Social Work with Dysfunctional Families: The Social Worker’s Perspective.

1. Social Work with Dysfunctional Families: The Social Worker’s Perspective. Viviane Ngwa Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Academy of Certified Social Worker. Riga, Latvia; November 2013

2. Family Settings • There are a variety of family settings and types. - Family characteristics: Emotionally Supportive; Celebrate each other; Respect is shown and given to one another; an Emotionally Safe Environment where one can feel free to express and exchange opinions; Resilient Foundation; Privacy allowing personal space and boundaries.

3. In many cases: Dysfunctional Family Systems can be improved with Appropriate support structures. -Family preservation services are short-term services designed to help families cope with significant stresses or problems that interfere with their ability to nurture their children. The goal of family preservation services is to maintain children with their families, or to reunify them, whenever it can be done safely. -Family support and preservation services may be provided to different types of families involved with the child welfare system—birth or biological families, kinship families, foster families, and adoptive families—to enhance family functioning and ensure child safety. In family support and preservation services, the worker assists the family in identifying strengths, needs, and current resources in order to create a plan to address their concerns and help them achieve their goals. Assessment is incorporated throughout the process and may take a number of different forms, but always with the family as partners in the process.

4. The Importance of a Thorough Assessment -A Psycho-social Assessment. -Do not assume you know… -Strength-based Assessments: The belief that there is strength even within the dysfunctional systems of the family and that those strengths can be highlighted and build upon for the benefit of the family. -The impact of the skill of the assessor (social worker). -The interference of the biases of the Social Worker -The intrusive nature of an assessment and the family’s reaction. -The domains of the family’s life ( the physical environment, the support systems, finance, Background, family history, level of education, etc)

5. Social Work Support: Family Preservation Services • Family Preservation Services (FPS) are comprehensive, short term, intensive services for families delivered primarily in the home. • The services are designed to prevent the unnecessary out-of-home placement of children or to promote family reunification. (National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice 1994) • They are “services for children and families designed to help families (including adoptive and extended families) at risk or in crisis.” • Family support services are community-based services that assist and support parents in their role as caregivers. Family support services promote parental competency and healthy child development by helping parents enhance their strengths and resolve problems that can lead to child maltreatment, developmental delays, and family disruption.

6. Philosophy of Support to Families • -Family Preservation Services (FPS) philosophy is that most families, when properly assisted, can care for their children successfully. • -Children need to be with their families, and even in the most troubled families, separation is a traumatic event for the children and other family members. • -Family Preservation Services are usually more affordable. • -Youth go looking for family as from adolescence.

7. Family Preservation Services • Family preservation services are short-term, family-focused services designed to assist families in crisis by improving parenting and family functioning while keeping children safe. Family preservation services grew out of the recognition that children need a safe and stable family and that separating children from their families is traumatic for them, often leaving lasting negative effects. These services build upon the conviction that many children can be safely protected and treated within their own homes when parents are provided with services and support that empower them to change their lives.

8. Family Preservation Services: VALUES • Parents and families as a whole are respected. • Families have strengths and services should build upon those strengths. • Families can take an active role in identifying needs and in developing a service plan. • Services must be flexible, determined by each family’s goals. • Families are viewed as part of a community.

9. FPS GOALS: The Role of the Social Worker. • Enable families to properly care for their children. • Maintain a safe environment for their children (child) to live in their homes. • FPS assists families in coping with problems that disrupts the clients ability to parent. • Assist families in finding resources and support systems. • FPS can not fix everything in the family but to help the family learn the skills necessary to provide a safe and nurturing environment for the children (child).

10. Care: Family = Care for Child

11. THE STRENGTHENING FAMILIES APPROACH • Benefits ALL families • Builds on family strengths, buffers risk, and promotes better outcomes • Can be implemented through small but significant changes in everyday actions • Builds on and can become part of existing programs, strategies, systems and community opportunities • Is grounded in research, practice and implementation knowledge

12. In-Home Services -Providing services to families at home and in their communities can help caseworkers better identify strengths and needs and address parenting skills and relationships in the family's natural environment. -Services should be family centered, community based, culturally competent, and should engage the family by using their input to determine what types of supports or services will be most helpful to them. The goal of in-home services is to prevent the need for future child welfare involvement or removal.

13. Focus Areas of Support • Stress management • Health/nutrition • Child development • Behavior management • Respite care for caregivers • Cash assistance • Services are targeted to individual child and family needs. • Family counseling • Parenting and other skills training • Housing assistance • Family budgeting

15. Family Preservation Services Shows Improvements • Providing Services to Needy Families without creating dependency. • Breaking the cycle of multi-generational dysfunction. • Families that have received services have improved. • Improvement in parenting skills • Positive behavioral changes • Appropriate discipline • Improvement in care of children.

16. Family Preservation is about Services The term "family preservation services" means services for children and families designed to help families (including adoptive and extended families) at risk or in crisis, including: =Service programs designed to help children where safe and appropriate, return to families from which they have been removed; or be placed for adoption, with a legal guardian, or, if adoption or legal guardianship is determined not to be safe and appropriate for a child, in some other planned, permanent living arrangement; =Pre-placement preventive services programs, such as intensive family preservation programs, designed to help children at risk of foster care placement remain safely with their families; =Service programs designed to provide follow-up care to families to whom a child has been returned after a foster care placement; =Respite care of children to provide temporary relief for parents and other caregivers (including foster parents); =Services designed to improve parenting skills (by reinforcing parents' confidence in their strengths, and helping them to identify where improvement is needed and to obtain assistance in improving those skills) with respect to matters such as child development, family budgeting, coping with stress, health, and nutrition; and = Infant safe haven programs to provide a way for a parent to safely relinquish a newborn infant at a safe haven designated pursuant to a State law.

17. The Concept of Mandated Reporter • Each State in the U.S.A has laws requiring certain people to report concerns of child abuse and neglect. While some States require all people to report their concerns, many States identify specific professionals as mandated reporters; these often include social workers, medical and mental health professionals, teachers, and child care providers. Specific procedures are usually established for mandated reporters to make referrals to child protective services.

19. Mandated reporters are professionals who may work with children in the course of their professional duties. Medical Personnel: physician, dentist, nurses, medical social worker, emergency medical technician, practitioner, chiropractor, hospital administrator School Personnel: includes administrators and certified and non-certified staff such as the superintendent, teacher, principal, school counselor, school nurse, school social worker, assistant principal, teacher’s aide, truant officer, school psychologist, Secretary and school administrator. Social Service/Mental Health Personnel: for example, mental health personnel, social workers, psychologists, domestic violence personnel, substance abuse treatment personnel, staff of state agencies dealing with children such as Department of Human Services, Department of Public Aid, Department of Public Health, Department of Corrections, and Department of Children and Family Services Law Enforcement Personnel: court, parole/probation officer, emergency services staff, police, states attorney and staff, juvenile officer Coroner/Medical Examiner Personnel Child Care Personnel: overnight, day care, pre-school or nursery school facilities, recreational or athletic program or facility personnel, early intervention providers as defined in the Early Intervention Services System Act, and foster Parents.

20. Trauma –Informed Care. • Trauma Informed Care is an organizational structure and treatment framework that involves understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma. • Trauma Informed Care also emphasizes physical, psychological and emotional safety for both consumers and providers, and helps survivors rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.

21. Updated Mechanism-Burke-Harris

22. Trauma Informed Treatment Model Emotional Management Skills Safety Skills Cognitive Skills Grieving and Imagination Communication Skills Judgment Skills Leadership Skills

23. Good News-Neuroplasticity • Brain architecture is experience dependent • Social-emotional buffering makes a big difference • Positive parenting • Trusted mentors • Healthy attachment • Social-emotional skills

24. What we know: Families thrive when protective factors are robust in their lives and communities

25. five protective factors PARENTAL RESILIENCE SOCIAL CONNECTIONS KNOWLEDGE of PARENTING and CHILD DEVELOPMENT CONCRETE SUPPORT in TIMES of NEED SOCIAL and EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE of CHILDREN

27. SERVICES IN PERSPECTIVE

28. FAMILIES TOOK LEADERSHIP • “at risk” families all families • risk factors protective factors/buffers to toxic stress • prevention promoting strong families and healthy development

29. Parental Resilience = Be strong and and flexible Social Connections = Parents need friends Knowledge of Parenting = Being a great parent is part natural and part learned Concrete Support = We all need help sometimes Social and emotional development for children = Help your children communicate and give them the love and respect they need

30. Strengthening Families • The framework builds upon the principles of brief solution focused therapy and Restorative practice.

31. How the model works • Collaborative - The ‘Strengthening Families’ model aims to foster as far as possible a spirit of collaborative working between professionals and families. (information sharing) • Strengths-based – Acts as a tool for risk assessment. Members will be made aware, not just of the risks and concerns within a family but also of their strengths and protective factors. Participants should build up a full and balanced understanding of the family and its needs. Prospective – Professionals should look beyond specific incidents that lead to the call for help. • Listen to family members

32. How the model works • Relationship-focused – the model seeks to achieve positive outcomes. • By developing partnerships between professionals and families. • Establishing a sense of equality within the relationships. • Ensuring that families are listened to, respected and actively involved.

33. Format for ‘Strengthening Families’ Conference • Meeting between key family participants and the chair takes place before the conference convenes. • Following introductions, there is an ‘ice-breaker’ session. The family will help create their own genogram. (put on white board) • Information sharing session in which families, as well as professionals, are encouraged to express their views and opinions. (put on white board)

34. Organizing Framework • The information that is collected at the conference is organized under 5 headings: • Danger/Unmet Needs • Risk Statements • Complicating Factors • Strengths/Protective Factors • Grey Areas

35. What is the intention of this program? • The intention of implementing this new framework is to ensure better engagement with parents. • To promote the parents active involvement in developing a meaningful child protection plan that clearly identifies risks. • Actions that need to happen to reduce these risks.

36. Common Program Goals • The Family Preservation Service and the Strengthening Family Framework share principles of design which stress the importance of client respect. • Both programs detail the significance of the client being heard in order for their needs to be understood by both themselves as well as the professional.  • The FPS and the Strengthening Family Framework attempt to cultivate an atmosphere where families are encouraged to play a role in identifying their family needs and assisting in developing a workable service plan. • Most importantly, the focus of each program is to establish comprehensive, protective plans which clearly direct families in proper child care techniques necessary to provide a safe home environment.  

37. Time Limited Family Reunification Services • The term 'time limited family reunification services' means the services and activities that are provided to a child that is removed to facilitate the reunification of the child safely and appropriately within a timely fashion. • The services and activities described in this subparagraph are the following: • - Individual, group, and family counseling. • - Inpatient, residential, or outpatient substance abuse treatment services. • - Mental health services. • - Assistance to address domestic violence. • - Services designed to provide temporary child care and therapeutic services for families, including crisis nurseries. • - Peer-to-peer mentoring and support groups for parents and primary caregivers. • - Services and activities designed to facilitate access to and visitation of children by parents and siblings. • -Transportation to or from any of the services and activities described in this subparagraph.

38. The Role of the Social Worker as an Advocate. -The Social Worker needs to fully embrace her role and belief in the program model of second chance. -Accepting that in many cases, parents can change with the right type of support systems around them. -The belief that children within dysfunctional family structures need to be protect, keep safe but not necessarily always removed from the family setting. Advocacy = Education, support, accountability

39. Family Responsibility & Accountability -Cooperating with the social worker -Engaging in services -Involvement of extended family members -Playing an active role in the development of the Service Plan. -Actively participating in Child and Family meetings. -Allowing reasonable access to the social worker. -Being truthful and forthcoming. -Accepting of documentation. -Knowing their right to accept or refuse services and the consequences of either decision.

40. Social Worker Advocates for… • Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) • to operate a coordinated program for the following objectives: • Community-Based Family Support Services: To prevent child maltreatment among families at risk through the provision of supportive family services. • Family Preservation Services: To assure children‘s safety within the home and preserve intact families in which children have been maltreated, when the family‘s problems can be addressed effectively. • Time-Limited Family Reunification Services: To address the problems of families whose children have been placed in foster care so that reunification may occur in a safe and stable manner in accordance with the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. • Adoption Promotion and Support Services: To support adoptive families by providing support services as necessary so that they can make a lifetime commitment to their children.

41. Adoption Promotion and Support Services • The term 'adoption promotion and support services' means services and activities designed to encourage more adoptions out of the foster care system, when adoptions promote the best interests of children, including such activities as pre and post adoptive services and activities designed to expedite the adoption process and support adoptive families

43. THANK YOU Question & Answer