CASEWORK

• Attachment is a strong reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary caregiver

  
• Schaffer and Emerson's 1964 study on attachment:

  • Aim: identify stages of attachment / find a pattern in the development of an attachment between infants and parents
  • Participants: 60 babies from Glasgow
  • Procedure: analysed interactions between infants and carers
  • Findings: babies of parents/carers with 'sensitive responsiveness' were more likely to have formed an attachment
• Freud's superego is the moral component of the psyche, representing internalized societal values and standards
• In glacial environments, the 2 main forms of erosion are abrasion and plucking
• Abrasion is a sandpapering effect caused by small rocks embedded within the glacier rubbing on bedrock, leaving a smooth surface with scratches called striations
• Plucking occurs when meltwater from glaciers freeze around broken or cracked parts of rock, breaking it off from the bedrock or sides as the ice moves down the slope
• Plucking is most prominent when there are many joints in the rock, as water can penetrate the rock and freeze in the cracks
• When glaciers and ice sheets cover the land, they cause the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediments within the glaciated landscape
• In social work, the principle of partialization involves separating identified problems to be addressed first, focusing on the most important issues
• A genogram can trace traits like physical characteristics, genetic factors, family values, and cultural background
• Anna, a social worker, follows the principle of parsimony by collecting only relevant and essential data for valid working judgments
• The Assessment Statement in social work includes components like the opening causal statement, change potential statement, and judgment about the seriousness and urgency of the problem
• Individualization in social work refers to recognizing and understanding the client’s unique characteristics and using different principles and methods for each client
• Seven Social Work Principles:

  • Neither discourage nor condemn expression of feelings
  • Controlled Emotional Involvement: sensitive to client feelings, effort to understand their meaning, purposeful use of worker’s emotions in response to client feelings, controlled and objective emotional involvement in client problems
  • Acceptance: recognition of client’s dignity, worth, equality, basic rights and needs, not approval of behavior, expressed in the manner of service
  • Individualization: recognition of each client’s unique qualities, treated as individuals with personal deficiencies
  • Self-determination: right to make their own decisions and choices
  • Non-judgmental attitude: precludes assigning guilt or innocence, degree of client’s responsibility for problems or needs
  • Confidentiality: protection of private information, shared with professional persons within the agency and other agencies with written permission
• Problems and assessment can be defined or expressed through identification of:

  • Unmet needs
  • Blocks to need fulfillment
  • Client's capacity
• Three steps in defining a problem:

  • Recognize the client’s unmet needs
  • Identify the ‘blocks to need fulfillment’
  • Determine client’s capacity to change
• Interventive roles of social workers as enabler:

  • Help clients develop capacities to deal with their own problems
  • Help clients articulate their needs
  • Active, directive role advocating for a client
  • Help clients clarify and identify their problems
• Interventive roles beyond direct practice:

  • Mobilizer of community elite
  • Documenter / Social Critique
  • Policy / Program Advocate
• Referral vs. Transfer:

  • Referral: directing the client to another worker or agency
  • Transfer: client referred to another worker, usually in the same agency
• Steps in the Social Work Helping Process:

  • Assessment
  • Planning
  • Intervention
  • Evaluation
  • Termination
• Assessment in the Social Work Helping Process:

  • Data gathering from primary and secondary sources, existing data, and worker’s own observations
  • Intake: potential client attains client status
  • Assessment statement: professional judgment with opening causal statement, change potential statement, judgment about seriousness or urgency of the problem
• Planning in the Social Work Helping Process:

  • Link between assessment and intervention
  • Translate assessment into goal statement
  • End goal is planned change
  • SMART planning
  • Helping contract: agreement between worker and client
• Implementation / Intervention in the Social Work Helping Process:

  • Rendering specific and interrelated services
  • Involves interventive roles of social workers like resource provider, social broker, mediator, advocate, enabler, counselor/therapist
• Termination in the Social Work Helping Process:

  • End of the relationship with reasons like goal reached, little progress, sufficient help provided, agency lacks resources, difficult for client to continue, worker leaves agency
  • Disengagement stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance
• Self-awareness in social work:

  • Stumbling block: avoidance or hiding own feelings and thoughts during the helping relationship
  • Worker’s values system: conscious use of self, self-awareness in value clashes with clients
• Authority in social work:

  • Two sources of worker’s authority: position in agency and possession of knowledge and experience
  • Importance of how authority is used
• Maintaining professional boundaries is the responsibility of the social worker
• To help individuals experiencing an acute psychological crisis, key elements in using the Crisis Intervention Model include quick access to the client, focused attention on precipitating events, and emphasis on helping the client make decisions and take actions
• Elements of a crisis in the Crisis Intervention Model include hazardous events, vulnerable or upset state, precipitating factor or event, state of active crisis, and state of reintegration or reorganization
• Crisis Intervention Model treatment involves material arrangement tasks and psychosocial tasks
• Crisis Intervention Model techniques include sustaining, direct influence, direct intervention, and reflective discussion techniques
• The immediate problem in the Problem in 3 Frames of Reference is the problem about which the client is most concerned, the underlying problem tends to perpetuate the immediate problem, and the working problem are contributory factors that stand in the way of remedy and prevention
• A case study is an in-depth analysis of a subject or entity, aiming to describe the fullest, most complete description of the case
• Gender Responsive Case Management focuses on coordinating and providing services to women and girl survivors, starting from the recognition of gender biases against them
• The main activity of counseling as a key component of casework is mediating relationship and communication difficulties
• The intake phase occurs during the face-to-face meeting between the worker and the client
• Task Centered Approach focuses on alleviating specific target problems perceived by the client, with interventions being brief and time-limited
• A caseworker can be a generalist when they work with different types of clients, use different methods of social work, use an array of helping approaches and interventions, and have the competence to work in different types of settings and with different client systems
• The Social Work helping process is a progressive transaction between the professional helper and the client, consisting of a series of problem-solving operations traditionally described as study, diagnosis, and treatment
• Components of Social Work Practice according to Helen Harris Perlman:

  • Person: client
  • Problem: need
  • Place: agency
  • Process: helping relationship, problem-solving process