The goal of this assignment is to provide students with the opportunity to practice treatment planning, learn practice behaviors, and utilize theoretical frameworks that promote client well-being. The assignment will guide students in advanced clinical practice to better understand the critical thinking process of moving from facts to conceptualization to practice research and intervention.
Students are to identify, critically evaluate, select, and apply evidence-based change strategies across the stages of clinical practice.
Case Analysis: The Richards Family
The Richards family includes Amanda, age 9; Leonard, age 14; Linda, age 46; and Fred, age 50. Lindas father, Edward, age 72, has been living with the Richards family since his wife, Marie, died two years ago. Edward and Marie were married for 50 years and had three children: Linda, age 46; Joan, age 44; and Peter, age 40.
Freds dad, John, age 84, currently lives in an assisted living facility near the Richards family home. Freds mother, Elizabeth, age 80, has Alzheimers disease and lives in a nursing home. Fred has a sister, Rita, age 59, who has always lived alone. Amanda is Lindas niece; Joan, Lindas sister, was her mother.
Joan and her husband, Frank, were murdered when Amanda was 3 years old. They were apparently involved with a street gang in a different city. The murders were thought to be related to drug dealing. Amanda has been living with the Richards family since the death of her parents.
Leonard is Fred and Lindas son. Fred and Linda have been married for 15 years. Fred has two other children from a previous marriage: Jim, age 24, and Jill, age 20. Both have been living with their mother, Susan, age 45, who is now remarried to John, age 48. Their family lives in a different state than the Richards family does.
Presenting Problems Amanda was referred to your agency by her school social worker. The social worker reports that in the last 3 months, Amanda has been having behavioral problems. She often has temper tantrums in the classroom and with her peers. She is often absent from school. Whenever she gets angry, she threatens to run away or to tell her aunt how badly her teachers treat her. Leonard is being referred to your agency by his DFC caseworker. The presenting problem is that Leonard, reportedly, was sexually abused by his stepbrother, Jim, several years ago when Jim was visiting the Richards family. Fred was referred to your agency by his attorney. Approximately two weeks ago, Fred was arrested while operating his vehicle under the influence of alcohol. This is the third time that Fred has been arrested and charged with driving under the influence. Linda is not currently employed outside of the home. She was recently laid off from her position as an administrative assistant due to major cutbacks in the company that she formerly worked for. The Richards family has moved several times in the past five years due to various financial difficulties. Linda does not report having any problems.
Students are asked to respond to the following:
1. What are the important, relevant facts within this case? Provide a clear introduction that indicates which family member you will work with individually for this case.
2. What are your hypotheses about the client situation? Succinctly review and highlight the key issues of the case. Describe how individual family members are affected by the identified problems.
3. What does the research say about this kind of client problem, diagnosis or situation? Discuss how a practice theory might be effective in working with the presenting problem for your client.
4. What theoretical framework are you using to organize your knowledge? Describe how the theory/theories will guide engagement and intervention. Describe the assumptions, principles, strategies, and techniques of the practice theory approach used for intervention.
5. Given the research and the theoretical framework, discuss your case formulation. Construct a family genogram that identifies all family members, extended family members, and other relevant systems involved with the family. Include the types of relationship patterns between family members. Discuss/describe what the family issues are that require therapeutic intervention. Discuss how you would intervene and provide a rationale. Describe the assumptions, principles, strategies, and techniques used for intervention with the family.
6. What social work values were used to inform your case formulation?
7. What, if any, personal values/bias impacted on your formulation of the case?
8. What intervention strategies are suggested by the case formulation? Do any of these have an evidence-base? Develop specific intervention goals for the case, i.e., specify goals for the individual chosen for trauma informed intervention, the individual chosen for practice theory engagement, and the intervention and goals for the family as a unit.
9. Considering NASW standards for diversity, critically analyze any issues that you have discovered in the literature to guide clinicians on appropriate diagnosis and treatment in pertinent subgroups. These subgroups can be defined by race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, age or any other pertinent grouping.
PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH LINDA YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO IDENTIFY SOME OF THE PROBLEMS THAT MAY BE IMPACTING ON HER BECAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS OF HER OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS. THIS WILL REQUIRE YOU TO UNDERSTAND FAMILY DYNAMICS (FAMILY EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS) TO HELP ADDRESS HER UNIDENTIFIED/ UNRECOGNIZED PROBLEMS.
PLEASE NOTE THAT IN ASSESSING THE PROBLEMS OF YOUR SPECIFIC CLIENT, YOU WILL NEED TO DISCUSS THE IMPACT OF THE BEHAVIORS OF THE OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR CLIENTS PROBLEM.
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