Social Work Practice From an Ecological Perspective

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This weeks case is focused on the psychological struggles of Michael Brown, a 17-year old African-American male. The social worker analyzed and attempted to understand the environment of the client from different perspectives. With the assumption that understanding a client cannot be considered in isolation, the social worker paid attention to how Michaels life circumstances, his social, physical, and cultural environment shaped his perspective on the world.

The social worker incorporated the life model approach into the ecological perspective by analyzing the main stressors that caused the clients depression. Namely, significant stressors such as difficult life transitions and dysfunctional transactions played an essential role in Michaels attempt to develop while maintaining person: environment fit (Teater, 2014). The social worker implemented the life model approach in four stages: first, in the preparatory stage, the social worker attempted to get to know the client and his environment (Teater, 2014).

Secondly, in the Initial: getting started stage, the client shared his experiences, and the social worker expressed empathy while remaining non-judgmental (Teater, 2014). At this stage, the worker and client identified main stressors and goals to address them. Thirdly, the Ongoing: working towards the goal phase characterized Michaels finding a school and job, a new apartment, and working on his feelings about his mother and siblings (Teater, 2014). Finally, in the Ending stage, the social worker and client evaluated the achievements (Teater, 2014). Thus, the author incorporated the life model approach with an ecological perspective to analyze the clients interaction and interdependence with other aspects of his environment.

The case presents a situation in which pressures from different environments intersected and affected each other negatively. Michael struggled to connect with the school socially as he did not understand its usefulness (Teater, 2014). Although his relationship with the foster family and CPS workers was good, he missed his siblings who lived in different foster families (Teater, 2014). The client was isolated from his foster family in a physical environment and had limited contact with them (Teater, 2014). Lastly, since he left his siblings, Michal felt that he did not meet the cultural expectations of being a leader and caretaker (Teater, 2014). He also had to take care of himself and become independent, for which he did not feel prepared (Teater, 2014). Hence, these different environments intersected and caused Michael to feel as if everything was meaningless to him and that there were no prospects.

Reference

Teater, B. (2014). Social work practice from an ecological perspective. In C.W. LeCroy (Ed.), Case studies in social work practice (3rd ed., pp. 35-44). Wiley.

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