Context-Specific Assessment

To appropriately evaluate people in their communities requires careful consideration of a panoply of contextual parameters. These are composed of a welcoming and safe ambience; physical plant characteristics; the clinical setting (e.g., inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, homeless shelter or under a bridge, correctional setting); whether the assessment is routine, urgent, emergent, or investigatory; the nature of the evaluation’s expected product; and the cultural attributes of people, their communities, and the evaluator. Consideration of all these contextual issues will expand the evaluator’s capacity to establish a therapeutic alliance, and to engage the patient in the assessment, and possibly treatment. Awareness of and responses to these contextual concerns will improve both the evaluative process and the evaluation product.