Response 1: Psychological Aspects of Aging Respond to at least two colleagues who applied a theory of successful aging to Helen's case that differs from the one you applied . · State whether you agree that your colleague's strategy for applying the theory to Helen's case is likely to be helpful. · Provide support for your response and suggest one additional way your colleague might support Helen's psychological well-being. Be sure to support your responses with specific references to the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references. Colleague 1: Lisa Hello Everyone, There are several key life events that have influenced Sara's relationships. Sarah has experienced loss, and because of it she has become depressed and lonley. She states, "Every since my husband died theres been no one to talk to", (Laureate 2013). This influences her relationships because, she has become withdrawn and angry. After her husband died Sarah, and her daughter began living together. "Sara and her daughter have lived together  for the past 10 years since Stephanie returned home after a failed relationship and was unable to live independently", (Plummer Makris & Brocksen, 2014). This influences her relationships because, she feels that Stephanie is taking over, and she has no control over her environment. She has also acquired the habit of hoarding things which influences her relationships because her other daughter Jane refuses to come visit her because of the conditions of the house.Her daughter Stephanie is also having issues over her hoarding. As Sara's social worker, I might apply a theory of successful aging such as Activity Theory to her case by encouraging her to get physically active by going outside to walk, by joining a gym that has programs for the elderly, and by going on short trips with Stephanie. This will also help them bond more. "There is considerable evidence that being physically and mentally active helps to maintain the physiological , psychological, and iintellectual functions of older people", (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2016). Plummer, S. -B., Makris, S., Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014). Sessions: Case histories, Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. {Vital Source e-reader}. "The Parker Family" Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K.K. (2016). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Chapter 15, "Psychological Aspects of Later Adulthood". Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Parker family: Episode 2 {Video file}. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu Colleague 2: Koretta Hello, Dr. H. and Colleagues. Sara Parker is 72-years old. She recently lost her husband to a heart attack, which has escalated her depression. Additionally, she has been diagnosed with high blood pressure, hyperthyroidism, and dementia. While visiting with her social worker, Sara mentioned that ever since the death o.

1. Response 1:
Psychological Aspects of Aging
Respond
to at least two colleagues who applied a theory of successful
aging to Helen's case that differs from the one you applied
.
·
State whether you agree that your colleague's strategy for
applying the theory to Helen's case is likely to be helpful.
·
Provide support for your response and suggest one additional
way your colleague might support Helen's psychological well-
being.
Be sure to support your responses with specific references to
the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to
provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.
Colleague 1: Lisa
Hello Everyone,
There are several key life events that have influenced Sara's
relationships. Sarah has experienced loss, and because of it she
has become depressed and lonley. She states, "Every since my
husband died theres been no one to talk to", (Laureate 2013).
This influences her relationships because, she has become
withdrawn and angry. After her husband died Sarah, and her

2. daughter began living together. "Sara and her daughter have
lived together for the past 10 years since Stephanie returned
home after a failed relationship and was unable to live
independently", (Plummer Makris & Brocksen, 2014). This
influences her relationships because, she feels that Stephanie is
taking over, and she has no control over her environment. She
has also acquired the habit of hoarding things which influences
her relationships because her other daughter Jane refuses to
come visit her because of the conditions of the house.Her
daughter Stephanie is also having issues over her hoarding. As
Sara's social worker, I might apply a theory of successful aging
such as Activity Theory to her case by encouraging her to get
physically active by going outside to walk, by joining a gym
that has programs for the elderly, and by going on short trips
with Stephanie. This will also help them bond more. "There is
considerable evidence that being physically and mentally active
helps to maintain the physiological , psychological, and
iintellectual functions of older people", (Zastrow & Kirst-
Ashman 2016).
Plummer, S. -B., Makris, S., Brocksen S. (Eds.). (2014).
Sessions: Case histories, Baltimore, MD: Laureate International
Universities Publishing. {Vital Source e-reader}. "The Parker
Family"
Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K.K. (2016). Understanding
human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston,
MA: Cengage Learning. Chapter 15, "Psychological Aspects of
Later Adulthood".
Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Parker family: Episode
2 {Video file}. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Colleague 2: Koretta

3. Hello, Dr. H. and Colleagues. Sara Parker is 72-years old. She
recently lost her husband to a heart attack, which has escalated
her depression. Additionally, she has been diagnosed with high
blood pressure, hyperthyroidism, and dementia. While visiting
with her social worker, Sara mentioned that ever since the death
of her husband, she has been feeling lonely. Even though she
attends an adult day program three times per week, 6-hours per
day, she has become disengaged with life. Disengagement
Theory is a term coined by Cumming and Henry (Zastrow and
Kirst-Ashman, 2016). It’s meaning is two-fold--that a person
begins to lose interest in life, and society begins to lose interest
in the person.
During a meeting with the social worker, Sara mentioned that
the program was not helping her, and that it was her cats and
shopping that brought her joy (Laureate Education, 2013).
Sara’s shopping has led to a hoarding situation. According to
her daughter, Stephanie (48-years old), who lives with her
mother, the hoarding is out of hand, and has caused a rift in
their relationship. She is contemplating moving out, but is not
sure she can do this because of her own mental illness issues
(Plummer, Makris and Brocksen, 2014).
Hoarding happens as the result of a mental breakdown, and it is
very difficult to remedy. It will take the individual’s
willingness to cooperate before successful outcomes occur.
Understanding this, as Sara’s social worker, I would have to be
patient with Sara and build a trusting relationship with her. I
would visit from time to time and help her become focused on
getting rid of things maybe through donating to charity. I would
address the filthiness of the apartment which leads to injury and
disease.
References
Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Parker family: Episode
2 [Video file]. Retrieved from

4. https://class.waldenu.edu
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., Brocksen, S. (Eds.). (2014).
Sessions: Case histories. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International
Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2016).
Understanding human behavior and the social environment.
(10
th
ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Response 2
:
Cultural Influences of Social Policy
·
Respond
to at least two colleagues by offering any other considerations
your colleagues might need to consider when supporting the
Hernandez family. Justify your recommendation.
Support your response with specific references to the resources.
Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.
Colleague 1: Lisa
Hello Everyone,
Cultural considerations might affect child welfare policy
because cultures discipline their children in different ways. In
the Hernandez family, they discipline their children like their

5. parents disciplined them. However; many people in America
might see this as abuse. This will allow for a social worker to
step in the make sure that the children are not being mistreated
or harmed. This is why social workers need to familiarize
themselves with the cultural aspects of each family before
making assumptions. "Social workers continually strive to
increase their professioanl knowledge and skills and to apply
them in practice", (NASW 2008).The responsibilities of a social
worker in the Hernandez family when it comes to addressing
their child welfare needs through the accessibility of services is
to explain to them the issues that they and be supportive to any
questions or concerns that they may have. Let the family know
that a social worker is there to work out their issues and not to
punish them in anyway. They can do this by applying the child
protection approach to situations that affect clients from
different cultures. "The child protection approach involved
providing personal services to families with the goal of
preventing the recurrence of maltreatment: seeking out the
causes of abuse, neglect exploitation, and delinquency; and
preventing maltreatment through environmental reforms",
(Popple & Leighninger 2015).
Popple, P.R., & Leighninger, L. (2015), The policy-based
profession: An introduction to social welfare policy analysis for
social workers. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education.
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). Code of ethics
of the National Assocation of Social Workers. Retrieved from
http://www.naswdc.org/pubs/code.code.asp
Colleague 2: Jesse
Cultural considerations effect child welfare policies because
different cultures raise their children in different ways from the

6. way they educate their children to the way they discipline their
children. As social workers this is a major reason cultural
competence is so important. To be a useful resource to our
clients’ we need to be able to understand the traditions of other
cultures our clients could be members of. In the Hernandez
case study they disciplined their children the way they were
disciplined in their native culture. Their practice of disciplining
could have been deemed as abusive. This is when a social
worker needs to step in and talk to the parents and children as
see if there is a cultural difference or if it truly is abuse. As
social workers we need to continually strive to increase our
knowledge and skills to use within our practice (NASW, 2008).
The responsibilities of the social worker in the Hernandez’s
family case would be to support the family by stepping them
through the process and helping them access services such as
counseling. Individual counseling would be beneficial for this
case because you would be able to speak one on one with each
family member and uncover the root of the problems. This way
you could help every member of the family by identifying what
services could be of assistance.
Reference
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). Code of Ethics
of the National Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from:
https://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp
Response 3:
Child Welfare and Family Preservation
·
Respond
to at least two colleagues by offering an insight for the

7. comparison of benefits and shortfalls of permanency planning
and family preservation your colleagues described based on
your state’s child welfare policies.
Support your response with specific references to the resources.
Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.
Colleague 1: Janet
Dealing with children and being a voice for their rights and
their needs is an important aspect of being a social worker.
However, we also have to be able to be non-
judgemental
and level headed and be able to determine the cause for the
referral to our agency. We need to be able to see how, and why
the maltreatment or negligence is happening, and what are the
causes of it. Each case that we will come to will be different
and we must treat each case as such. I believe that depending on
the risk to the child/children and what the case overall is, we
must then determine if we must go the family preservation route
or just remove the children and place in foster care. Ultimately,
if as social workers we take the whole picture in and we make
the determination that the problem is minor and it is a cause of
lack of education, lack of resources, then ultimately the family
preservation must be done.
According to the Child Welfare League of America (as cited in
Mullins,
Cheung
, &
Lietz
, 2012), Family Preservation Services were “developed largely
in response to the over-reliance on out-of-home care and the
recognition that separating children from their families can be
traumatic, possibly leaving lasting negative effects. Overall, the

8. research does not completely show that Family Preservation
Services is completely and totally the best for children and their
families, but above all some research goes to show that this is
because of the professional relationship between the social
worker and the family. For example the study done by Mullins,
Cheung
and
Lietz
(2012), revealed that “families seemed to be saying they desire
services that are challenging and relevant, delivered in a way
that is respectful and responsive, that their relationships with
providers create a context for making difficult change and that
the combination of emotional and tangible support makes these
changes possible. In essence the families that had a positive
outcome and benefited from Family Preservation Services in the
study, were the ones that had a better working relationship with
the social worker. The successful clients were the ones who
were given better help and better resources and were able to
rectify the situation that led them to be referred in the first
place. The other families with the negative outcomes explained
that the help that they received was not personalized to their
family and it did not tailor their needs and did not seem to help
them overcome the issue. Every family dynamic is different and
we must be able to tailor the programs to each family. Social
work is not a one size fits all program.
Permanency planning and Family Preservation both have its
positives and negatives. The more I read the more I think that if
we could find a happy medium between both of these policies
that would be ideal. Above all Family Preservation allows for a
social worker to apply the strength perspective to help a family
and allows for the family to get help as a whole and allows them
to obtain the resources to become independent for the social
services system. However, there have been cases that ultimately
have led to horrible crimes and abuse committed against
children even after the family has gone through the Family

9. Preservation system. The permanency planning while it
acknowledges that the family home is the best place for the
children, it will remove the children and a plan needs to be
developed immediately, and monitored closely. The plan is to
be able to have a permanent living arrangement for the child as
fast as possible. If the child cannot stay in their home then
“steps should be taken to legally free the child for a permanent
placement at the earliest time possible.” (
Popple
&
Leighninger
, 2015, p. 223) The next steps would be to try and get the child
adopted and if not able to then to get the child in a long term
foster care. The negatives to this is that often times if a child is
not adopted, they will be in the foster system until the legal age,
and many times they will be bounced from foster home to foster
home and not have a stable environment. A negative to this
system is also that there are too many children that need foster
homes and not enough foster homes to meet the needs of this
system.
As a social worker I would prefer to use the Family
Preservation system as my first response, however this I believe
depends on what the problems that lead to the referral in the
first place are. Family Preservation is a good approach if the
family needs resources and are willing to make the changes
possible. If it is a severe case of abuse, neglect or sexual abuse
then immediate removal is necessary then we would have to
proceed with the permanency planning because a child should
not be subject to that. I think if we could come to a policy that
would be able to have both systems incorporated then it would
be the best.

10. Colleague 2: Daneilia
Family Preservation in Child Welfare
The role of family preservation in child welfare is so
that the family does not have the added stress of being separated
from one another. While family preservation alleviates the
stress of being separated it allows for empowerment and
stability to the whole family. The family gains empowerment
through support services and provides service to keep the
children safe throughout the time being (Child Welfare
Information Gateway, n.d.).
Foster Care Harmful?
Foster care has not been proven to be harmful to
children as far as abuse goes because abuse can still occur in
their biological home. However, statistics say otherwise as far
as the future outcomes for children who go through the foster
care system. To support the theory that foster care is harmful,
it was “…found kids reunited with families after a brief stay in
foster care were more likely to abuse drugs, get arrested, drop
out of school and have lower grades than those who stayed in
foster care” (Koch, 2007). Now, that does not necessarily insist
that is what will happen to all foster care kids and it definitely
does not define family preservation is better. The topic is
actually lacking in quite a bit of research to help support and
define both sides.
I do not agree with the assumption that foster care is harmful, to
an extent. I believe that it is only harmful if the child has other
family that could help care for the child. I think children are
better off with family members at least if not with their
parents. However, if there are no other family members besides
the parent(s) then the child might be better off depending on the
severity of the abuse/neglect. Sometimes even family members
are not ideal because it could turn into a similar situation with

11. the child as it was with the child and the parents. Foster care
truly becomes harmful when abuse occurs, just the same as in
the child’s home. Foster care and family preservation each have
the good and the bad.
Georgia Foster Care
“Statistics indicate children entering foster care are at
increased risk of developmental delays and disabilities due to a
variety of factors. Sadly, they often also suffer emotional
distress due to the trauma of being removed from their home”
(Division of Family and Children Services, n.d.). A gap that
seems to be present is the lack in support for the child in the
initial transition. Georgia states there are several programs that
support the child and the foster care family; however, statistics
and reports say otherwise in how children are transitioning into
foster care (Division of Family and Children Services, n.d.).
Foster care can also be seen as harmful due to the homeless rate
of foster care children when transferring out of the homes as
adults. The lack in support especially in programs to assist
these young adults in transition such as work skills, stable home
or financial means to attend college. “Nearly one in four foster
kids will become homeless…” (Scott, 2012).
Permanency Planning and Family Preservation
Permanency planning allows for the agency to follow up
with distant relatives of the child to help care for the child until
reunification can occur with the parents and the child. Family
Preservation encourages the family to work through their issues
and gain support and services that will empower them to be
reliant and self-sufficient (Georgia Department of Human
Services, n.d.). The shortfalls of permanency planning are there
might not be extended family that is available or that has the
abilities to help. However, the benefit of permanency planning
is it allows the child to be in the comfort of family while the
parent(s) get assistance. The shortfalls of family preservation
are that the abuse that had occurred may continue throughout
the entirety of everything. Yet the benefit of family
preservation is that it keeps the family together which alleviates

12. stress that if the family was separated.
I prefer permanency planning because biological
relatives can comfort the child. It is an option that keeps the
child still somewhat close to home. The environment is still
fairly the same with the exception of the parent(s) in the day-to-
day activities.