This document discusses considerations and techniques for family social workers intervening with families. It emphasizes maintaining professional distance while avoiding fostering dependency. Specific recommendations are provided for working with different minority families in a culturally sensitive manner, such as being flexible with meeting times for African American families and showing respect for family hierarchy with Asian American families. The goal is to empower families and help them address problems in a way that is appropriate for their cultural context.

1. Chapter 10
Family System
Intervention
Group 1

2. Viewing all Angles

3. Realistic expectation
 A family Social Worker is to foster families’ feelings of
competence, rather than inadequacy.
Families often feel that bringing the Social Worker
into their home places them in a vulnerable position
Families may feel overwhelmed by expectations that
they think they cannot meet

4. Maintain Professional
Distance
 Family Social Worker is the nature of their
relationships with families
Over time, professional relationships change.
 The family Social worker needs to remain
objective and goal-focused to help the family
become independent and effective.

5. Maintain
Professional
Distance Con'tMaintaining a professional relationship with a
family will protect the family Social Worker and
the family from future complications.
Failure to establish clear boundaries can leave
the family Social Worker feeling burdened by
distressing family situations.


6. Focus on the
Family's Needs

7. Family System
Intervention
By: Janoy Bailey

8. Consideration for Family
Social Worker
 Avoid Fostering Dependency
 Set Realistic Expectations
 Maintain a Dual Micro and Macro Focus: Ecological Intervention
 Maintain professional distance
 Defining problems

9. Avoid Fostering Dependency
 This involves the social workers independence and autonomy.
 Family members at times relies on social workers too often which can be
counterproductive. This high level of reliability most time takes place during
periods of stress and crisis.
 The social worker tends to avoid giving solution to client problems or decision
making, instead, the social worker will put measures in place for the client to
reach his/her set goals. In other words, the social worker tends to clearly the
issuing pathways for clients in order for them to move freely without major
hiccups.

10. Set Realistic Expectations
 This involves fostering families feelings of competence rather than inadequacy.
 Families sometimes may feel overwhelmed with their perception of the highly
expectations that they are suppose to reach, and most times they will feel this way
due to the presence of the social worker.
 The social worker is there to reinforce on their strength and weaknesses that may
hinder them from achieving their set goals.

11. Maintain a Dual Micro and Macro
Focus: Ecological Intervention
 In this the family social worker focuses on the interaction of the family at various
level both micro and macro. Interaction with the outside systems is of great
importance in this process because the family does not only interacts within its
comfort space, but also with outside systems that is derived from the macro level.

12. Cont.
 Hepworth and Larsen 1993 list the following ecological interventions that family
social workers can perform for families:
 Enhancing agency environments
 Develop new resources
 Improving institutional environments
 Moving clients to a new environments
 Enhancing interactions between organizations and institutions
 Supplementing resources in the home environment
 Developing and enhancing support systems

13. Maintain Professional
Distance
 Family social workers is the nature of their relationships
with families. over time, professional relationships
change. For example , as positive feelings develop
between the family social worker and the family,
boundaries may become blurred and the relationship
may resemble a personal friendship.
 The family social worker may become truly fond of the
family and deeply committed to working with them
through thick and thin.

14. Defining Problems
 The goal of problem defining is to explore, identify, and define dynamics within
and beyond the family to open up possibilities for change.
 This is important because the way we define problems can open up very different
direction for family work.

15. Kadine duncan

16. Break
Maladaptive
pattern
• Refrain from introducing changes that exceeding the capabilities of the family or its
members
• Initiate those changes that at least one member of the executive subsystem in liable to
recognize as useful
• Interrupt maladaptive patterns of behavior and take control of immediate interaction.

17. Clarify
problematic
consequences.
• Ask family to describe the problematic behavior that is occurring in the
immediate process and reinforce their articulate awareness when it is
accurate.
• Label the pattern by detailing the preceding moments maladaptive
Interactions and seek the families recognition of the sequence on
recurrent pattern.
• Confront family members on the problematic consequences of their
own behavior.

18. Alter Affective blocks.
 convey the importance of expressing on clarifying effective experience in order to
better comprehend the maintenance of overt behavior pattern.
 Remove inappropriate affective block by encouraging open discussion of the
emotional turmoil of family members, Validate their experience, Clarify the
content, and provide support.
 Explorer catastrophic expectation with a view towards desensitizing inappropriate
and unrealistic fear
 Provide support and slow the therapeutic process when an issue is to stressful and
disorganizing and help other family members to alter their expectations as well.

19. Initiate cognitive
reconstructing.
 Encourage verbalization by family members in order to expose relevant
personal construct and family belief system.
 Call into question collective beliefs, values or goals that appear to be
problematic and initiate open discussion and reevaluate of relevant issues
 Use metaphors smile overstatement, paradoxical statement and so on to
clarify distill and emphasize concept that have adaptive potential.
 Encourage family members to consider new idea Further and to continue
discuss specific issues at home in order to reach a reality base consensus.

20. Implement New
adaptive pattern.
• Using behavioral principles apply social reinforcement to straighten
appropriate behavior at anytime during the sessions and encourage family
members to do the same.
• Stimulate each family members willingness to identify new adaptive
behaviors for herself or himself and support her on his suggestions when
they are constructive.
• Help family members negotiate and Implement Simultaneous changes and
when appropriate, direct them into initiate the new behavior is in session.

21. Mobilize external
resources as
required.
• Open admit to lack of progress and explore possible inhibiting , factors both
inside and outside the family.
• Carefully select on refer particular family members to other professional
resource for appropriate treatment as required.
• Articulate realistic task or natural resources to provide adequate control and
support.

22. DEtriangulation.
 DE triangulation involves developing strategies through which the family
social worker disrupts one triangle and open up the family member to
new, or more functional alliances or triangle.
 Families may also be resistant to the action of a particular agency be
cause of the past experience or because of what the agency represents to
them. Some families may have been involved with other agencies without
seeing any change in their a problem. client may be concerned about
possible breaches of confidentiality or choose to be minimally compliant
doing on enough work to get by.

23. * Involuntary clients typically recieve services from an agency without requesting
them.
* When clients enter against their will, they are likely to resist the efforts of the famiky
social worker such families enter family work reluctantly and some are visibly
resistant.
* Families may also be resistant to the actions of a particular agency because of past
experience or of what the agency represents for them.
Working With Involuntary
Clients

24. 1. Some just want to eliminate the pain created by the problem and in the process want to
be nurtured
2. Others who want to change tgeir lives in concrete ways
Clients usually look for one of two
outcomes from family social work

25. Family work techniques for family social workers to use with minorities are
those that promote bonding between the social worker and the family
Intervention with minority
families

26. Specific recommendations for working with African American families include the following:
• Taking into accouny the needs of single female heads of households, including
transportation problems, accommodation to work schedules and baby sitting needs
* Consider flexible hours for meeting so that extended family members attend
* Services should be brief and time limited to encourage attendance of families who may
distrust the mental health system
Intervention with African
American families

27. Jordan, lewellen and Vandiver 1994 made the following recommendations for working with
hispanic families
1. Content sensitivity to the family's level of acculturation, beliefs, hierarchy and traditions
2. Sensitivity to role confusion and conflict the newly arrived family may be experiencing
3. Inclusion of folk healers, priests and other non relative helpers
Intervention with Hispanic
American families

28. Because hierarchy is important to Asian American families treatment plan should include high
status members of the family or community
The social worker must be sure to show respect for members of the family
Clear communication between the family social worker and family members is essential
Intervention with Asian
American families

29. Ho 1987 makes the following recommendations for treating native American families in a
sensitive manner:
1. Provision of concrete services may be necessary for native American families
experiencing difficulties due to lack of food, housing or other necessities
2. Communication should be open, caring and delivered in a simple, precise, slow and calm
manner
3. To get to know the family the social worker should observe their communication pattens
and styles and note how each member of the extended family network and interact with each
other
Intervention with native
American families