Introduction to Social Work and Its Role in Supporting Individuals and Families

Question:

Discuss About The Social Work Assessment Better Intervention?

Social work refers to an academic discipline as well as a profession that provide concern to the individuals and their families during their difficulties. Various agencies are associated with social works. In order to give a better life to the people by supporting them Financial and emotionally social workers play a major role. However, a number of practices are involved in the social work to understand the psychology of individuals (Rubin & Babbie, 2016). This study deals with the life event of Sam that leads them to feel more stress in his life. On the other hand, Task centered approach and Solution focused approach will be addressed in this section to understand the critical situation of Sam and his family.

Task centered approach or TCP is a popular practice that enhances collaborative work between the service users and the service providers. Application of such theory is done by the social workers to generate the behavioral ideas and cognitive approach to support the individuals in their difficulties (Doel & Marsh, 2017). This practice motivates the service users and individuals are able to be independent if they have been suffering from issues for a long time. According to the case study, Sam is a 34-year-old father of two children. However, he has lost his job recently and is not able to pay the family bill. On the other hand, he has not shared his difficulties with his partner. This present situation leads Sam to be worried regarding his family situation. Hence, the social worker of community social service agency can apply TCP to provide support to Sam to recover his critical situation.

TCP has four stages the first stage enables the social worker to identify the target problem. After identification of the target problem, the goal is set to deal with the problem. In the context of Sam TCP helps the social worker to identify his issue that is created for his unemployment as Sam is worried about the financial condition of his family. Then the social worker will understand that emotional and financial support is necessary for Sam to overcome his situation. Stage two enables both Sam and the social workers to marketing a contract between them to facilitate the changes in the service user’s life by making a proper schedule. Step three enables the social workers to take several sessions over how to deal with Sam to mitigate his stress (Paciello et al., 2016). Therefore, stage four allows the social worker to measure the success of the social work intervention in the context of Sam.

Task Centered Approach for Supporting Sam and His Family

The current situation of Sam leads him to face difficulties in his life. However, Sam wants to be a good provider of his family. Hence, loss of his job brings a critical situation for him as he is unable to give financial support to his children. This present situation leaves a negative impact on Sam’s body and mind that is dangerous for him. Hence, application of TCP practice will be an effective approach to release Sam from his crisis (Turner, 2016).

Application of such model enables the social worker to get a clear idea of the current problem based on which he or she can understand that emotional support is the prime requirement for Sam in his present crisis. TCP practice includes short timescale that will allow Sam to be more committed in multiple tasks. During the session of TCP practice, the support worker will able to give the task to the service users that increases their engagement, which keeps aside themselves from their worries (Roozeboom, 2014). Therefore, the social workers will able to improve the skill of Sam that makes him deal with his present issues by increasing his confidence level. However, TCP practice is a strength based approach that makes a clear communication between the service users and the service providers (Murphy, 2015). Such clear communication enables Sam to share his issues with the social worker and gives him relief as well as the proper idea to overcome his issues. Well, support can be provided by the support workers in TCP that allows Sam to take control over his life despite accepting issues. Sam feels hesitation to share his issues with his partner that leads him to face more stress. Hence, TCP practice can reduce such issue by developing a collaborative work between Sam and the social workers thorough and effective communication.

Solution focused approach or Solution focused brief therapy (SFBT) is another vital practice that is applied by the social workers to support the vulnerable people (Pichot & Dolan, 2014). This is a collaborative approach based on the specific goal. However, by applying such approach the social workers are able to make the psychotherapeutic change in client’s condition by keeping them in direct observation. This approach gives the client to express their problems without any hesitation. Hence, the social worker can develop a positive culture for Sam to exhibit his worries about his life. SFBT is a goal oriented approach and the aim of such therapy is to support individuals who are facing difficulties in their present life (Gingerich & Peterson, 2013).

Stages of Task Centered Approach

Application SFBT allows the support workers to focus on the present situation of Sam rather than the past. Therefore, the social worker of the community agency finds tools to cope with the present challenges by using their skill which enables them to make changes in Sam’s situation. Practitioner encourages the individuals to imagine their future and to carry out collaborative work to achieve their goals (Kim, Brook & Akin, 2016). In this therapy, the social worker will give the specific type of questions to Sam, which helps them to understand his present situation and his current need. Such questions enable Sam to recognize his strength and skill to cope with this adverse situation. However, unemployment leads Sam to lose his confidence and belief and he is feeling helpless. Thus SFBT is effective for him to envision his near future by answering miracle questions. Such questions enable people to think about a problem free life, as a result, the people are able to take immediate action to bring changes in their life (Neipp et al., 2016). The social worker can use scaling question in this therapy to assess the present condition of Sam. This enables him to listen to the story of Sam’s life and to provide the possible solution regarding this issue. SFBT practice empowers the vulnerable people by motivating themselves. In the case of Sam, it uses of SFBT enables the social worker to empower him to regain his confidence and make the necessary decision such as the search for a new job to get rid of the stress of unemployment.

Solution focused approach is an effective practice in the social work to deal with the problem of individuals (Ate?, 2016). In the case of Sam, it has been found that he has been suffering from the poor financial condition due to loss of his job. Hence, the social worker is associated with this vulnerable person to solve his problem by using TCP and SFBT approach.  However, in the TCP approach, the social worker will be able to identify the problem by taking a long conversation with the client (Creswell et al., 2017). However, through the normal interaction, the social worker will not able to understand the exact issues and needs of the service users. Hence, the solution based approach allows the social worker to ask a variety of questions to Sam through which the social worker is able to detect the core area of his problem and depression. Other social practices easily identify the problem of the clients, however, often there is no account of the solution of the identified problem. Hence, SFBT approach includes the solution besides identification of the problem.

Solution Focused Approach for Supporting Sam and His Family

Traditional process in the social work provides support to the clients to recover their present condition however, solution focused approach makes changes in the working pattern of the social worker (Metcalf & LPC-S, 2017). Problem clarification is the vital stage while providing support to an individual. Hence, if the social worker is not abale to a clear idea regarding the pain areas of the individuals then it is difficult for them to develop the solution for such problem. According to the case scenario, it is necessary for the community social worker to understand the psychology condition of Sam to give him support. Hence, by providing specific questions in SFBT approach such social worker can identify that only the unemployment is not the single reason of Sam’s depression besides that inability of Sam to share his problem with his partner is another reason of his stressful situation. Such clear assessment and problem clarification stages regarding the work of such community worker can be changed by the above way through the application of solution focused approach.

Maori refers to the indigenous people live in New Zealand. Their origination is eastern Polynesia. Such people have adopted many aspects of the Western culture. However, racial discrimination and workplace bullying are very common with Maori as they are the group of indigenous people (Balon, 2014). Hence, if Sam was Maori then application of solution focused approach will be changed for him. In this situation, the community social worker can apply SFBT practice to understand the effect of racial discrimination on Sam’s mind that may be a big reason for his unemployment.

Workplace bullying might lead Sam to lose his job as he is a Maori. On the other hand, due to ethnic discrimination, he is not able to get a better job and his family fails to get proper support from the society as Sam belongs from a minority group. Identification of such negative factors associated with the current satiation Sam can be possible by the application of SFBT. As a solution to this situation, the community social worker needs to provide social support to Sam and his family by make a good communication between Sam’s family and the society. Therefore, by applying such theory this social worker will be able to establish optimistic approach, which is a vital part of SFBT theory (Coady & Lehmann, 2016). This approach enables the social worker to change the view of the people regarding Maori, as a result, they will able to accept the cultural differences and to support Sam’s family in his difficulties.

Application of Solution Focused Approach

Asian born people prefer to speak in their own language that creates a big problem during communication (Hsu, 2017). However, if Sam is Asian-born then the community worker needs to give value to his local language to identify his problem. SFBT process is based on the theories of language. Hence, by applying this approach the social worker is able to give priority to the mother tongue of Sam in order to detect his problem and to develop the solution.

Application of solution focused approach will be different if Sam was a gay. However, social discrimination often occurs with gay in workplace and society (Balon, 2014). Hence, this might be a reason for Sam’s unemployment. Hence, by applying SFBT practice the community social worker can develop the solution based on the life event of Sam. Emotional support can be provided to Sam by this theory. This will encourage Sam in order to cope with his difficulties.

Conclusion

The entire piece of work highlights on the application of TCP and SFBT in social work. However, the case study reveals that TCP and SFBT practices are effective for Sam to improve his situation. Due to loss of job Sam has been suffering from mental stress as well financial difficulties. On the other hand inability of sharing his problem with his partner is also affecting his mind. Hence, the community social worker will able to give him support by using these two theories. SFBT is helpful to identify the problem through ask questionnaire to the client that enables the service provider to develop solution according to the problem. It has been found that development of the solution is crucial besides the recognition of the problem that can be done through the application of SFBT theory.

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