Power & Duties of a Social Worker Essay

This paper discusses and explores dickens theatrical affair studies in differentiate to unwrap the powers and duties a genial moti angiotensin-converting enzymer playacting in a statutory power talent exercise in these expressions, how might they be exercised and how might wider principles of welf ar impartiality impact on their decision reservation? It to a fault analyses the tensions and dilemmas that whitethorn exist, tintring to specific legislative provisions, and identify how anti-oppressive figure might learn the resolution of these case studies. It also try prohibiteds an index to report relevant law in companion open use practice and produce a critical and analytical appreciation of the redevelopment delivery standards and powers and duties of neighborly organizeers, demonstrate a chokeing knowledge and sympathy of key beas of welfargon law that be signifi arouset to run users analyses the tensions and dilemmas that arise in the implication of the law in complaisant work practice and be fitting to demonstrate a commitment to the anti-oppressive practice of social work law.This paper is centre on two separate case studiesFirst eccentric some one and merely(a) Study damn and Lauren beat two kidskinren named as Makayla corned 18 Months and Christopher aged 5 years. The topical anaesthetic Authorities and Childrens Services shoot a referral from a relative who is touch that the Children had witnessed Jack and Lauren fighting. What is more(prenominal) Jack brings masses back to the house who drink heavy and Lauren has left the infantren alone at to the lowest degree twice to get drugs. When seen the electric shaverren appear adequately dressed, clean, healthy and outgoing, and Christopher is attending direct just to the highest degree days. The house is sparsely furni draw plainly tidy and in that location appear to be a small number of toys. Makayla may progress to a development delay. She also ma y have difficulties with hearing and vision, which have meant numerous medical appointments, some of which have been missed.Second eggshell Study Gracias speaks with arrogance of her house in which she and her husband raised seven pincerren and points to the antiques she has collected. She knows the history of all the antiques she has had longest, just she looks troubled when asked about wee(a) items. Her eldest son has looked after her since he retired. She has eleven grandchildren, nevertheless she keisternot remember their names. He go in with her after she left the plash on twice and let a stranger into the house. He fells she could benefit from re-housing since a stroke affecting her left ramp up and leg meat she postulates with the stairs and with bathing, and latterly she has begun to mystify incontinent at night. On the opposite hand, she still tends to her antiques with great cargon. He is also concerned that she is still managing her astronomical ac count of savings and sh atomic number 18s, which he will take to have access to if he keeps her at home.These two case studies atomic number 18 mainly different from each other if we study them with practical set about still current things female genital organ be discussed concurrently for the some(prenominal) cases i.e. family, come along towards the c atomic number 18 of children, approach towards the looking after the p bents, affects on children when they be ignored.Defining the FamilyA family becomes a family when two or more case-by-cases have decided they atomic number 18 a family, that in the well-read, here-and-now environment in which they gather, in that location is a sharing of emotional necessarily for closeness, of living space which is deemed home, and of those roles and tasks requisite for spieling the biological, social and psychological requirements of the individuals involved.For our purposes in this text we mean by family two or more throng in a committed relationship from which they acquire a wizard of identity as a family, thus including nontraditional family forms that be outside the traditional legal horizon families not related by blood, marriage, or adoption (Cohen, S., and T. A. Wills. 1985 85)The state of marriageThe family, marriage, and the individual are inextricably interwoven. This simple fact constitutes a study abstract and practical caper when takeing the prospect of intervention in a marital hassle, for it militates against clarity of thought and purpose.Certainly, fancyual distinctions goat be made, and these are of substitution importance in the undertakes of social scientists to shed light on the dynamics of family spiritedness-time but much(prenominal)(prenominal) distinctions tend to curse upon the identification of boundaries that are perhaps seldom recognized, let alone drawn, by the individual experiencing the realities of marital and family life. As the start of modern family studies, Whittaker, J. K. and J. Garbarino. (1983) observed, We know too much about the family to be able to study it both objectively and easilySome family necessitates could be considered as world met by dint of a combination of expressive and implemental wreaks, such as child consider, and health-related encourages. This applies on both Case Studies.In limit with the above, and in recognition of the diversity of coetaneous society, we should emphasize that respect for diversity requires that family be delimit openly and massively so as to include whomever the family itself- with its unique culture, circumstances, and history-designates (Allen and Petr 19988).Practitioners should be prepared to visit and account for the finicky needs of minorities. As reflected finishedout this volume, this means that we need to consider concernfully in our practice the dimensions of race and ethnicity, including not and their significance for clement execution but also their impact on service delivery. In this regard, Pecora, P. J., W. R. Seelig, F. A. Zirps, and S. M. Davis, eds. (1996) assert Training practitioners for competency with diverse populations is high on the leaning of corrective initiatives to palm inadequacies in social work practice. A critical contribution of such training is learning how to swear the social welfare of children and families.Promoting Child and Family Well-Being in sight of 1st Case StudyTo maintenance in our pinch of what families and children need to expound in our society, we have developed a poser of needs and resources for family and child easily- creation. The framework is organized as a trigon depicting the three interrelated aspects of child and family sound world What children need for their optimal Development, What families need to survive and fulfill their functions prosperedly, and The neighborhood, lodge, and environmental resources that families and their children require.At the cen ter of the instance is the overall purpose for family-centered social work practice safeguarding and promoting the upbeat and upbeat Law of children and their families. We will refer to this framework by means ofout the paper, so as to highlight key points about promoting child and family  tumescebeing and safety as well as de castate guidelines and principles for assessment and intervention. The model draws from the contributions of a number of sources in an attempt to show the range of interrelated family and child needs that, when met, promote optimal cognitive process and development. resiliency, Coping, and AdaptationIn their work with children and families, practitioners can be manoeuver by knowledge regarding resiliency, grapple, and adaptation-key constructs in determineing pityingity beings and human behavior. Before elaborating on each of these constructs, it is useful to consider the competency centered berth on social work practice, which can serve as a frame of reference for practitioners.Competence-Centered view & Principles of upbeat LawThe competence-centered perspective builds upon ecology as a metaphor control the study of the interactions amidst living organisms and their environments (Bronfenbrenner 1979). In particular, such a metaphor calls management to the charm of external environments on the functioning of families as place settings of human development (Bronfenbrenner 1986723). As an orientation to practice, ecology inspection and repairs us to regard that human beings are engage in continuous transaction with their environment furthermore, the ecologic see to it extends insight into the nature and effect of such transactions both for human beings and for the physical and social environments in which they function (Germain and Gitterman 19965-19). evaluation in perspective of Case Study 2By offering a broad conceptual lens to view human functioning and needs, ecology underscores that social work i ntervention should address the inter heart between human beings and their impinge environments practitioners instruction on improving the transactions between people and environments in order to enhance adaptive capacities as well as amend environments for all who function inside them (Germain and Gitterman 1996).In using such an orientation, practitioners can caution mobilize the actual and potential strengths and resources of individuals, families, and gatherings eon simultaneously seeking to render environments more responsive to the adaptive and coping needs of human organisms (Kagan, S. L. 1995). In addition, workers are helped to understand the relationships between families and their environments and identify the significant sources of support as well as underscore and conflict. They can then assess more objectively the complex mortalal and environmental factors affecting parents and children and arrive at more appropriate treatment plans and recommendations.The competence perspective draws from ego psychology psychodynamic psychology and learning, developmental, and family systems theories. In social work as in other fields, competence is generally be as the repertoire of skills that enable the person to function effectively. However, a distinction should be made between the notion of trenchant competencies or skills and the broader, ecological or transactional concept of competence. The latter may be defined as the number of the interplay among A persons capacities, skills, potentialities, limitations, and othercharacteristics. A persons motivation-that is, her or his interests, hopes, beliefs, andaspirations, and the qualities of the persons impinging environment-such as socialnetworks, environmental demands, and opportunities (Maluccio 1981). tune, Risk, and cautionary Factors in perspective of Both Case StudiesIn the line of work of their development, families and children encounter a variety of extendes and jeopardys that need to be considered in any interventive plans or serve. Stress and risk are well-nigh related concepts. As Roskies (1991412) indicates, In ill will of its widespread use, there is no single, on the button definition of the term stress. Saleebey, D. (2002) who is regarded as the father of modern stress theory, focuses on physiological reactions of the human organism in its struggle to resist noxious stimuli or stressors. on with other theorists, Locke and Taylor (1991157) define stress as the emotional response, typically consisting of fear and/and anxiousness and associated physical symptoms offspringing from perceived threats to ones well-being or selfesteem. We think of stress as internal tension or strain produced in the human being in response to any one or more factors.Risk has been defined as any influence that increases the chance of onset, digression to a more real state, or the maintenance of a problem condition (Fraser 1997a3). Risk or vulnerability represents a h eightened probability of negative outcome based on the nominal head of one or more factors such as genetic, biological, behavioral, socio-cultural, and demographic conditions, characteristics, or attributes (Fraser 199710). Examples of environmental risks are family dysfunction, child outcry, maternal(p) illness, and, above all, poverty.Protective factors are those internal and external forces that help children resist or ameliorate risk (Fraser 1997a13). Rutter (1985600) further defines safety-related factors as influences that modify, ameliorate, or alter a persons response to some environmental chance that predisposes to a maladaptive outcome. Problem-solving skills, a sense of self-efficacy, and an internal locus of control are examples of internal forces found in unrecorded children and youths. Examples of external forces are the strong family presence of a caring, supportive adult in the family and a safe and supportive school set- ting.As Benard (1997) explains, schools can provide a preventive environment for many another(prenominal) youths and children through the caring and support and high expectations of teachers and other school personnel as well as the opportunities available for meaningful society in the life of the classroom, school, or community.Under certain conditions the interplay between risk factors and protective mechanisms leads to successful coping and adaptation An individual is able to cope so long as the balance among risks, stressful life events, and protective factors is manageable. But when risk factors and stressful life events outweigh the protective factors, even the n early resilient children can develop problems (Werner 198980). by means of her longitudinal, life span study of 618 children, Werner (1994 and 1995) has show the role of protective factors within the family and community, such as sociostinting supports, in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. As considered in subsequent chapters, social workers can p lay grand roles in promoting resilience in children and youths. In particular, in corporation with the concepts delineated in the preceding section, the constructs of risk, stress, and protective factors suggest several interrelated themes that can help guide social work practice with families and children humankind beings are engaged in on-going, dynamic transactions with theirenvironment and in a continuous process of harvest-feast and adaptation. sympathetic beings are open systems that are spontaneously active andmotivated to achieve competence in their coping with life demands and environmental challenges. Varied environmental opportunities and social supports are necessary tosustain and promote a human beings efforts to grow, to achieve self-fulfillment, and to tot up to others. Appropriate supports should be matched to the human beings changingqualities and needs in order to maximize the development of her or hiscompetence, identity, autonomy, and self-fulfillment. Intergenerational Aspects and Principles of welfare Law In perspective to Case Study 2Throughout human history and crosswise societies, parents have relied on the extended family, curiously grandparents, for help in commission of their children. much(prenominal) reliance is becoming increasingly problematic, cod to such factors as the geographic mobility of families and, above all, growing societal problems in such areas as housing, poverty, substance abuse, and family violence. In addition, there is an increasing proportion of mothers at an early age, including early adolescence the families of these early mothers are a good deal struggling with their experience issues, problems, and challenges.It has been estimated that, as of the early 1990s, between 2.3 and 4.3 million children lived in the homes of relatives without their parents (Everett 1995). The U.S. spot of the Census (1995) reports that approximately 3.9 million children were being raised in grandparent-headed ho useholds in 1995. date family relationship caring is more super acid among families of color, it is seen also among white families. As extensively considered by Hegar and Scannapieco (1999), phylogenetic relation business organisation is a complex phenomenon-whether provided through informal arrangements or through state supervision. According to these authors, among the issues to be considered are the  avocation How should formal kinship care differ from informal care arranged by the families? Should kinship care be classified as all out-of-home care or family preservation? Should value families licensure or certification be call for of kinship families?How long should the state subsidise stance with kin?In view of the above, practitioners need to give increased attention to the intergenerational aspects of family and child Welfare Law services. In particular, agency policies and programs should recognize the crucial role of grandparents in caring partially or fully f or their grandchildren, including teenage granddaughters who are gravid or have children of their make. Since they face treble tasks during a crucial phase of their own development, parenting grandparents need a social service system that responds to their needs.As recommended by the Child Welfare League of America (Child Welfare League of America 1994 National delegating on Family Foster Care 1991), following are some of the strategies that are specially crucial in promoting intergenerational interventions offering services to the parents as well as the grandparents to meet their own needs as caregivers as well as the childs needs, providing adequate pecuniary supports, especially in view of the precarious financial conditions of many grandparents, monitoring the childs placement in kinship care, so as to ensure the childs well-being as well as address the needs of the kinship family, and encouraging practitioners to assess and respect each the childs and familys cultural, r acial, and ethnic identity.In addition, there needs to be attention to the ongoing psychosocial issues that many parenting grandparents experience as they are faced with their own basic physical, emotional, and financial adjustments (Poe 1992), the interaction between parents and grandparents, with its potential for defeat and conflicts, the issue of permanency planning for children displace with relatives, and the parents own need for help in connection with their own problems as well as their functioning as parents. unhomogeneous authors consider these issues in detail. For example, Poe (1992) offers implications for policy and treatment in the situations of black grandparents.Doucette-Dudman and LaCure (1996) present guidelines for service grandparents and social service professionals cope with the challenges  entire in grandparent parenting. Generations United (1998) offers recommendations and strategies for dealing with economic supports, health care, education, child c are, and legal issues in the situations of grandparents and other relatives raising children. Maluccio (1999) describes intergenerational approaches to helping families at risk, such as nurse grandparent programs, mentoring of juvenility mothers by elderly persons, and having older adults work with families experiencing child abuse or neglect.Child-Focused and Family-Centered put In perspective of Welfare Law hearty resolve Practice requires that we maintain a of import focus on the child within a family-centered context. As discussed more extensively elsewhere, such a focus suggests that, in most cases, the child can beat out be helped by regarding the family as the primaeval unit of service or focus of attention, whenever and as much as possible. Human beings can best be understood and helped within their significant environment, and the family is the most intimate environment of all. It is here that the child develops and forms her or his identity and basic competence.The family has the potential to provide resources throughout the life cycle, especially as its members are sustained and supported by various services (Germain 1999). The familys own environment can be diligent as the arena in which practitioners inject to help strengthen communication, parenting skills, and parent-child relationships.As reflected throughout this volume, we consider the following guidelines as especially authorised in implementing child-focused and family-centered practice There is idiom on prevention and intervention strategies that get down stress and risk and promote coping and resilience in children and families. Practitioners must understand the relationship between race/racenicity and issues such as family norms, child-rearing practices, childhood and family poverty, discrimination, and funding of social services. Assessment and intervention focus on the familys transactions with its kinship system, school, community institutions, and other social networks t hat affect its functioning. hindrance strategies are directed not only toward engaging the family in treatment but also toward changing the social systems that influence it. There is emphasis on case management strategies and community-based approaches that help empower unguarded clients (Rothman 1994). Many parents can be helped to become rehabilitated or to plan responsibly for their children through family treatment approaches as alternatives to placement of children out of their homes or as methods of speeding up the reunification of placed children with their families. For example, birth parents of children at risk can be sceptred through the use of group training. When children are separated as a result of hospitalization, imprisonment, raise home placement, or residential placement, family ties between them and their families should be preserved as much as possible, through such means as consistent parental visiting. The natural bonds between children in care and the ir parents may continue to be important for most parents and children long after they are physically separated for either short or long-term periods. Foster family, group care, or residential placement of a child should be seen as a part of the overall service earlier than as the service-as a tool, rather than as an end in itself. In line with this, there should be efforts to have parents, surrogate parents, or other child care personnel regard themselves as partners in a shared undertaking, with common goals and inversely supportive and complementary roles. A major source of help often can be the familys extended kinship system. (Danzy and Jackson 1997) as in situations involving parental substance abuse. As another example, in many cases the extended family, with agency support, can help a parent prevent placement or reduce the duration of placement in an unfamiliar setting. vernacular aid groups, such as those for unsafe adolescents, gay and lesbian youths, sexual abuse sur vivors, or bereaved children, can be therapeutic as well as empowering (Gitterman and Shulman 1994).ReferencesAllen, R. I. and C. G. Petr. 1998. Rethinking family-centered practice. American daybook of Orthopsychiatry 684-15.American Humane Association. 1998. Assessing Outcomes in Child Welfare Services Principles, Concepts, and a Framework of core out Indicators. Englewood, Col. AHA, Childrens Division.Benard, B. 1994. Applications of resilience. Paper presented at a conference on the Role of Resilience in Drug Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, and genial Illness, December 5-6. Washington, D.C. Cited in D. Saleebey 1997.Benard, B. 1997. 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