In this essay, different stages of social work process will be individually discussed while the key issues essential to each stages will be highlighted and explored. However, the bases for effective social work practice starts with the need to embrace and incorporate an anti-discriminatory practice. This essay will also include discussion on systematic approach to social work practice in a way that will eliminate drift, vagueness and ensure practice of inclusion throughout the entire process. In the course of their duty, social workers are often criticised for being vague in their approach, this is why adopting a systematic approach is important to avoid getting lost in the situation and to avoid drift (Thompson 2009, Milner and O’Byrne 1998, Coulshead and Orme, 2006). A systematic approach is when a seemingly difficult situation is broken down into component parts with a view to better understand and negotiate the various parts. The idea is to deal with big task in a systematic manner so at the end, the targeted goal is achieved in an orderly and simple fashion.
In addition, an attempt will also be made to explain the impact disadvantaged background and oppression of various groups in society can have on people and how this can lead to social exclusion, discrimination and racism. Social work as it exist today did not start as a state directed welfare. A brief history of social policy and some historical changes that led to social work been what it is today will also be mentioned. In addition to highlighting the key knowledge and skills that is needed to guarantee evaluation and good interpretation of the core concepts, social work values and theories principles will also be discussed while recognising the impact and effect of inequality, cultural identity and diversity on practice. To be able to effectively work with people, a good grasp of their background is very important and based on this, some human development theories across the life course and the impact of this on social work practice will be examine.
Like other professions, social work is value based and the need to be able to work effectively with other professionals and service users groups and a good understanding of social work values is important. All these will be illustrated with discussion on a case study in order to create a practical view of the topic. For the benefit of this essay.
ASPIRE model of social work process will be used. This Model consists of five stages:
1) Assessment
2) Planning
3) Intervention
4) Review
5) Evaluation
The process involves a sequence of tasks or actions but the process rarely follows this route, sometimes social workers have to work these process in a circular form, moving from assessment into implementation, evaluation and back again to assessment. However, certain parts of this process such as assessment, are clearly guided by strict procedures from national policy and local authorities. Some of the tasks may take longer term and involves complexity than the other. Quite often one will find some of the task are overlapping and may be repeated in the course of engagement with a service user.
At this stage, it is also important to mention that social workers rely on information from people such as other professionals like GPs, the Police, Teachers and concern citizens to do their job. This is regarded as a “referral” It is a request to the social services to intervene when any actions or incidents that require local authorities’s attention is needed.
To analyse the different stages of social work process, I will be making use of the following case study to illustrate my point.
Mrs Whittaker(not her real name) is a 45 years old lady living with her husband mr Whittaker a 46years and their 13 year old son. The couple has been together for 15years. Mr Whittaker is a taxi driver while Mrs Whittaker is a housewife. That is the summary of information gathered.
Purpose of the assessment is that, Mrs Whittaker has approached the social services for help based on the problems in the relationship with her husband and their son. In the last one year, her husband has become violent toward her and he frequently abuse her mentally. Mrs Whittaker is also getting worried about the negative impact this violence is having on their son. She informed the social service that her husband sometimes assault her in the presence of her son and has done so with a weapon at least once in the past. Her son recently told her, he has hidden a weapon to fight his dad if his dad attack her mother again. Her son performance in school has also been poor lately. Recently, she alleged her husband threatened her with knife in the presence of their son. She is afraid this situation is getting worse and the impact this may have on their son and her own mental health.
Making use of the ASPIRE model of social work process.
Assessment: This is the stage where social worker will schedule a meeting with Mrs Whittaker’s family to gather more information about the people involved in relation to their circumstances. This is needed to decide what needs to be done to bring about desire goals in the life of the individual or their environment or both. (Coulshed and Orme, 2012).
Care Act 2014 covers a number of areas in relation to carrying an assessment
The local authorities have an obligation under section 1 of the Care Act 2014 titled ‘principle of wellbeing’ and in this case, an obligation towards Mrs Whittaker and her son’s wellbeing.
Since Mrs Whittaker has expressed her concern over the negative impact her husband violent behaviour may have on her and their son. The Social worker will conduct risk assessment and work with Mrs Whittaker’s family in identifying ways to prevent any harm toward her and her child. These assessment will include their goals in a way that will enable them to take control of their life and empower them. In conducting this assessment, certain things must be given consideration…
• confidentiality – information about a service user should only be share with their consent with people on need to know basis. Treat the information with care and cautions. In this case, it is important to inform Mr Whittaker about his wife’s complaint to the social service.
• Separate demand from need – it is essential to only respond to what the needs of an individual are than what they demand.
• Avoid use of Jargon – effective communication is an integral part of an assessment, hence the need to avoid jargon and communicate in a way that is appropriate to that particular individual. In this case Mrs Whittaker teenage son should be given additional consideration in term of language use.
• Make a timescale and a clear objectives
• Always run the service user through the process
• Explain the legal and policy framework that relate to their case
• See them as a Partner in their own care
• Strengths-led – Recognising key strengths displayed by the client and sharing such with them will increase their self confidence and also help the whole process. It is helpful to praise Mrs Whittaker bravery for her bold step in speaking out to the social services about her problem since victim of domestic abuse sometimes feel the need to protect their abuser until something tragic happen.
• Base your assessment on the problem not the people – Social workers must consider themselves as a problem solvers and not people’s assessor, giving consideration to problems factors such as poverty and discrimination, it is also important to note that the people are not the problem, but problem is the problem (Jack, 2005 cited in Thompson, 2009). There are certain principles to be aware of while conducting an assessment. Service user must be made to understand the following:
• Service user know best – That they are the expect of their life
• Partners In their own care
• Their wishes, beliefs, views and feeling will form the basis of their care
• Professional main aim is to act in their best interests by working to reduce their reliance on care and support as a long-time plan.
• All the decisions taken will take into account the relevant circumstances.
At this point, taking a reflective approach to assessment is a good practice. It will help to know: what type of information you need, how you will ensure service user (mrs Whittaker) will be involved in the process, what you must do to ensure your practice are ethical and value based. It is essential for social workers to demonstrate some level of understanding of human development theories across the life course and the implications of this to practice. Preparation, values and awareness of some possible barriers and problem that may occur in the course of an assessment will help social worker to plan ahead for such eventualities.
Barriers to a good assessment:
• An individuals may not want as assessment.
• They may lack understanding of the purpose of the assessment, in this case the teenage son who may not fully understand the need for this assessment.
• They may decide not to participate in the assessment
• Awareness of the service users state of mind, stress and emotion
• Attitude and suspicion towards social workers
• Agency’s limitation and time constraint
• Understanding of common themes that may affect individuals through the ages and which affect people through the course of their life (1978, cited in Crawford and Walker, 2007: 98).
• Inter-agencies working challenges
Planning: this is the stage where things to be done, how it is to be done, by whom and in what order are agreed upon. Intervention must be tailored to fit Service users’s needs. planning stage must be service user-led, they must be seen as a partner in planning their own care. The social worker and Mrs Whittaker both agreed on certain things to be done. In a case of domestic violence, safety is paramount especially when a young child is involved. Mrs Whittaker agreed to stay in a separate accommodation to be arranged by the social services. This will ensure the safety of herself and her son. Also, since Mrs Whittaker does not presently have any means of livelihood to support herself and her son, she has agreed to an assessment of need and temporary stay on benefit until she can find a job and the social worker will contact the child support agency to see if Mr Whittaker can be made to provide financial support for his son.
These are major things that should be taken into consideration:
• Service user perspectives, roles of the social worker and their agency requirements.
• Service users’s family, carer and any other people or routine that are important to them.
• Informal and formal contract between service users and the authority
• Setting a clear objectives and timescale
• Record of the plan must be kept
Care or support plan is a multi-agencies action usually coordinated by a care co-ordination or the most appropriate person. The plan is shared among individuals and agencies that are part of it. It is the record of actions to be taken, needs and obligations; it also serves as an instrument to risk management. The plan must be clear and understood by everyone involves. It must be based on the need assessment and must be person-centred led. The writing of the plan must be done with making use of the service user own phrases and exact words. It is important to realised the benefit of such plan should be based on the service user and not the other way round.
Furthermore, to avoid drift and vagueness, it is essential to avoid rigidity in the planning stage and this must include anti-oppressive practise. Also, the plan must make rooms for the unexpected and wider consideration must be done with service user at the centre of everything.
Intervene: This stage comprises of planning and implementing stages. The planning stage, in a statutory settings, this is called ‘ a care plan’ and like all other stages; the social worker will continue to work with the client in carrying out the plan that has been agreed on in the planning stage with the client in achieving the set goals while using the agreed approach. In doing this, a social worker will be expected to demonstrate an ability to interpret and evaluate the core concepts, values, theories and principles of social work while also recognising the impact of inequality, culture and diversity may have on the practice.
According to Packer, intervention can be understood “as ‘working together with people’ in a planned and systematic way to make a difference in an identified situation. (Parker, J. 2008)
In order to attain these goals and avoid vagueness and drift, it is important to have a clear actions and objectives plan put in place. This should be concise and easy to understand by all parties involved. This will be followed by implementation when the contract will be executed, and both sides will be expected to perform their own part of the agreement to meet what is in the contract. It is not uncommon for the contract to be reviewed if this is agreed upon by the parties involved. The monitoring aspect of this is done by the social worker and attaining information to ensure client are receiving the support they needed. Clients on their part will act on those services and also implements the actions and objectives for the achievement of the goals.
Also at this stage, it is important we review the intervention as this is an essential part of systematic practice and a means of checking to be sure we are on the right part. Questions like:
• what do we plan to achieve?(This should have been identified by the on-going assessment)
• Which ways are we going to achieve it?( the intervention plan should be the basis on this)
• How do we know we have achieve it?(this can be establish through review)
Review should be regarded as everyday practice of evaluation, especially when there is a significant change in the life of the service users. It is also a statutory guideline in any case that involves children that are being looked after or when there is transfer of case to another worker.
Mrs Whittaker short-time goals:
• To ensure the safety of the family by placing Mrs Whittaker and her son in a separate accommodation to avoid any occurrence of violence.
• To ensure their wellbeing
• Making sure the changes will cause little or no disruption to the son’s education.
• A supervise visit to be put in place for Mr Whittaker with his son till that time he is consider a no threat to their safety.
long-term goal:
• Working towards creating a safe and conducive atmosphere for the entire family by advising Mr Whittaker to seek help with his anger problem.
• Working to promote healthy relationship between husband and wife
• Working to promote healthy relationship between Mr Whittaker and his son
• Empower Mrs Whittaker to achieve her life goals
Evaluation and Ending: This is final stage in social work processes and are sometimes not given the importance it deserves. For a social worker, this stage can serve as evaluation and a reflection on their work. This can also serve as information gathering, consultation and a form of research with regards to the quality and effectiveness of service delivery. It is important to clarify ones quality of service and professionalism from the perspective of service user in order to know what works or otherwise. This will enable people in decision-making positions to focus the resources at areas where effectiveness and satisfaction of service are higher. According to Thompson “evaluation involves examining our practice and so that we can learn from our mistakes and build on our successes”(Thompson, 1998, p.304)
Evaluation can be done in different forms such as; questionnaire, informal feedback and focus groups.
Evaluation can be executed all through the intervention stage, this is important in determining if set goals have been attained. This stage can be in form of face to face meeting where certain questions are asked in form of feedback from the client as to the progress of the goal attainment. Social workers would hope the goals are being met or if not, there may be need for an additional support in order to meet the set goal. This should help the client to start feeling better and may start taking steps to progress on this on their own. In some cases, there may be need to conduct another assessment and implementation at this stage if there is a concern the client’s needs or certain issues are not being met.
ENDINGS
Ending are equally important, this is so for many individuals have had a painful, abrupt and in some cases traumatised ending in the past. A good ending will no doubt provide an avenue for an individual to say ‘goodbye’ and move on. Celebrating service user’s achievements while also supporting their empowerment. Making service user aware of time limitation with clear goals at the first meeting is important. Ending should be well thought out from the initial contact to avoid been a devastating experience. For example, while working with a young person who has had different social workers and carers in the past, it may be helpful to draw a picture of a bus with two people in it, starting their journey from one bus stop to another-each week the bus moves closer to their destination and standing at this destination is another carer or social worker. It is also a good practice when transferring a case to another person to introduce the new worker to the client.
Review and Evaluation stage is essential to maintain professional standards and helps
In the improvement of practice. It also serves as a reflection of service from service users.
Review: This is a process that should normally occur and recur during the course of intervention. It is when social worker take a step back from what has been done and reflect on its effectiveness and suggest if any changes is needed. In review, certain questions may be asked:
• Were the goals and objectives appropriate and attainable?
• What are the constraints in achieving this goals?
• Are there changes in the service user’s circumstances?
• Is the plan appropriate for the individual?
Evaluation: After intervention, evaluation of the whole process should be carried out to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment so lessons can be learn for future practice
In conclusion, Ability to be clear and focus-driven will prevent service user from being confused and lacking in direction while defining your agency’s responsibilities and your own roles will promote professional relationship and trust. Keeping to agreed goals and outcome will prevent lack of clear plan and timescales for review which may sometimes result in waste of energy and time.
However, there are strength and weaknesses of this approach. social workers should be cautious of packaging such a complex task as working with individuals. According to Milner and O’Byrne (1998) As human service gradually being task as a technical activity where workers are expected to strictly obey procedures, guidelines, competence based system and assessment frameworks. (Milner and O’Bryne (1998) argues this may be at the expense of focusing on values and ethical based principles which ought to underpin social work profession. The strength of systematic approach is that, it can bring an improved transparency for service users and equally promote better clarity in multi-agencies working. It can also encourage coherence to work, as it reduces drifts and vagueness while also promoting honest and clearer working partnership than structured approaches (Bonta 1998). Furthermore, research has shown successful outcomes of interventions that has a clear objectives and aims than more ambiguous structured approaches to working (Vennard, 1996).