Hello All,

I am aware this is a new assignment type for you, so I am sharing some additional guidance for
some of the assignment components to ensure everyone receiving the same guidance and can
review them at your individual leisure:

1) No assignment sample available – Please do not ask me for a sample for you to view. If
I had I sample to share, it would have already been available on the course website for
you. Thus, there is no sample that I can share with you.

2) One interaction only – This assignment has asked for you to complete one
conversation with one person. If you conducted a conversation with more than 2 persons,
then you will have added additional work and possible confusion to this assignment. I
would recommend that you consider redoing the conversations as gaps in the interaction
will be evident to the marker and your conversation will not make sense.

Remember you should be practicing your therapeutic communication during your

interaction; this interaction should be a chat with your friend, but focusing on your
friend’s/clients issue. You, as a future HCP and practicing your therapeutic communication
skills of both non-verbal and verbal, should be solely focused on the other person, who
you are doing this interaction with.

You are not asked to record and submit the recording with the assignment. If you have
chosen to record this interaction, that is your choice as it may make your write up of the
interaction easier and more accurate for you. However, be mindful that people can adjust
their responses and behaviours when they know they are being recorded.

If it is short conversation, such as 10-15 minutes, then write out the entire conversation
over the worksheet – you will need to use many of the same sheets or create your own
table and have it continuously flowing table. If your chat happens to become a longer
conversation, which can occur with good therapeutic communications, you will want to
analysis 1 section of conversation that was most interesting, so where you got the 'client'
go deeper with more depth and insight in his/her responses. Also, you would note this in
your introduction. Remember the Fluffy "hello and how are you doing?" will not prompt
you to learn and expand your therapeutic communication skills so it is considered weak
choice if you need to use these greetings as part of your minimum meeting of the
assignment criteria.

3) Formatting – Yes, use a word document for this assignment. You will have the
introduction and conclusion pages in standard letter format but the worksheet, which you
may want to quick create your own table so it’s one solid table, should be in landscape
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mode. While I am not instructing you to apply APA formatting, since this is not a standard
academic paper, you should always check your grammar and spelling in your assignment.
Marks will be deducted when multiple grammar and spelling errors are discovered by
your marker.

4) Introduction – This should be a simple paragraph to explain about the interaction

context setting, such as where was it held? Did you complete it in person with masks on
or via zoom?; how long (specific amount time) was the interaction?; your relationship to
the person/client long with their pseudonym /fake name or initials used; what
communication barriers occurred and how you tried to overcome them?, and what was
the general topic of the interaction? Finally, highlight how you applied therapeutic
communication, instead of standard friend, parental or other social chat, and any
communication strategies you tried and practiced during the interaction. Please do not
worry if you said a wrong statement or your interaction does not go well as you are
learning and I expect you to make mistakes and learn from them! Also, please do not
worry about a word count, but do try to be clear and concise as many of you need to
continue to work on this technique.

5) Worksheet – You will write out the one conversation over several worksheet pages, if
you use the original table provided to you, or else you are welcome to retype it so your
assignment is combined into one word document. Either approach is fine but you must
ensure you clearly layout the interaction and your analysis so it is clear for your marker to
read and fully understand. The worksheet is fairly self-explanatory so please stop and
fully read each column headings instructions at the top of the page, work on that column
and then go to the next column.

You will naturally write out your interaction within Column 1 and 2 and then later go and
work on your analysis with Columns 3 through to 6. You will write out your verbal and
non-verbal communication of your ‘client’ and yourself in column 1 and 2; remember it
should follow the flow of the interaction so the first speaker should be listed first; often
the first speaker is the HCP, so you, and thus you may need to leave a gap in Column 1 for
the first analysis line since the client was listening to you could add the non-verbal of the
client here if you would like but this is optional. This will indicate to the marker who and
how the conversation actually started. You are writing out the verbal statements in
“quotes” and the non-verbal communications of what you observed in both the columns.
Remember to include your identification of the communication strategies used by placing
them in brackets, particularly all your responses! If your response fits into more than one
communication strategy, then it is astute to list all communication strategies that suit
the particular response; this will demonstrate to the marker that you have considered
them all. If you want to indicate that one communication strategy was more primary than
the other possible strategies listed, then I recommend you place it first in your
identification list.
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Tip: When you are writing out a direct statement, always put quote marks, such as “X”
around the actual statement.

Column 5 is where you MUST create a new, different and, often, simpler alternative
response (now you have the time to think and reflect on your responses) that you should
have stated instead. This alternative response would be selected in order to improve your
interaction while promoting your person/client to explore further and go deeper in their
thoughts and information regarding their story. Remember again to identify this new
communication strategy in brackets.

Column 6, the last column, is where you would compare Column 2 (your originally stated
response) to Column 5 (your alternative new response). You will evaluate each and decide
which is better. In your rationale, explain your reasoning based on communication
content taught in this course and you will have to convince your marker that your
decision is correct. Thus, it is more suitable for my friend’s personality is unacceptable
answer and thus won’t convince the TA or myself. Be sure to list the answer in Column 6
for each response line and provide a clear and specific reason of which one is better.

Tip: Remember to do your analysis line by line of your interaction. You are not
summarizing within the columns. It does not matter how many sentences on a page.
Basically, what I am trying to say is - make sure your interaction is clearly laid out as well
as your analysis so your marker can clearly and easily follow and understand it. You will
need a good amount of space for you to fully write out and analysis each
sentence/response of yours and your client/friend. You will very likely be able to write
out more than one sentence per page, but you will need to judge what is reasonable as I
cannot see it until it is submitted.

6) Conclusion - This should be a simple paragraph highlighting what you learned after you
analysed this interaction. Here are some questions to consider when completing this
section:

a) What did you do well during this interaction?

b) Did anything make you feel uncomfortable during the interaction? If so, explain what it
was. Remember to be specific!

c) What did you do not so well during this interaction? Specifically, what common habits
did you discover regarding your verbal and non-verbal communications during your
analysis? How do they interfere with this and/or future interactions with others? What
are some approaches or strategies that you will apply to fix your common habits to
enhance your therapeutic communication?
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Overall, you want to ensure you highlight what you learned from your analysis and what
you specially need to practice (remember to be specific on how to apply it) to improve
your therapeutic communication skills. Again, do not worry about a word count, but try to
be clear and concise as many of you need to continue to work on this.

I hope my tips will provide you some clarification while easing any confusion or
misunderstandings. I do hope you enjoy and learn something new while doing this unique
assignment!

Kelly