Social Work Practice: Individuals and Families
Social Work Practice - Working with Clients and their Families.
Min. number of words = 2500 words.
References: APA format.
Min. 5 references.
Textbook: Direct Practice In Social Work. Boyle, S.W., Hull, Jr., G.H., Mather, J.H., Smith, L.L. & Farley, O.W. (2009). Boston: Allyn & Bacon, Pearson.
Answer all the questions in the assignment.
Case study.
The family comprises of Francis TAY, 40, his wife, Elsie, 38 and their two boys, Luke, 12 and
Lewis, 1 month old. Francis runs his own family business with his only younger sibling,
Frannie TAY, a single. They deal mainly with the import of timber from Indonesia. Francis is
required to be out of his home country most of the time.
Elsie is a homemaker. She used to work as a childcare teacher but decided to quit after she
found out that she was pregnant with Lewis. Her poor relationship with her new workplace
supervisor also expedited her decision to quit her job. The family resides in a average apartment flat.
Francis was overseas when Elsie’s water bag burst and she had to go through an emergency
C-section. Lewis was born premature weighing a mere 2 kg. Francis was only able to join the
family after 2 weeks due to the travel restrictions of Covid-19. Hence the first 2 weeks of the
birth of Lewis was a rather stressful period for Elsie. Fortunately, Elsie’s good friend, Nellie
was a good source of support to her during this period.
Francis and Elsie are secondary school sweethearts. They got married when Francis was 28
and Elsie was 26 years of age. Initially, they enjoyed a very good relationship. Francis adored
Luke and made special efforts to stay in Singapore during his first year. Elsie was very happy.
However, this did not last for long. He once again started to travel often. Elsie started
feeling lonely. She felt that Francis valued money more than his family. Hence, Elsie was
overjoyed when she found out that she was pregnant with Lewis after trying to conceive
again for many years. She felt this would force Francis to spend more time with her family as
was the case with Luke. She only mentioned about her pregnancy to Francis when she was 3
months pregnant. Francis was not very keen to keep the baby. He suggested that she goes for
an abortion as he felt that he may have some challenges raising the new-born due to his
failing business. However, Francis grudgingly agreed to keep the child after Elsie threatened
to kill herself.
Elsie’s parents have both passed on. Francis’ both parents, aged 70 are still around. However,
they do not share a close relationship with him or his family. They feel that Francis’ poor
business outcomes may be a result of his poor decision making. Also, they do not see Elsie
on par with their family either in education or social status. They tend to support his sister,
Frannie more. They only visit their grandchildren occasionally.
Luke is currently studying in a primary school, and he will be sitting for a very important examination at the end of this year.
He used to be close with Elsie till she became pregnant and started exhibiting negative mood swings.
Luke is currently only close to the family’s domestic helper, Marisa and his teacher-in-charge, Ms LIU.
Ms LIU dropped by your family service centre with Elsie last week. They shared their
concerns regarding Luke. Ms LIU is concerned that he appears to be losing interest in his
studies and has not been submitting his homework on time. Elsie feels that he is very rude to
her lately and has been unkind to Lewis. He had also told Marisa that he was worried about
his important exam. Elsie also added that she has been very upset that she has to manage her premature
baby single-handedly as her husband has been unsupportive. He has only been concerned
about the outstanding medical bills and his failing business due to the Covid-19 situation.
You have been assigned as the social worker for this family.
Questions (100 marks)
a) Describe the TAY family members using a detailed genogram. (11 marks).
b) Demonstrate your understanding of the TAY family’s formal and informal systems using
an ecomap. Discuss the relationships between the family and the various systems. (11 marks).
c) Analyse any FOUR (4) concerns of the family that require your attention and follow-up. (32 marks).
d) Comment on any THREE (3) judgmental tendencies that the TAY family is likely to evoke
in you as their social worker. Examine the source of these tendencies. Illustrate how would
you overcome them so as not to negatively impact your work with the family? (36 marks).
e) You will be assessed on grammar, overall organisation and use of citations. (10 marks).
THE END.
Social work
Students Name
Institution Affiliation
Course
Date
Social work
Genogram these are picture display of an individual family. It is more of a traditional tree which allows the user to picture genetic arrangements and mental issues that interrupt relationship. They are also used to recognize repetitive sequences and recognize genetic trends. They record the family past and how they are connected. Psychologists and social workers use the genogram to examine and analyze particular truths about the family past and essential events that might have happened. Therefore here is the genogram presentation of the TAY family. In social work, they are used to show emotional bonds.
Genogram of TAYS family
376237578740Mr. Tay00Mr. Tay1333500135890Mrs. TayMrs. Tay
40576509271000
18764259207500211455038608000306705038798500187642538608000
5238750456565Luke1200Luke122533650452120 Francis4000 Francis401419225273685Frannie00Frannie
-3810045720Lewis One month0Lewis One month116205045910500370522546037600
300990030797500
2485390439420Elsie3800Elsie38
On the other side, an Ecomap is a detailed diagram usually used by social workers and nurses that often show the relationships between individuals (Reese, 2013). An Ecomap is an essential tool for every social worker. They use Ecomap to get involved with their client to describe and organize various events affecting their lives. Therefore, the below Ecomap represents the TAYS family structure. (Reese, 2013)
ECOMAP OF TAYS FAMILY
8572504491990School0School8572501234440 00 723900300164500-7143752801620Grandparent0Grandparent2019300349694500416242623348950041148002334895004266565227774500434340021158200040767009347200033140651724660ELSIE00ELSIE4114800111569500411480012299950040386011353821004038600144907000403860015919450017240251201421001828800120142000369570020320Child careInstitution0Child careInstitution3695700240157000326707526587450027432002401570002743200265874500305752532683450019431001934845FRANCIS00FRANCIS23622003001645LUKE00LUKE36385513077845LEWIS00LEWIS723900321945Francis business0Francis business48958503684270FriendsNellie0FriendsNellie52482752026920Homemaker0Homemaker
As a social worker, there are various concerns and issues that one should be keen on while addressing your client's problems. These are significant concerns that your maximum attention should be applied to solve and help the client .for instance, in this case, the social worker must pay attention to these issues and make a follow-up. These concerns are the families' environment, the emotional status, the behavioral and financial situation. Therefore we shall discuss in depth various problem that a social worker will address
Environmental factors
From an early time, human beings are very sensitive to their surrounding for them to survive. This means that everybody has an inborn awareness of our surroundings, and therefore we look for environments with specific qualities. Firstly, individuals must have a vital necessity for security and safety and seek those qualities in their surroundings. People also look for physical needs, for example, environments with the appropriate temperature, not forgetting people choose the surrounding that is favorable to them. However, when these surroundings are not suitable, they will hurt individuals.
To understand the role of a social worker is to understand the environmental contest of his client. Besides, one must understand the people living in their environment. However, in this case, it is limited since members of his family live far away since it is mutual to gather information from the neighbors, employers, and friends. The significance of this role is that it had a manipulating client's lives. Therefore, the concept was copied from the over-all theory and the ecology, which led to ecology system theory development
Conferring to a critique written by Johnson (1999), Unintended social preparation has frequently denoted to environmentally friendly interference in the customer's nets or social characteristic. The trust was to aid improve experiments in the client's environments. Therefore, two basics are connected with an unintended drill. The chief one is named total aid, and this is possessions obtainable to the client to support with simple needs. For instance, food aid sequencers are the best communal reserve desired for clients. The additional component to unintended social effort preparation is socio-psychological interference. This is the adjustment of approach or manners of essential individuals with in the client's communal setting.
Therefore the surrounding can encourage or discourage interaction among people. For instance, in our case, Luke withdraws his interaction with her mother because he feels that he has been neglected. This causes him to be rude and unkind to his mother and does not bother his sibling. A lack of minimal parental love causes Luke's behavior. Since there is also nobody to pay attention to his causes, he has negative behavior. However, he takes the attitude and emotional feelings at school. He does not produce his homework as before .his teacher notices and makes follow-up.
The environment can affect the mood and the attitude of the individual. For instance, in our case, Luke, who is a student, losses focus at school. He mainly loses focus at school due to the environmental surroundings he is facing at home. First, he was the only son of his parent, and therefore he would receive all the attention from his parent. His younger siblings' birth brings about the conflict since her mother now pays all the attention to the younger infant, and his father is busy at the workplace. These conditions change Luke's attitude and behavior to the extent that the teacher notices that he does not submit his homework and decides to inquire more about her parent's sudden behavior. This is very clear that the environmental changes have affected Luke's performance at school and his behavior, and his attitude towards the younger sibling.
Emotional factors
The emotional concern of each individual in a family is very crucial. This is because this is where memories are created. In a family where emotions are not considered, family unity fails. Lively attentiveness and sympathy—the capacity to be conscious, tolerating, and forever in agreement with individuals and others—communicate to us how to react to one another wants (Corcoran, 2012).
Emotion is extremely influential in the family since it places you in control of your interactions with paternities and children, brothers, in-laws, and the whole family. When one identifies his emotional state, one can live to harmonize with oneself and cannot be manipulated by other people(Corcoran, 2012).. Best of the skills for taming family relations are therefore concentrated on expressing your state of mind to those you love and care about, as all family relations are concentrated around feeling. Lack of communication of like causes conflict between him and his mother and also contradicts at school.
Lack of emotional intimacy with family becomes a burden since one is not comfortable spending time with the family. They look for other factors outside their families, such as work, hanging around with friends hence neglecting t the family. Therefore, the love in the family reduces. Take obligation for what you converse to others. Young children and women are susceptible to verbal and non-verbal communications. Therefore one should pay much attention to what they communicate to avoid hurting other people's emotional feelings. For example, in this case, when Elsie tells her husband about her second pregnancy.TAY tells her to abort this cause's emotional breakdown to Elsie .because she felt if she had another child, her husband would spend more time with them just like when Luke was an infant.
Behavioral factors
.
The behavioral factor int is every family is significant. The main objective of socializing with the parents is to guide the children on developing appropriate behavior. The behavior is more likely to affect the children's social relationships. Parental behavior towards th...