need practice in conducting direct observations and
recording data based on those observations. Nearly all
their report writing on the job will be based on direct
observation. Therefore, they need writing assignments
that help to develop their skills in collecting data from
observation rather than from secondary sources.
2. Interview Projects -
In addition to personal ob-
servation, social workers spend a great deal of time
interviewing clients and others involved in the case.
Presenting these interviews in terms relevant to the case
is crucial to effective court reports. Projects that require
students to interview several people on the same topic
and then report their responses, both in direct and in-
direct quotations, will increase the student’s ability to sort
out differing versions of the same event and write a
balanced discussion based on interviewees’ statements.
3. Summary Projects -
Because social workers
collect such a large amount of miscellaneous information
during the investigation of a case, students need projects
which require them to evaluate information for relevance
to a central concern, classify the information, and prepare
summaries of the facts. If a social worker does not have
the ability to summarize effectively, final reports may be
nothing but repetitions of the original chronological logs,
and, consequently, the reports will frustrate the efforts of
those who must use the documents to achieve court
intervention in a case.
STYLE
Although basic elements of clear style apply to all
professional writing, social workers need to pay par-
ticular attention to three areas.
1. Objective Word Choice - The social worker
must avoid judgmental tone in documents, no matter how
extreme the situation may be. Even though court reports
are written to effect a requested action, the word choice
must be scrupulously objective to avoid any appearance
of bias and reduce opportunities for clients to challenge
the conclusions of the report. The force of the document
must lie in the facts. Therefore, a statement such as
&dquo;Mary Johnson is a poor housekeeper&dquo; should be dropped
in favor of an explicit description of the housekeeping. The
social worker might write as follows:
Mary Johnson does not wipe off the kitchen counter tops.
As a result, the counter tops are caked with spilled f(x)d,
and, on all three visits, insects were crawling on the
surface. These conditions present a health hazard to the
baby because Mrs. Johnson prepares the baby’s food on
these counters.
Exercises that emphasize objective language will in-
crease student awareness of the need to marshall facts to
make a point.
2. Excessive Passive Voioe - Because the social
workers write chronological logs of their interactions with
families, they have a tendency to lapse strongly into
passive voice in order to avoid writing &dquo;I said,&dquo; &dquo;I saw,&dquo; or
&dquo;I learned&dquo; with every fact. When transferring the infor-
mation to court reports, however, social workers must
revert to active voice because passive construction does
not provide enough information for clear evidence in a
Here is
case. a typical paragraph from a poorly written
court report:
Since Tammy’s return to her home, complaints have
been made of behavior problems and inability to control.
Tammy has been observed to be provocative. She throws
tantrums. It has been reported that she breaks dishes
deliberately and has been physically abused as a result.
There is serious concern about Tammy’s care.
This paragraph is almost entirely in passive voice and
lacks the specific evidence the prosecutor needs because
the facts are not attributed to any sources. Rewritten in

active voice, the paragraph provides sources for the infor-
mation.
Since Tammy’s return to her home, the mother has
complained to the parenting counselor, Margaret Wil-
son, that Tammy has behavior problems. Her mother
says she cannot control Tammy, and Tammy provokes
her by throwing tantrums. Her mother also reports that
Tammy breaks dishes deliberately, and her father has
beaten her for breaking the dishes. Mrs. Wilson’s report
to the Agency indicated that she is concerned about
Tammy’s care.
Students in social work need to be alert to the problems
the prosecutor and judge will have in trying to use
evidence written in passive voice.
3. Parallel Structure in Lists Social workers
-
write objectives for every case plan. In addition, they must
report instructions they give clients. These items are
usually best presented in parallel structure. Students,
therefore, need to practice rewriting information from
narrative to lists where appropriate.
The following paragraph from a case log gives infor-
mation that would be better presented in a balanced list.
This worker gave Mrs. Johnson instructions on cleaning
the kitchen and that she needs to store food properly.
Also, she was told to wash the dishes and to keep the
doors closed, so flies stay out, as well as cover the garbage
cans. Clothes should be hung up, and it was determined
that the sink was stopped up.
REFERENCES
Cohen, B. (1986). Written communication in social work:
The report. Child Welfare, 65, 399-407.
Kirtz, M. K. & Keep, D. C. (1986, November). The writing
seminar: The view from the participant’s chair. Paper
presented at the meeting of the Association for Business
Communication, Los Angeles, CA.
31
A balanced list is not only easier to read, but also is
easier to use when the social worker evaluates results in
the case at a later date. Following is an effectively struc-
tured goals statement:
Goals of the casework plan for the Jones family are:
1. to maintain monthly contact
2. to check with the mother about adequate care for the
child
3. to continue the child in day care through the Agency
4. to contact the grandmother to be sure the mother does
not abuse the child.
Students need practice in preparing such lists in paral-
lel structure. They also need practice in analyzing when
information would be more useful presented in a list
rather than in a paragraph.
These report assignments and the emphasis on objec-
tive word choice, active voice, and parallel structure are
not overly difficult to incorporate into the basic business
communication course. Tailoring some assignments to
the real writing tasks that social workers will face on the
job will increase markedly the usefulness of the course
for them and train them in the techniques they will need
as soon as they begin their careers. The basic business
communication course cannot really be &dquo;one-size-fits-all,&dquo;
but it can stretch a bit to serve both business and non-
business majors.
Smeltzer, L. R. & Gebert, K. A. (1986). How business com-
munication needs differ among professions. The Bulletin
of the Association for Business Communication, 69(3),
4-7.