How Tight Are Your Boundaries?

Questionnaire

How Tight Are Your Boundaries?

This questionnaire is intended to get you to think about yourself, your youth and your behaviour. The examples and the scores applied to the answers are intended to be representative examples, not cast-iron guidelines or rules. A good worker should judge every situation on its merit, which is why you need to think about boundaries so carefully.

For each question, choose one of the answers provided. There are of course many other courses of action you could take. Answer every question, trying not to think about it for too long. To make it a useful test you should click the answer that relates most closely to how think you would behave, not how you think you should behave. There are no right and wrong answers, just more or less boundary responses. You may want to choose more than one answer to some questions but choose the answer that contains what you see as the most important response.

Once you have chosen all your answers, you will get your results and be able to compare your score to the analysis of it at the end of the questionnaire.

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* 1. What is your first and last name **

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* 2. You are walking with your partner and see a client you are currently working with, walking down the street towards you. What do you do?

Ignore them.

Make eye contact and see what they want to do.

Nod a brief ‘hello’ to them.

Stop and chat with them.

Stop them and introduce your partner.

Ignore them.

Make eye contact and see what they want to do.

Nod a brief ‘hello’ to them.

Stop and chat with them.

Stop them and introduce your partner.

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* 3. You are a live-in support worker at a residential project. One of your elderly clients turns up on your doorstep crying and upset late on a Saturday night. What do you do?

Tell them you are off duty.

Ask them in for a quick cup of tea and a chat.

Escort them home and have a quick chat on the way.

Not answer the door.

Take them home, make them a cup of tea and get them to tell you what the problem is.

Tell them you are off duty.

Ask them in for a quick cup of tea and a chat.

Escort them home and have a quick chat on the way.

Not answer the door.

Take them home, make them a cup of tea and get them to tell you what the problem is.

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* 4. One of your clients notices you are reading a book by their favorite author. You have just finished the book and can tell they would love to read it. What do you do?

Give them the book, as you have finished with it.

Hurriedly put the book away.

Discuss the ideas and themes of the book with them.

Suggest they join the local library.

Offer to lend them the book.

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* 5. A client asks if you have a partner and children. What do you do?

Give a totally honest answer.

Tell them it’s none of their business.

Acknowledge your situation without giving too much information away.

Get out your family photos.

Have a moan about your partner/lack of partner.

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* 6. One of your key clients who suffers from depression and is a heavy cannabis user is always late for your meetings, if they turn up at all. What do you do?

Keep offering them appointments and do the best you can.

Make extra effort to remind them about the appointments.

Offer to make home visits.

Tell them they need to turn up or the sessions will end.

Spend the session looking at their inability to turn up on time.

Try to devise an action plan with them to deal with the issue.

Tell them that when you smoked cannabis it made you lazy as well.

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* 7. A client who you have been working with stops engaging with you and rejects your attempts to support them. How do you feel?

Sad.

Annoyed.

Disappointed.

Angry.

Nothing, they’re just a client.

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* 8. What do you do?

Let them know you are there for them whenever they are ready.

Tell them how shut out you feel and that they have let you down by rejecting you.

Get another worker to try to talk with them.

Leave them alone until they decide to engage.

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* 9. A client tells you that you really ‘get’ them and no one else understands them, and that they think you are a wonderful person. What do you do?

Thank them and say that they are a special person.

Act pleased but modest.

Explain that you are just doing your job.

Tell them to stop being soft.

Give them a hug.

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* 10. A client gets engaged and says that they will invite you to the wedding and that they would really like you to be there after all you have been through together. What do you do?

Say you will start looking for an outfit.

Tell them that you don’t think it is appropriate for you to go.

Tell them you would love to come but professional boundaries mean that you can’t.

Be vague, intending not to come anyway.

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* 11. You are working with an ill elderly client. They become too ill to do the shopping and at the end of one session they ask you to pop to the shops for them as they have no food in the house. It is outside of your job description and hours of work. What do you do?

Take the money offered and go to the shops for them.

Say you are unable to go for them.

Offer to do the shopping on a regular basis for them.

Ring your organization and get clearance to do the shopping.

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* 12. You are working with a client who you believe is becoming sexually attracted to you. They flirt mildly with you in one on one sessions. What do you do?

Speak to your supervisor/manager about the situation.

Play along with them so you don’t hurt their feelings.

Tell them that this is a professional relationship and that they should not be so over-friendly.

Get them transferred to another worker.

Stop booking one-to-one sessions with them.

Book a home visit to discuss the situation.

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* 13. One of your clients is a financial advisor. Whilst chatting they tell you about some stocks and shares you should buy now to make lots of money. You do currently have some money you are looking to invest. What do you do?

Tell them that you are here to advise them, not the other way round.

Tell them you don’t invest in the stock market, but follow their advice secretly.

Be polite but disinterested and ignore the advice.

Ask them for more details so you can check it out later.

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* 14. A new client spontaneously gives you a hug at the end of a particularly good session. What do you do?

Hug them back and tell them what a positive session it was.

Let them hug you but don’t really engage.

Avoid the hug and tell them it is not appropriate.

Accept the hug and tell them it is not appropriate.

Tell them not to ever touch you.

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* 15. A volunteer working with the project seems slightly out of sorts and you think you can smell alcohol on them, although you are not sure. What do you do?

Keep an eye them and act if their behaviour is wrong.

Ask them if they are feeling all right.

Ask them if they have been drinking.

Explain your concerns and the reasons for your concern.

Speak to your manager.

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* 16. You turn up for a home visit and the client answers the door wrapped in a towel. What do you do?

Refuse to enter the house and walk away.

Tell them to put some clothes on and wait outside whilst they do.

Laugh it off and go in anyway.

Suggest they need to put some clothes on before starting the session.

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* 17. You turn up to meet your friends for a drink in the pub. You see one of your current clients in the pub with some of their friends. The client looks slightly drunk. What do you do?

Ignore your client all night.

Speak to your client and suggest they leave the pub.

Ask your friends to leave with you to another pub.

Have a word with your client and suggest that you ignore each other.

Buy your client a drink.

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* 18. One of your clients brings you a reasonably expensive bottle of perfume/aftershave as a gift towards the end of your time working with them. What do you do?

Accept the gift with thanks.

Refuse the gift as inappropriate.

Accept the gift but say you will have to share it with the team.

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* 19. Whilst chatting with a client, they mention your favourite band/musician/singer, saying how much they love them. What do you do?

Listen and ask them questions.

Say how much you like the artist.

Start chatting in depth about the music/lyrics.

Talk about the time you saw them play live.

Change the topic of conversation.

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* 20. You are chatting with a group of clients when one of them tells a mildly racist joke. All the other clients laugh and you think the joke, although tasteless, is quite funny. What do you do?

Smile to yourself but walk away.

Keep a straight face and say nothing.

Challenge the clients directly about the implicit racism.

Say that you find the joke offensive.

Remind them of the rules about racist language.

Laugh (but not too loud).24 Professional Boundaries in Social Work and Social Care