Social Work & Family Systems

Metaphor for Family Social Work and Systems thinking

- asked 6 blind wise men to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the body - leg: pillar - tail: rope - trunk: tree branch - ear: hand fan - tusk: spear - king said that they are all wrong, hands that were like eyes that could see

Example of Social Work with families

- family moved to a community - not opportunity to develop any support network within the community - youngest child has developed a serious illness - family members can communicate with each other about the situation - address and respond to it - they are feeling alone, lack of source of support within the new comminity

Family Systems

According to family systems theory, all families are social systems, and it is this belief that guides understanding and work with families. Because family members are interdependent (rely on one another), behaviors do not exist in a vacuum. As such, family systems theory helps us see how problems spring from family relationships and transactions. In family work, the overall web of patterned relationships within the family becomes the focus. Thus, one of the key beliefs of family systems theory is that problems that arise in families cannot usually be attributed to individual dysfunction or pathology. Rather, understanding family dynamics will help uncover family processes that seem to foster and maintain the presenting problem

Crises and Intervention

Effective in working with families that have a variety of problems, and under some circumstances it can be as effective as traditional long-term therapies . Dual aims of crisis intervention include the immediate resolution of urgent problems and adaptation to disruptive life events and the promotion of long-term skill building to reduce failure and maximize the ability to deal with future crises. Changes made during crisis intervention remain intact long after services end. For example, family crisis intervention has been effective in preventing hospitalization for some children and contributing to shorter psychiatric hospital stays for others

Defining the Problem

Word document-outlining ways to define the problem using theory in family systems

SW Building Family Skill and Knowledge

Work with family members to increase skills that are integral to family harmony and include: (1) reinforcing effective or desired behaviors (2) helping family members deal with hurt and anger more effectively (3) teaching parents how to observe and track children's behavior (4) using time-outs when family conflict or child behaviors become unmanageable or too stressful (5) practicing positive behaviors by using techniques such as role-playing (6) focusing on the development of social skills for parents and children (7) teaching relaxation techniques to help parents cope with stress and learn to self-nurture more effectively (8) developing more effective parenting skills and child management techniques

Six Key Central Concepts within family systems thinking

•1. A change in one family member affects all of the family members. •2. The family as a whole is more than the sum of its parts. •3. Families try to balance change and stability. •4. Family members' behaviors are best explained by circular causality. •5. A family belongs to a larger social system and encompasses many subsystems. •6. A family operates according to established rules. A Change in One Family Member Affects

Family-Centered Philosophy

•A central belief of family social work is that the family is the context within which treatment originates. •Social workers have always been context specialists through their ecological understanding, and family-centered work affirms the importance of understanding people's behavior within its natural context. •Understanding that the family is pivotal to children's well-being provides a clear rationale for the value of family social work. Family social workers assert that every childhas the right to grow up in a nurturing and protective environment

Eichler's 1988 Definition of Family

•A family is a social group that may or may not include one or more children (e.g., childless couples), who may or may not have been born in their wedlock (e.g., adopted children, or children by one adult partner of a previous union). The relationship of the adults may or may not have its origin in marriage (e.g., common-law couples); they may or may not occupy the same residence (e.g., commuting couples). The adults may or may not cohabit sexually, and the relationship may or may not involve such socially patterned feelings as love, attraction, piety, and awe.

Assumptions of Family social work

•Assumptions include: •Valuing family-centered and home-based practice •Recognizing the importance of crisis intervention •Emphasis is on the importance of teaching families so that they become competent in their problem-solving abilities, their social functioning and family relationships. • Family social work recognizes that families are embedded in a set of nested social systems that generate both risks and opportunities for families (ecological).

S.W. Beliefs of Families

•Belief I: Families Want to Be Healthy- People who are committed to an intimate relationship •Belief II: Families Want to Stay Together and Overcome Their Differences - Most people prefer to remain in a relationship, provided that it meets their needs. •Belief III: Parents Need Understanding and Support for the Challenges Involved in Keeping Relationships Satisfying and Raising Children - Few people receive training or education on how to be effective partners or parents. •Belief IV: Parents Can Learn Positive, Effective Ways of Responding to Their Children if They Have Opportunities to Obtain Support, Knowledge, and Skills - All people—and parents in particular—benefit from support from friends, relatives, and community resources. •Belief V: Parents' Basic Needs Must Be Met before They Can Respond Effectively and Positively to the Needs of Their Children - Unemployed parents, parents distressed about housing or food, or those who are experiencing other forms of debilitating distress usually have difficulty meeting the needs of others, despite their best intentions. •Belief VII: Family Members, Regardless of Gender or Age, Deserve Respect from Each Other - Within the context of culture, family social workers need to understand existing power structures in a family rather than assuming that one person is the "head of the household." •Belief VIII: A Child's Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties Should Be Viewed within the Context of the Family and the Larger Social Environment - This belief stems from the overarching definition of a social worker: Social workers are context specialists! Thus, in order to understand the behaviors, emotions, and beliefs of children, we need to understand their families.

Circular Causality

•Communication patterns in a family are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing. •Each pattern of communication, in the form of a transactional sequence, cycles back and forth between the two people involved. •The responses of one person will influence the responses of the other. •Eventually the responses solidify into a predictable and patterned sequence of exchanges between two people. •Thus, an early task of the family social worker is to identify the repetitive patterns of communication within the family. •These patterns are known as circular causality. •A is stimulated to do more of this because B has done this same thing; and where B does more of this because A did some of it; and A does more of it because B did some, and so on. This is the sort of symmetry characteristic of keeping up with the Joneses, some armaments races, and so forth. • Communication patterns in a family are therefore reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.

Circular Patterns of Communication

•Conversely, circular causality places ongoing interaction patterns within a context of patterned family relationships. •In working with a family, the social worker should look for circular patterns of interaction between family members. •Circular causality accounts for how the behaviors are perceived and how members feel about the interaction. It also sets behavior as a response to the behavior of another person. •Circular causality challenges the notion that events simply move in one direction, with each event being caused by a single previous event. •Circular causality, then, describes a situation in which event B influences event A, which in turn contributes to event B, and so on. •For example, a parent shows interest in the child's homework, and the child then explains the assignment to the parent. This is likely to result in an ongoing circular and reciprocal pattern of interaction. The parent continues to take an interest in and offer support regarding the child's homework; the child feels supported and rewarded and may make an extra effort when doing homework and ask the parent for help, thus reinforcing the pattern. Circular patterns are characteristic of ongoing family relationships. Rather than one event causing another, events become entangled in a series of causal chains.

SW Practice Application -Parenting Skills

•Do you think that parenting is instinctual? •In your groups, make a list of parenting skills that you think are important. How do parents learn these skills? •What skills do you think parents often lack when they are dealing with their children? •Make a list of things that impede the acquisition of parenting skills. •How can parents develop these skills? •Be Prepared to discuss in class.

Practice Application: Parts of a family System

•Example: •The Hagel family in which there are five children—three boys (John, Peter, and Steve) and two girls (Meagan and Paige)— plus the mother, Jane, and father, Mark. The most obvious answer is that the parts are merely the sum total of John plus Peter plus Steve plus Meagan plus Paige plus Jane plus Mark. A simple answer is that there are seven parts or subsystems in this particular family. •Yet, there are many other subsystems (parts) in this family beyond the initial observation. Subsystems might be identified by family role (parent and child), gender (father and sons, mother and daughters), possible triangles (father, mother, and John), and so on. •In your group, examine the family described in this exercise. •1. Map out all the potential subsystems in this family. •2. How do these various subsystems support the belief that the family is more than the sum of its parts?

What is family social work?

•Family Social Work is not the same as Family Therapy •Family social work can be home-based or community-based •It takes place in the same space and time as family life •Focuses on daily routines, interactions, social environments •Family social work can begin in the office-most works is completed in the home •Home-based social work - greater understanding of family functioning, family routines, and patterns - looking the family system (micro to macro)

Home-Based Family Work-Several Advantages

•Home-based assessments of family functioning might produce more accurate and complete evaluations of families than office-based assessments •In the home, family social workers receive immediate and direct information about family functioning and develop a more complete picture about the family relationships as members interact within a familiar environment : "ecological validity" •Ecological validity: allows the worker to witness "reallife behaviors" in that family members often do not exhibit the same behavioral intensity in an office that occurs in homes. •This allows the worker to individualize the intervention based on a family's living situation. •Most families also appreciate receiving services in the home.

Practice Application Exercise: Family Serving Agencies

•In your groups, compile a list of family-serving agencies in your communities. Make 3 columns to answer the questions •1.Mandate of Agency •2. Purpose of Intervention •3. Level of Intrusiveness/Punitiveness •What are the themes embedded in this list?

Practice Application Re-Eval Scenario

•In your groups, discuss this case scenario that has been described from an individualistic perspective (e.g., child behavior problems, eating disorders, mental health issues). Using family systems theory, beliefs, and assumptions, discuss how this scenario is a family challenge, not just an individual challenge. Discuss linear and circular patterns of communication, does this change how you previously examined this? Why or why not-be prepared to discuss. • •You are a social worker, and a mother brings her 14-year-old daughter into your office. Per Mother, daughter is having "panic attacks", and is "claiming an eating disorder". Mom describes daughter as "always being a problem" and she "consistently makes poor decisions that cost her friendships." When you begin to talk with daughter, daughter reports, "Mom says I'm tearing the family apart." Daughter also reports, "Mom said that it is my fault that my brother needs therapy now."

Practice Application Scenario

•In your groups, discuss this case scenario that has been described from an individualistic perspective (e.g., child behavior problems, eating disorders, mental health issues). Using family systems theory, beliefs, and assumptions, discuss how this scenario is a family challenge, not just an individual challenge. What questions would you ask to begin to determine challenges and next steps? •You are a social worker, and a mother brings her 14-year-old daughter into your office. Per Mother, daughter is having "panic attacks", and is "claiming an eating disorder". Mom describes daughter as "always being a problem" and she "consistently makes poor decisions that cost her friendships." When you begin to talk with daughter, daughter reports, "Mom says I'm tearing the family apart." Daughter also reports, "Mom said that it is my fault that my brother needs therapy now."

Boundaries

•Interpersonal boundaries that are too open and overlapping are known as enmeshed, and they weaken individual integrity and prevent family members from acting autonomously. •Enmeshed relationships occur when family members are locked into tight relationships with one another, undermining individual autonomy. •They may be extremely devoted to the family, sacrificing their autonomy for the family. •Families with rigid boundaries concerning the outside world often have enmeshed relationships within the family, whereas families that experience loose boundaries tend to be more disengaged with one another. Neglect is one sign of disengagement (Kaplan, 1986). •Both disengaged and enmeshed family relationships can indicate poor functioning in families. This is particularly problematic as children get older, because adolescents strive to be independent of their families. •When looking at boundaries, it is important to factor in culture and gender. For instance, when a male worldview is superimposed on family relationships, female relationships may appear to be enmeshed. Similarly, in some cultures the relationship among family members might be quite close, and it is important

Practice Application: in your groups, determine what you as a social worker feel are the family needs

•John, age 44, his wife Mary, 43, and their three children, 14-year-old son Marvin, 13- year-old son Michael, and 11-year-old daughter Sharon, were referred to you by their family doctor because Mary is feeling depressed and overwhelmed primarily because of family issues. These issues include poverty. •John works evenings as a pizza delivery person making minimum wage. He has a history of unemployment. Mary works a couple of days a week cleaning houses. Back problems and fatigue prevent her from working more hours. •They live in a small, two-bedroom, low-income housing unit. They regularly attend church, and all three children attend a Christian-based school. Since the school is private, the family's educational expenses are greater than the cost of attending a public school. There is no extra money for recreational activities for the children outside of school. They are doing reasonably well academically, although Marvin is struggling in math. Sharon is overweight and also suffering from acute eczema. •Since the family lives in cramped quarters, there is little privacy in their home. The two boys often fight with each other, as well as excessively tease their sister. Since the father is often at work in the evenings, discipline is left to the mother. None of the children pay much attention to her. They rarely help out with household chores. The family moved to this state in the past year and has no friends or relatives nearby.

Practice Application Implications

•Knowing the difference between professional and personal boundaries is extremely important for family social work. In your groups, construct a list of boundary issues, and try to differentiate between the personal and the professional boundaries in the following areas: •Money •Time •Sharing space •Sharing personal information •Sexuality •Relationship challenges •You are the social worker, in your groups give an example of how you would manage 2 of the examples above. Be specific in your example and how you would proceed (this includes dialogue, actions, or education with the family)

Linear Causality

•Linear causality whereby one event is believed to directly cause another event •Linear causality, for example, when a parent tells a child to do his or her homework, the child either does the homework as requested or refuses to do the homework. •In the first example, the child is said to be obedient. In the second example, the child is described as "bad." •The parent is doing what parents do, but whether the child does the homework or not depends solely on the child. Looking at behavior in this way removes behavior from its context and fails to put the parent in the equation. How did the parent make the demand of the child? What can the child expect in terms of a parental response if he or she refuses to do the homework? How does the child make meaning of the parental request? •What is the relationship like between the parent and the child? These and other questions can be understood once the sequence of exchanges is taken out of a linear context and placed within the context of circular causality. •Like the preceding example, temper tantrums often are considered linear events. Parents report that when they say no to the child's demands, the child protests. •This conceptualization of tantrums allows parents to call the child "bad" or "spoiled." Beliefs about linear causality allow other family members to disown or detach from the role they play in the development and continuation of the temper tantrums. •Lineal explanations for behavior problems exclude an understanding of relationships, history, and ongoing communication patterns that start, reinforce, or support the problematic behavior. Ultimately, lineal explanations of individual problems attribute problems to personality factors. Blaming personality relieves others of the role they play in the problem and also relieves them of the responsibility

what is a family

•O ne of the most challenging issues in learning about families originates from the deceptively simple question: What is a family? •The complexity in answering this question partially springs from the ever-changing nature of social relationships, making a single, all-inclusive definition difficult to arrive at. •Attempts to define family encounter challenges similar to defining such emotionally laden and even politically constructed concepts as masculinity, motherhood, or love. •Everyone seems to have a personal definition of each, but a single agreed-on definition does not exist. •Despite this difficulty, social workers are challenged to understand what they mean by family if they are to decide on service eligibility from a particular agency and who is to be included in services. T •he definition of family membership can help family social workers determine who should be included in a family From a psychological perspective, it is hard to imagine the value of defining any major social group that is not physically or emotionally harming itself or others as deviant or undesirable. .

Perceptual and Conceptual SW Skills

•Perceptual and conceptual skills refer to what is taking place in the mind of the worker. They form the basis for the actions of the family social worker •Perceptual skills involve what the family social worker observes in family meetings. These observations need to be accurate and pertinent to the work. •Conceptual skills entail the meaning that the family social worker attributes to these observations. •Theory, particularly family systems theory, plays a role in framing the observations that the family social worker makes. •We identify the appropriate skills during the various phases of family social work. •Historically, society has assumed that raising children is intuitive, contributing to the belief that parents should raise children without outside intervention. •In other words, society expects every parent to raise children with the least amount of assistance and support from the state or other external agencies. •This assumption bolsters the belief that support is necessary only for bad, failing, or incompetent parents, thus contributing to a stigma about receiving help.

Guiding Principles of Family Social Work

•Principle I: The Best Place to Help Families Is in Their Home •Principle II: Family Social Work Empowers Families to Solve Their Own Problems •Principle III: Intervention Should Be Individualized and Based on an Assessment of the Social, Psychological, Cultural, Educational, Economic, and Physical Characteristics of the Particular Family •Principle IV: Family Social Workers Must Respond First to the Immediate Needs of Families and Then to Their Long-Term Goals Hungry children need food; children

Second order Change

•Second-order change, on the other hand, is likely to generate more enduring family changes. • Second-order change involves permanent attitude shifts that result in new behaviors. •For example, a family worker might encounter a family in which the father makes the decision about where the family will go on vacation. •Having other members make the decision will create first-order change. In this case, the behaviors of family members might change, but the rules about decision making are not examined at all. •However, if the family worker-initiated discussion in the family about how decisions are made, it would not be surprising to learn that the rule governing decision-making is "the male is the boss." •Thus, in second-order change, people develop new ways of understanding their family life. •Second-order change has many dimensions to it and involves changing attitudes, behaviors, relationships, and rules about interactions with one another. This type of change essentially involves changing the structure of the family, and, in the process, family functioning also changes. Once the rules governing behaviors and interactions within the family are altered, change is more likely to endure and be meaningful within the family. FAMILY SUBSYSTEMS As mentioned, family systems are

Family social work shares critical and intimate experiences with the family

•The family social worker often concentrates on concrete needs, daily routines, skills, and interactions within client families as targets for change •Focus based on matching the needs and expectations of many high-risk families •A family social worker has many ways to provide on-the-spot and concrete assistance. •For example, when a teenager and a parent become embroiled in conflict, the family social worker can work with the dyad to identify the source of the challenges •The family social worker does not view arguments and crises as paralyzing •Considered gifts that generate rich opportunities for change at a time when the family is most vulnerable and open to working on issues. •The family social worker can assist the parent and teenager to replace problem behavior with healthier and more satisfying interactions. •When a young child throws a temper tantrum, the family social worker can teach the parent more effective methods of dealing with the child in the moment. •A family social worker may be in the home or readily available when a family member threatens suicide, when a parent loses a job, or when a landlord threatens to evict the family onto the street.

Defining Families

•The picture of family that family social workers develop must encompass a range of family structures, roles, and functions. •For many new family social workers, their primary experience with family has been in their family of origin. •Family social workers must move beyond individual experience because limited and deeply held personal beliefs about what families are will decrease sensitivity to the validity of diverse family structures and functioning. •Without critical reflection about what health and dysfunction mean, biases will creep into the meaning of these terms. •On a political level, the definition of family is debated even more contentiously. •The term family values is embedded in everyday discourse, and families that fail to adhere to these values are considered undesirable. •In the process of using, it to judge, women who work outside the home are criticized, poor families become marginalized, families from other cultures are made to feel defective, and single parents sometimes believe that their family has suffered a critical amputation because it is incomplete. The simplistic argument has even been forwarded that if families were more traditional, social problems would be eradicated. Embedded in this argument is the suggestion that the so-called disintegration of the traditional family has created many social problems for the rest of us.

Sibling Subsystems

•The sibling subsystem is the most ignored subsystem in family work and in family theory. •Yet sibling relationships are the first context through which children learn to relate with peers. •Siblings teach each other about peer relationships and cooperation. •Analysis of the impact of birth order on child and personality development should be considered. For most people, the sibling relationship is lifelong because siblings usually outlive parents and the sibling bond is second only to the parent-child bond in importance In fact, the death of a child is a major family life cycle disruption that few families are adequately prepared to handle. •Because of the centrality of sibling relationships in a person's life, some suggest having a sibling session without parents to gain an understanding of family issues (McGoldrick, Watson, & Benton, 1999, 2005). •The nature of sibling bonds ranges between close and conflictual relationships. Moreover, there may be a combination of siblings, stepsiblings and half-siblings. •In looking at sibling relationships, age spacing is probably an important issue and determines the amount of time siblings spend together as children. Sibling relationships can be close, distant, or conflicted. Some suggest that sibling conflict and abuse is the most common type of conflict within families •Because sibling conflict might be predictive of later antisocial behaviors in adolescents, helping siblings develop interpersonal competence to improve sibling relationships is important (Kramer & Radley, 1997). Doing so will assist children in the development of both peer and sibling relationships. Early writings about sibling rivalry fail to do justice to the powerful bonds

Solution-focused intervention

•The solution-focused approach provides some very useful questions that can be asked to help families solve their problems (DeJong & Berg, 2002). •It is particularly helpful during family crises when a family wants to develop rapid solutions to problems to help them to move out of the crisis and back to a healthier family functioning state. •Background The solution-focused approach is committed to brevity, de-emphasizes history, and gets the family to concentrate on solutions that have worked for members in the past. •From its roots in strategic therapy, it has grown away from a focus on problems. The primary developer of this approach was the late Steve de Shazer

Homeostasis

•To survive and fulfill their functions and also to grow and develop, families need stability, order, and consistency. •The struggle to stay the same and retain the status quo is known as homeostasis, wherein the family acts to achieve balance in relationships (Satir, 1967; Satir & Baldwin, 1983). •Stability and predictability allow family members to anticipate behaviors and events that are energy-efficient. •Maintaining homeostasis is a demanding, although on the surface it might appear that the family is stable. •Under the surface the family is paddling like the proverbial duck (calm on the surface but paddling frantically underneath) to keep the system on track. •Satir (1967) suggests that members help maintain this balance overtly and covertly (p. 2). •Family rules help to keep homeostasis in check by determining which behaviors are acceptable or forbidden. •Just as a thermostat in a house keeps the furnace or air conditioner operating to maintain a stable temperature, homeostasis works to keep the family in constant balance. •In families, the "thermostat" represents family rules through which families strive to function consistently and predictably. •Some believe that families are self-correcting systems, although change typically occurs through feedback. •A family's typical reaction is to deny and resist impending change imposed by a crisis. •Homeostasis is an important concept as it relates to the particular problem the family is experiencing since homeostasis built around a problem can remain stable and entrench that problem (Satir, 1967, p. 49). •Resistance to change can be intense, as social workers who have attempted to challenge rigidly maintained behavior can attest. This is one reason why family work can be so taxing. •The family worker not only has to deal with individual family member resistance; the worker must also address the resistance of the entire unit and that of the different family subsystems. •Because of this, we know that families can experience distress or discomfort with new behaviors even when changes are positive, such as when an alcoholic member stops drinking. •Resistance involves opposing or avoiding something that is painful or unpleasant. Because the need for stability is so strong, resistance to change by families is normal and should be anticipated. People may seek relief from anxiety, guilt, and shame through resistance. They may see the direction of the family work as too unpleasant or painful to change. We have found, for example, that many families resist the initial shift from identifying one person as the problem to framing the presenting problem as a family problem. In addition, zealous actions of the

Triangulation

•Triangles are an important family systems concept and thus need to be uncovered by the family social worker in the assessment phase. •Triangulation constitutes circular patterns with a third person involved. •Triangles can appear when a dyadic relationship is under stress and unstable and a third party, often a child, is drawn into the relationship to stabilize the situation and diffuse the tension. •Triangulation usually happens when tension or conflict appears in the relationship between two individuals. All intimate relationships contain the seeds of instability and sometimes require a third party to maintain stability. •Triangles are not a preferred family subsystem because they allow the two people the opportunity to avoid dealing with their issues (Carter & McGoldrick, 1999, 2005; McGoldrick, Gerson, & Petry, 2008). •They usually appear when something negative is going on in a relationship and are usually harmful to the well-being of the third party. According to Bowen (1978), triangulation occurs when people are insufficiently differentiated and when they are oversensitive to other important people. •The "original triangle" is the mother-father-baby triangle. The formation of this triangle diminishes the emotional intensity of the couple dyad as the parents strive to meet the needs of the newborn. This basic triangle is necessary and can be functional. When a triangle is functional, the parents

First Order Family Change

•Unspoken rules regulate all families. Identify some rules from the family in which you grew up. Describe how the rules differed according to age and gender of family members. •Think of other family rules not related to age or gender. •What were these rules? •What rules have you brought from your family that are very important to you but that might conflict with the rules that another person might bring into a relationship with you? •Two types of change can occur within a family: first-order and second-order change (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). •First- and second-order changes revolve around rules (Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, 1974). •First-order change occurs when the behavior of one family member changes, but rules governing the family stay the same. •In second-order change, the rules are altered. First-order change does not permanently achieve the intended result, and it does not change the core attitudes and values causing the behaviors. •Consequently, first-order change is likely to result in families reverting to their" normal "pre-crisis patterns because the change involves merely changing the superficial aspects of behaviors and interactions within a family. It might involve something as simple as parents making a conscious decision to stop yelling at their children and their children, in response, making a conscious decision to comply with their parents' requests (so long as the parents do not yell). First-order change might mean that people do less or more of something. This type of change is less enduring and less meaningful than second-order change.

Assessment and Intervention

•What does assessment and intervention look like from a strengths-based perspective? •First, workers must develop an attitude that values the potential of families to change. •It means using interventions that empower families to take action on their own behalf. The process of empowerment should minimize feelings of family and community powerlessness and maximize beliefs that the family has the motivation, skills, and resources to work on their issues. I •n the process, family social workers help families uncover their latent strength and mobilize the strengths within their community. •All clients possess a repository of strengths; helping professionals have often overlooked the massive and frequently unappreciated resources and competencies that families possess. •Nurturing client strengths instills a sense of confidence in families and sparks their motivation. Moreover, families will be more likely to continue autonomous change and growth when family work capitalizes on existing family abilities, knowledge, and skills. Working with strengths draws social workers into a collaborative relationship with clients because family workers recognize that clients are experts on their own lives.

Complexity of Defining Family and Family Values

•What we often take to be family values—the work ethic, honesty, clean living, marital fidelity, and individual responsibility—are in fact social, religious or cultural values. To be sure, these values are transmitted by parents to their children and are familial in that sense. They do not, however, originate within the family. It is the value of close relationships with other family members, and the importance of these bonds relative to other needs... —David Elkind (www.Bartleby.com)

Stigma of Parental Struggles within our Society

•When parents struggle, social institutions have often taken intrusive and punitive paths • This contributes to resentment and resistance by the family. •For example, child welfare agencies might remove at-risk children from their homes, rather than first trying to equip families with adequate resources in the home to enable them to resolve difficulties and remain intact (Fraser, Pecora, & Haapala, 1991). •Punitive interventions seldom resolve parent or child problems. •Social institutions often wait until parents fail, rather than providing timely assistance to them beforehand. •Unfortunately, the function of many agencies has been to monitor, correct, or evaluate families only after a problem has surfaced.

Family Social Workers

•Work under the assumption that what affects one member of a family affects other family members. Therefore, the family unit is the client. •Based on these philosophical underpinnings, a family-centered strengths-based approach in family social work is both necessary and practical. •Family social workers may work with families that have faced longstanding problems and had multiple interventions from a variety of helping systems. •Because of previous experiences, many vulnerable families frequently have become either treatment-resistant or treatment-sophisticated. •Families may be hesitant to discuss family problems with a professional who, in their view, operates from within a distant office environment, disconnected from the family's daily and natural life experiences. .

Ecological Interventions for families

•pplementing resources in the home environment •Developing and enhancing support systems •Moving clients to a new environment •Increasing the responsiveness of organizations to people's needs •Enhancing interactions between organizations and institutions •Improving institutional environments •Enhancing agency environments •Developing new resources