Helping Family Members with Maladaptive Communication 119 Social workers use internal mediation and advocacy skills to intervene directly in family members’ interactions with one another. This skill set includes helping members listen and talk to one another, identifying ambiguous com- munication, encouraging self- and other-awareness, exploring divergent views, legitimizing differences in perceptions, exploring myths and secrets, searching for common ground, reframing, lending support, assigning homework, and offering reflective comments. Competency 7 Assess Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities • Collect and organize data and apply critical thinking to interpret information from clients and constituencies. • Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment, person- in-environment, and other multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks in the analysis of assessment data from clients and constituencies. Competency 8 Intervene with Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities • Critically choose and implement interventions to achieve practice goals and enhance capacities of clients and constituencies. • Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment , person-in- environment, and other multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks in inter- ventions with clients and constituencies. • Negotiate, mediate, and advocate with and on behalf of diverse clients and constituencies. Teaching Methods and Skills Adopting a Family-Centered Perspective We find that it is often difficult for students to integrate and apply family con- tent about the family as a whole into their practice because of their limited direct involvement with the entire family. However, by the midpoint in their field practicum, they are likely to have worked with family subsystems and have developed a greater appreciation for the role that others in the system may play. In contrast to working with individuals and groups, placing emphasis on the conceptual and theoretical content on families may be more help- ful to students. This helps students understand and adopt a family-centered