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Introduction
The way children are brought up is rather important for their whole lives because all basic features of character, values, and moral standards are formed in the early years of life. Besides, the future of the whole mankind depends much upon the way children are brought up, as their actions in the future will be based on things that they experienced in childhood. That is why all major sciences are concerned with the issue of childrens upbringing, as well as with the problems that one can face in this difficult way. As with any other phenomenon, this kind of human activity is connected with a lot of problems that make it much more difficult to bring up children.
Among the greatest problems that can be faced on the way of the formation of a childs personality are the situations when a child is deprived of his or her parents care. In this case, it is not only hard to form a complete and educated personality. Moreover, it is very difficult to protect the child from the influences of the environment that includes not only natural and ecological factors but at a much higher rate the influence of people that surround this child. When a child has no parents, there is nobody who could tell him what is wrong and what is right and this child has to learn everything him/herself thus making lots of mistakes and acquiring a great amount of negative experience (Cohen,19).
What is much more important for the life of a child is that he or she is unprotected from what other people can do to him or her. Different kinds of abuses, offenses, and other things that do harm to the childs psychology constitute only a small part of negative phenomena that can influence the personality of a certain child and bring irreversible changes into his/her psychology. Of course, having so many obstacles in the way of forming the new generations, people made lots of attempts to solve these problems by creating different institutions, and making out different ways of fighting the above-mentioned issues. And one of the most successful ways to protect children from the dangers of this world is the system of social work, the essence of which will be disclosed further (Heffer, 7).
Social Workers
And here we face the question what is social work? Where is its essence? What are its main functions in human society? The main purpose of social work is the removal of poverty and all its consequences together with homelessness, unemployment, and children without parents care. From ancient times, social work was a kind of charity activity typical of rich people who had money and other opportunities to help people and a wish to do it.
It originally consisted of feeding poor and hungry people, giving them clothes and asylums for certain periods of time. Over the course of time, the idea of social work was developing and soon transformed into a necessary help to those members of the human society who were in need due to the new conditions of the natural and social environment that were formed by a number of factors (Social Work, 84).
First of all, industrial progress brought a lot of new things to the lives of people, among them were new means of goods production that meant more profit for those who possessed them. Secondly, life in a rural area presupposed less access to the achievements of the progress and lots of people started moving to large cities thus increasing the number of the urban population of countries.
As a consequence of this movement, cities started experiencing more and more environmental, health care, and social problems because they were not ready for such an increase in their populations. Social workers appeared as volunteer workers who helped the poorest layers of the society in their struggle for life. At the initial stages of the development of the system of social work, its participants were volunteers, and worked either without any salaries or were donated by religious organizations, churches, hospitals, etc.
But at the end of the 19th century, the situation changed and social work transformed into a rightful profession equal to those of baker, barber, or any other. In the United States of America Jane Addams was the leader of the movement for giving social work the status of a profession. She did a lot to raise the prestige of the work and founded the United States Settlement House Movement that dealt with homeless people and tried to create some accommodations and asylums for them, besides they gave him money and food. Since that time, the profession of a social worker has transformed even more and nowadays it is one of the most important parts of the organization of social life.
The International Federation of Social Workers reports that modern social workers comprise all the features and skills necessary for successful work in todays world. They can identify and take into account the peculiar features of a certain culture, calculate its possible relations with other cultures and with the society it exists in so that to have a chance to minimize possible conflicts and misunderstandings. A wide range of knowledge possessed by social workers nowadays allows them to plan their actions in accordance with local or general reality and peculiarities of a certain situation. This knowledge is based on evidence got from scientific research carried out by psychologists and from practice and experience of previous work of people in this field (Hodge, 81).
Nowadays, social work is aimed at understanding and analyzing the extent to which people can be affected by certain environmental and psychological factors in order to be ready to cope with all possible consequences of these influences. To achieve this, social workers use the discoveries of social sciences in the spheres of human origin theory and behavioral theories developed by the most prominent scholars of the world. Methods of qualitative and quantitative psychological analysis are used to identify certain reasons for human actions in order to prevent them or to fight their consequences effectively (Wetzstein, 54).
The Case Study A
In the current case study, we are going to examine the role of a social worker in the protection of a little child who is deprived of parents care and needs the care to be taken from the side of such social organizations as Family Centre and Family and Child Care Team. In this case study, we are going to analyze and assess what actions and techniques could be used by a social worker appointed as the one who should take care of a little child in the following situation.
A little girl whose name is Kate was placed in the Family Centre according to the request of the Family and Child Care Team as she displayed some traces of suspected sexual abuse from the side of one of her relatives her older step-brother Sam. The girl was only five years old and could not protect herself, besides she had considerable problems with studying and could not perfectly communicate by verbal means. All these factors indicated that the girl was treated improperly in her family and cruelty was a common thing for her.
Kates brother Sam had already been accused of sexual abuse by one of his neighbors before but his guilt was not proven, so the seventeen-year-old boy is lived near the house of his family and danger of another abuse of the girl existed. This made the Child Care organizations apply for her placement in the Family Centre until the decision about her future was made at the Child Protection Case Conference. Its meeting took place in three weeks and the Family and Child Care Team initiated the appointment of a social worker to take care of the girl as her brother kept visiting her on a regular basis. The social worker had not only to look for the girl and protect her from possible abuses but also to teach her certain self-protection techniques and self-care skills.
Possible Actions of the Social Worker
Now let us see what methods would be the most successful ones to be used by the social worker in order to fulfill his duties and present the proper level of protection and teaching of the girl concerning her future self-defense skills and security from any kind of abuse.
The first and, probably, the most effective one would be the assessment of the situation by a social worker who must gather all possible information about the girls family in order to identify possible risks for the girl and state the most helpful methods of taking care of her. The next step can be getting the court order that would forbid the girls brother to approach her under the threat of detention, fines, or even imprisonment. But such a measure can be interpreted as an offensive inquiry about the personal affairs of the family and can be aggressively opposed by the girls parents and brother. Not to be considered as an offender the social worker should make use of the method of family support instead of constantly applying to the technique of child protection (Hepworth, 123).
The latter method sometimes leads to conflict within a family when parents start thinking that the work of the social worker confronts them and their child. In our case, the social worker should not overuse this method because the conflict within the family already exists between the girl and her brother, so the method of family support will be of the greatest use. Its main idea is in the psychological approach to the problem, i. e. in finding some values that would be common for all members of the family and would unite it against the threat of abuse of their daughter.
On the other hand, the policy of the social worker that would be too liberal and mild would mean the lack of respect towards him or her. The social worker would seem to be unable to put his plans into practice, to make specific and strict decisions, and to use his power when it is appropriate or necessary. So, the social worker should not be afraid of taking radical measures if liberal ones do not help to improve the situation.
One more stage of the social workers activity can be the process of assessment of the situation. He or she can use such methods of gathering information for the assessment as social work interview, survey, referral, or a standardized questionnaire. Interviews are preferable in cases when parents present interest for the social worker, for example when he or she thinks that parents or lack of attention to the child caused the problematic situation (Family Centre, 1).
In our case, this method will not be very fruitful because parents can angrily refuse to be interviewed as they can consider it to be offensive. The survey, to my mind, would be the best way for the social worker as it allows to gather information about the environment of the child which is not subjective. The survey data would be objective and would reflect the points of view of all sides of the situation. This will let the social worker operate with the whole range of information and make adequate decisions that would be helpful in the development of the work.
Thus, the social worker would be in command of not only the information about the abuse and its possible committer but also would know for sure how to overcome the consequences of the abuse by applying to the most significant points of the girls personality. These include her likes and dislikes, hobbies and places where she likes to be, arrangements necessary for her sooner recovery, and her emotional state before the tragedy and after his work (Dworkin, 110).
Among other methods that the social worker can use while taking care of the little girl who was the victim of sexual abuse are such techniques as planning of the coming events, methods of behavioral intervention, and behavioral reviewing of the necessary values, knowledge, and skills. The method of planning is closely connected with the one of behavioral intervention but has its own peculiarities, with the main of them being the theoretical use of planning while intervention is exclusively practical. Planning is the method that helps the social worker to schedule the life of the girl in a way that will influence positively her mental state and the process of recreation after the shock caused by the abuse.
Other uses of this method are planning certain arrangements that can be helpful for the girl during the process of her recreation after the abuse. They include visiting some places with which some pleasant memories of the girl are connected, communicating with people that would facilitate the girls state and prevent her from fearing all people, especially males. Planning includes also visiting doctors and psychiatrists who are supposed to make the transition from the stress to the normal state easier.
As it has already been mentioned, the method of planning is the theoretical side of another method the method of behavioral intervention. It lies in creating for a certain person the circumstances that will stimulate the development of this person in all respects. Usually, this very method is used in concern of a single aspect of the development of personality, like, for example, studying at school or relations with the environment.
This technique includes the following: the likes of the person are taken into consideration and the whole work of the social worker is built around them. What is also important is the circle of people communication with which brings the most joy for this person. These people constitute the environment of the person during the time when a social worker is carrying out his program.
In the situation with little Kate, it can be supposed that the above-considered methods of planning and behavioral intervention would be of considerable help for the social worker, and their results for the girl herself. The proper planning of the social workers activities while taking care of the girl would allow him or her to achieve good results. Arrangements concerning communication with people would make it possible for the girl not to be afraid of people and of the world on the whole. A well-planned treatment program would also facilitate the work of the social worker, as visits to doctors, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts could restore the mental and physical health of the girl, as well as influence positively her abilities to study and communicate with different people (Coulshed, 26).
Reviewing the necessary knowledge and values is one more good method that is widely used by social workers in different situations. This approach presupposes the reconsideration of the values and beliefs of a person after a certain negative event when the help of a social worker became necessary. This stage involves a long period of teaching and convincing a person that the world is not hostile to him or her, i. e. it is aimed at the persuasion of a person that if he or she can not change the situation it is better to changes his or her attitude towards it. And this is made possible due to the method of reviewing the knowledge and values.
The case of Kate is the one where the method of reviewing values would be of great use, as the events like abuse, an especially sexual one, can destroy the psychology of any person. Needless to say, a five-year-old girl experiences terrible stress, and everything she could believe in was destroyed leaving her no value in this life. The family was the basis of her confidence in life but then it turned into the biggest source of her pain. That is why it would be necessary for the social worker to try to review the girls previous knowledge and values, although such a little child can not have a lot of completely formed values. The social worker would try to convince the girl that she is safe from her abuser and that other people do not intend to hurt her.
For these purposes, the social worker must ensure the lawful protection of the girl from the person who abused her and teaches the girl how to protect herself in the future. This self-protection study would include psychological procedures like training aimed at preserving the girls self-esteem. Another part of the study will lie in attending classes of self-defense.
Together, these components would comprise a harmonic unity of knowledge that would help the girl in the future. All the above-mentioned methods constitute the phenomenon which is called the multidisciplinary approach. To be exact, this approach comprises more components that are equally relevant for the work of social service. Among them are such ones as consideration of a personality from a psychological point of view, which is demonstrated in psychoanalysis, sociological view of a personality including the theory of conflicts, behaviorist theory, and the theory of supremacy. Now, it would not be out of place to stop at each of these points in a more detailed way (Nguyen, 134).
Psychoanalysis involves the examination of a persons experience, memories, and character features in order to try to understand the reasons and motivations for certain actions and deeds of this person. This procedure is widely used when the matter concerns grown-ups but it is hardly applicable for little children because their experience is not enough to make a proper analysis and their personality is not formed yet.
But compared to other approaches, this one is the best for children, because sociological ones are absolutely inapplicable. Sociology studies personality and society, but little childrens personalities are only at the stage of forming and will become members of society only after the process of socialization. Only some aspects of the theories of supremacy and behavior are applicable to children. For example, according to the theory of supremacy, actions of all people irrespective of their age are based on fear. From here we can conclude that the social worker will need to overcome the fear that will inevitably be acquired by the girl after the sexual abuse.
There are also some other techniques that can be used by the social worker dealing with the case of the sexual abuse of five-year-old Kate. There are called framework approaches and are divided into three main types. They are ecosystem perspective, strength perspective, and cultural competence perspective, each of them being equally relevant for the social work. To be more specific, let us examine these approaches closer.
The first one is concerned with the environment in which this or that person lives. One should understand that all units of the human society live in a certain environment, for example, an individuals environment is a family, family in its turn exists within a community, the environment of which is a cultural, political, and economic unity called human society. All these spheres influence people and affect their behavior. Drawing from this, the social worker appointed to take care of the little girl should minimize the negative influence of all these factors until the work of social service is finished and the girl can live adequately as a rightful member of the human society (Aronowitz, 54).
The second perspective is oriented on strong points of a certain personality or a family this personality lives in. Strengths, like family values or personal features or talents, are made into the ideals around which the new identity of this or that personality is built.
And the perspective of cultural competence involves the understanding by the social worker of all peculiarities of the culture of a certain group of people. In the case considered in this very essay, the social worker would be able to use all of the above-mentioned perspectives in his or her work. For example, the strength of the girl can be found in the fact that despite such young age she managed to live through the abuse. As for cultural competence, the social worker should understand whether it is polite or not to talk about the abuse in the girls family and with the girl herself in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and hope for positive results of his or her work (Astor, 220).
Conclusion
In this essay, we set the aim to see which methods would be the most fruitful for the work of the social worker in the above-considered case study A. We tried to understand the essence of numerous methods used by the social service in order to see their usefulness in the specific situation with the sexual abuse of a little girl.
We managed to find out that a social worker must possess such qualities as knowledge, understanding of multicultural and interpersonal relations in order not to develop the conflict he or she is supposed to solve. The methods that are helpful for these purposes in the situation considered in the case study include assessment, intervention, planning, and reviewing the knowledge together with using the three perspectives of the social work ecosystem, strengths, and cultural competence perspectives.
Works Cited
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