Social Work Through Lifespan - Case Study Example

Social Work and the Lifespan Name of Student Institution Social Work and the Lifespan Introduction Social work is an essential part of the community service that assists in running intervention mechanisms for the challenges within the society (Dickens, 2009). The duty of social workers is limited to assisting others to experience the usual quality of life after a devastating occurrence. It could be relating to medical care, family assistance, education, military service, or psychiatric care (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2012). This paper describes the experience of a 16 years old Maria from the Central Victoria Town who was sexually abused at the age of 15 and is currently psychologically disturbed. The paper analyzes her BPS, outlines the role of social workers in child sexual abuse and education, and highlights their possible ethical consideration. PART A: Biopsychosocial (BPS) Protocol for Maria Reynolds Childhood or Adolescent History: Maria who is 16 years of age are the child of Liliana and Aidan. Her behavior changed because of the sexual abuse experience when she was 15 years old, she started to drink a lot and left school, she spending her time riding the bike within town or hanging out with the new friends. She is also having a negative perception of the idea to go back home. Social Relationships: She had good relationship with her extended family. But later she had some problems with her mother and father (she thinks they do not like her or she has failed as their child). She isolates herself from her friends because they know her issue and start drinking alcohol to relieve the stresses. Strengths or Supports: She stayed at her friend’s home to explore her freedom without the supervision of her parents. Stressors/Problems: Refusing to go back home to her parents or speak with them, because she feels she is a big disappointment to her parents. Recent Changes: Maria has isolated herself from the family. She is currently dating and has started drinking alcohol. Cultural and Ethnical Considerations: Not revealed Strengths or Supports: Not revealed Stressors and Problems: Not revealed Essential Beliefs and Practices to Incorporate during Treatment: Not applicable Religious Reflections: Not revealed Strengths or Supports: Not applicable Stressors and Problems: Not applicable Necessary Beliefs or Practices to Incorporate: Not applicable Recent Witnessed Changes: Not applicable Legal Considerations: The police have recommended the help of a social worker Education Background: Maria when to school but dropped out when she was at the middle of year 11. Strengths: She can still go back to school since she is still young. Challenges: Lack of education has been contributing to the increased rate of youth unemployment. Employment/Vocational History: She used to hang out at the family restaurant. Maria is not currently engaged in any job. There is a high rate of unemployed among the youths within the town. Strengths/Supports: She was close to her parents and they could watch her moves. Stressors/Problems: There is a lot of free time that encourages her to recount her childhood experiences. Economic/Financial Status: Maria is not employed and still depends on her parents for upkeep and other basic needs. Military: Not applicable Leisure/Recreational: Strengths/Supports: Riding her bicycle assists her to spend her free time since she stopped playing soccer. Stressors/Problems: The riding of the bicycle increases her level of isolation from the friends. THE HISTORY OF THEFAMILY Significant Relationships: Liliana and Aidan are the parents of Maria. Her parents have been together for 20 years and have been living within the town since their marriage. They are operating a hostel facility. A guest sexually abused Maria when she was 15. Since then her life has changed. Strengths/Support: Compared with other families, Liliana and Aidan have a sustainable source of income from their business within the town. Stressors/Problems: The business keeps the parents busy and there is little attention given to the emotional challenges Maria is undergoing. Recent Changes: Maria is not living with her parents. Family Mental Health History: Not applicable HISTORY OF THE CURRENT CONDITION Precipitating Factors and Current Hospitalization: Not applicable The beginning of the Mental Illness: Not applicable History of Psychiatric Hospitalizations & Related Intervention: Not applicable Suicidal, Self-Abuse, and Ideations Intentions and/or Attempts: Maria does not have known records of suicidal, self-abuse, or homicide throughout her life Substance/Chemical Use History (treatment hx): There are no existing records, proof or testimony that depicts any case of adverse treatment. Life Style (independent, dependent): Maria has been living with the parents within the town although she is not comfortable with the idea. Legally Responsible Person/Payee (address): The responsible persons are the parent (Liliana Reynold and Aidan Reynold) residing within Central Victoria Town Social Assessment: Maria is social. Since childhood she has friends and only stopped interacting with then after the sexual abuse experience. Currently she has new friends living within the outskirts of the Central Victoria Town. PREFERENCES AND BARRIERS FOR THE CLIENT Preferences: Maria believes that if she has not gone through the sexual abuse experience her life would have been different. Barriers to Achieving Client Preferences: Maria think everybody living in the Central Victoria Town is aware of what she went through in her childhood. She believes that the perception of her friends has changed after the occurrence. She thinks that she is burden to her parents and a failure in life. Duration: Maria has been in this psychological problem since she was 15 years old. PART B: The Role of the Social Worker and the Assessment Brief The duty of social workers is to assist others in experiencing the usual quality of life after a devastating occurrence. It could be relating to medical care, family assistance, education, military service, or psychiatric care. The social work specialists are categorized according to their specialization (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2012). The experience of Maria needs a Child, Family, and School Social worker who is competent in dealing with several issues that are interrelated. The life of a child revolves around a family whether extended or adopted throughout the early development stages. When a child joins a school, the family still plays a crucial role in nurturing the non-academic part of life. Therefore, when dealing with the kids, the school environment, and the family circle is inclusive since they contribute to the interactive environment circle during growth. The role of a Child, Family, and School Social worker is related to the emotional and psychological care to children who have been abused or experiencing trauma. The social worker may also engage in counseling services related to academics or assist a family to access the right resources for their children with complex health conditions such mental illness. The Child, Family, and School Social Worker are also responsible for the process of encouraging emotional stability among children who have lost a close relative or friend. Therefore, the activities of this type of a social worker revolve around the family setting and school environment factors and their influence on the life of a child. The social worker category is the most general and extensive as compared to the other six specialists. Maria’s life was transformed when a guest abused her at the age of 15 years. She was a happy girl who loved the company of her friends and the parents at home. She also interacted with the children in the neighborhood as they played soccer together. The childhood experience affected her normal life leading to an emotional instability that affected her relationship with the parents as well as her friends. Her education also ended when she stepped out of the school in the middle of year 11. The life of a child at the age of 15 is very crucial since this is the stage when they are experiencing the adolescent transformations from childhood to adulthood (Quinn-Lee, 2014). Maria was abused at a time when she was expected to be making a sound social decision about life. Therefore, the occurrence has an enormous impact on her life, especially on her self-esteem. The spirit of consistency, hard work, and success is inspired by the level of self-actualization among the adolescents. It is essential to note that the stage is also connected with negative behaviors among the teenagers whenever they are not protected in their environment against abuse, use of drugs, and peer pressure. For Maria, the sexual assault from the stranger was a negative turning point in her life that affected the way she used to live. The external and internal interactions are equally important for children between the age of 12 and 24 since they define the adult they will become in future through learning, experience, and counseling. Liliana and Aidan were committed to running their busy hostel in Central Victoria Town and only realized the magnitude of the challenges that their daughter was going through when her behavior started going out of control. The parents were concerned for the safety of their child and preferred Maria always to stay at home with them, but their daughter did not like the idea because she considered herself as a burden to them. Having dropped out of the school, she started dating Scott, who introduces her to alcohol that landed her into the hands of police. The parents consulted a counselor who was assisting Maria to stabilize, but the specialist was transferred to another station. Children with sexual abused backgrounds should be given special attention and affection, as they are encouraged to attend the counseling sessions regularly until they are mature enough to be responsible for their emotional judgments. Maria’s situation became complicated when her counselor was transferred to another location, and she was left for herself. While living in isolation, she started dating someone who allowed her to be drinking. Liliana and Aidan could have stood with their daughter to help her reduce the bad thoughts she had such as considering herself as a failure or with mental illness. The hopelessness for youths that dominates the atmosphere in Central Victoria Town also contributed to the degradation of the hopes that Maria cherished. She is currently considering herself as ordinary as the many youths in town that are unemployed and uneducated. PART C: Social Work Roles and Development Stage: Child Education, Sexual Abuse, and Ethical Considerations Social Work Role in Child Education The specialized social workers in the education sector are responsible for supporting the school welfare of the children within a particular community. Every child is entitled to education as an essential requirement (Fisher, 1997). The social staffs are trained to understand the needs of the child about access to quality education. The specialists are mandated with the task of ensuring that children attend school through the assistance of parents according to their age requirements. Children are supposed to be subjected to tender education with compassion. The complexity of the knowledge increases with the age advancement to the level where the student can be taught the complex and technical aspects such as mathematics, sciences, and arts. Parents play a critical role in ensuring their children attend school and complete the levels to advance to the next. The children need moral support from the people around them. According to the Psychosocial Development Theory, the development process is a cycle to be experienced one after the other and the level of complexity changes with the increase in age factor (Newman & Newman, 2008). A child is encouraged to have hope while an adult in admonished to embrace love and learn to be wise. Counselors are the important asset in building the spirit of excellence among kids (Gibson, 2012). When children grow to value education, they will not deter from their ambitious visions of becoming the competent professionals of their generation. There are cases of children leaving school because of peer pressure, lost hope, or psychological instability as in the case of Maria. Such cases require the assistance of a social worker to rejuvenate the lost desires and optimism for the child. The collaboration of the parents and the authority is essential for a comprehensive solution to be achieved. However, some external factors may affect the commitment of children to education. There are circumstances where learned people are unemployed. The number of the youths who do not have a stable source of income may discourage some children from working hard or being persistent with their education. In Central Victoria Town, there is a pool of young people who dropped out of school and are loitering within the outskirts of the urban center. Such an environment encouraged Maria to leave school and loose hope of ever bringing a difference in their family and the entire society. The aggressiveness among the youth is petite, but such a scenario can be eliminated if the social care specialists are engaged to analyze the root of the problem as involving all the stakeholders in the process of change. The level of unemployed youth can be traced back to the perception the children receive when they start going to school at an early age. It is the role of the social workers to boost the self-esteem among the students who have or are about to give up on education (Arini, 2015). If Maria was encouraged to value education, then she could have embraced excellence as the only weapon she had to bring change in her society and help other teenagers affected by sexual abuse. The Social Learning Theory affirms that the hearing and applying new notions is not enough for a learning process until the modeling of new behavior occurs (Illeris et al., 2004). The newly developed virtues will provide high competence and wisdom to the individuals if they are repeatedly imitated. Social work code of ethics in education is critical because it defines the relationship between the specialist and their clients to ensure the interests of the later are upheld according to the established standards. The Ethical requirement decisions are not easy to make among the social work practitioners since some may be against the personal principles of life. On the other hand, some are complex in nature such that the specialists are faced with the dilemma on the choices to make. Where the situation is associated with more than one ethical principle, there is always the need to choose one over the other. The process of prioritizing the measure to be undertaken is not an easy task. The ethical principle of service confines the social worker to the sole objective of helping people with physical, mental, and social challenges to improve their quality of life and access to education (Banks, 2016). The specialists are supposed to elevate the life of others through their knowledge, experience, and competence. The value of social justice requires all the practitioners to campaign against the prevalence of the injustices in the community. The activities of the social workers should be meant to support the vulnerable and oppressed population within the societies they are serving. The efforts should be channeled in bringing about transformational changes in factors such as inequality, unemployment, and discrimination among others in the education sector. The social workers are also required to uphold and respect the dignity of their clients irrespective of their religious, ethical, or cultural inclinations. Working with people calls for the understanding of the diversity of human nature. While serving the education interests of the client, the social workers are expected to also consider the society. The process of performing the daily duties should incorporate the essentials of human relationships. The interventions cannot be implemented efficiently if the practitioners do not understand and embrace the existence of relationships among individuals. Whenever the quality of life is degraded, then the links will assist in promoting and restoring the wellbeing of the clients through social groups, family, and the community. Social Work Role in Child Sexual Abuse Several cases have been reported regarding sexual abuse among children within their typical setup. The greater extent of the cases has been associated with an offender who is familiar with the child or the family, but sometimes they are strangers who seized an opportunity. Sexual violence against children is a crucial factor that has been given attention in developed countries. Policies and strategies have been set to protect children against any form of abuse. However, the mechanisms have not eliminated the number of children who encounter sexual abuse in the society. Social workers have expressed their fear concerning the implications of the statistics since there is a possibility that the number of unreported cases to the higher than what is expected (Bolen, 2003). It is the responsibilities of the social care specialists to assist the victims of sexual violence to live a life of positivity and find strength to locate the feeling of insufficiency. The case of children is sensitive since their emotions are not yet stabilized through experience and maturity. Social workers are tasked with the role of finding the history of their clients and the legal proceedings where applicable before commencing any process. According to the Psychodynamic Theory, conscious and unconscious forces such as the identity, superego, and ego control individuals. The internal powers define their instincts, lead them to follow rules, or meditate upon the current dilemma between the abilities and standards (Jarvis, 2003). Therefore, the perception of the victims is important since it will outline the mental pictures that will assist in building the strategic approach to be applied when helping the sexually abused child. When children are sexually abused, their trust in people and courage to face their challenges in life is lost. Social workers play a critical role in such moments to ensure that they encourage the victims to focus on the better part of life hidden in the future and the present. Parents have their contribution to the emotional stability of their children. Maria was sexually abused at the age of 15 when she was experiencing the transformation from childhood to adulthood. The experience was a major drawback for her personal change and growth. The effect of child abuse spills to the level of social interaction. The Rational Choice Theory outlines how individuals consider their behaviors as being rational in nature. During any occurrence, the victims are faced with choices of actions to undertake. The theory explains that in such a scenario, benefits and effects determine the decisions (Eriksson, 2011). Therefore, sexually abused children tend to isolate themselves from people whom they previously interacted with before the occurrence since they believe that is the best thing to do. Such choices may continue even in adulthood. The tendency develops from the notion that they are aware of the predicament and no longer value them regarding dignity. The social workers should strive to bring a positive perception through interactive discussions for the victims to embrace friendship again. However, such objectives are not easy to achieve if the affected child does not feel the affection of the parents or the guardian (McMilien & Zuravin, 1998). Where more than one counselor is involved, a consultative approach will be useful once the information consent is guaranteed. The legal framework also defines the success of the intervention if the policies are efficient and encourage transparency. The contribution of the non-governmental organizations increases the extent to which the methods of human help will assist in realizing the intended objectives. The principal hallmark for ethics in social work during sexual abuse has been the interests of the clients attached to any worker. Several factors have been defined to assist social worker to make decisions that will depict a higher sense of ethical considerations. Social specialists are encouraged to embrace the importance of the relationship with the client. Human relationships are essential when making moral choices. The level of integrity required by the strategic policy meant to improve the quality of customer outcomes will provide another baseline for solving the dilemma. The aspect of the dignity and the worth of a person’s life empower the client to make a decision regarding the manner in which issues of the sexual abuse should be carried out. Moreover, the ethical responsibilities of a social worker to a client include the commitment to assist the customer to achieve the intended support. The specialist is required to dedicate their time and skills to serve the victims until their life improve from their previous critical conditions. The practitioners are also required to support the clients through the journey towards self-determination and clarity of goals. The services provided by the social workers should be within the professional jurisdiction, and any additional activity should be agreed upon the authority, the specialist, and the client. The client’s interests should be protected at all costs whenever the victim does not guarantee informed consent. For example, when the contribution of the former counselor was needed for Maria to be assisted effectively, she had to sign the informed consent forms. The confidentiality and the privacy of the people the social care experts help should be maintained (Ullman, 2002). Accessing the records of the client by unauthorized persons should not be allowed. Sexual relationships with the customers are also against the ethical requirement of social workers. Conclusion In conclusion, the duty of social workers is to assist others in experiencing the usual quality of life after a devastating occurrence. It could be relating to medical care, family assistance, education, military service, or psychiatric care. Maria’s life was transformed when a guest abused her at the age of 15 years. The childhood experience affected her normal life leading to an emotional instability that affected her relationship with the parents as well as her friends. When children are sexually abused, their trust in people and courage to face their challenges in life is lost. Social workers play a critical role in such moments to ensure that they encourage the victims to focus on the better part of life hidden in the future and the present. If Maria was encouraged to value education, then she could have embraced excellence as the only weapon she had to bring change in her society and help other teenagers affected by sexual abuse. Moreover, social work code of ethics is critical since it defines the relationship between the specialist and their clients to the established standards. The Ethical requirement decisions are not easy to make among the social work practitioners since some may be against the personal principles of life. References Airini.J. (2015).Education solutions for child poverty: New modalities from New Zealand. Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 14(1), 5–14. Banks, S. (2016). Everyday ethics in professional life: Social work as ethics work.Ethics and Social Welfare, 10(1), 35–52. Bolen, R. M. (2003). Child sexual abuse: Prevention or promotion?Social Work, 48(2), 174– 185. Cunningham, J., & Cunningham, S. (2012). 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