Family/Cultural Assessment - Case Study Example

Family/Cultural Assessment INTRODUCTION: The family/cultural assessment generally takes account of a personal and communal history of a family life and precedent incidents, physical state and monetary information, support constitution and keeps record of clearances. It aspires for a complete perceptive and impartial observation of the family, not only its troubles, but also its potency, principles and objectives. In the examination of the fact that these are self-motivated features of a family, the evaluation is a continuing procedure of detection for assistants and relatives. The movie “Fun with Dick and Jane” is also a family assessment movie. The movie is about a couple Dick Harper and Jane Harper and their son Billy Harper who are living “the good life” because they have everything from money to a loving home. Blanca lives with the Harpers and also baby-sits their son. Dick works at the Globodyne and is about to become the Vice president of the company, which is owned by Jack McCallister and the CFO of the company Frank Bascomb. Other employees, who work there, are OZ Peterson and Debbie Peterson and Anne who is Jack Mccallister’s assistant. All of the characters in the movie have their own unique role and portray their characters very well. The movie is about a wealthy couple that loses their main source of income, causing both to turn to a life of crime, as they organize various heists on their rich friends’ accounts. FAMILY CULTURAL ASSESSMENT Family structure: Family structure is found on association. Family functioning takes up the procedures used by the family to accomplish its goals. In the movie the Harpers are a moderately rich family who has almost everything; there are 3 members in the Harpers family. Dick Harper a man in his early 40’s, his wife Jane Harper who is in her late 30’s and their son Billy who is about 4 years old. The housekeeper Blanca also lives in the same house even though she is not a family member but still is treated like one. Developmental stage: According to Erikson (2004) “It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood. Long childhood makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a life-long residue of emotional immaturity in him." Erikson has described the development stage of a human being, which starts from the time he/she is born to the time the person dies. But it involves a lot of factors, which are body image, self-esteem, role, and identity. Self-study comprises of being prepared to personally see one’s behaviors, cognitions, approach, and sentiments. In the movie Fun with Dick and Jane, Dick Harper, while working in an organization he concentrates on his self image as to what he wears and what he looks like while he goes to work, as he is in the professional field his attire remarks his personality. Dick Harper has a unique bond with his wife and son which according to Erikson is the third stage in which the most important connection is with the basic family. Dick has significant relationships within the workplace, the community and the family, which according to Erikson are the Middle adulthood and where the major strengths are Production and Care. As for Jane Harper she is also a workingwomen who takes care as to what she looks like and how she dresses up because she has a proper job. She cannot give time to her child as she is a workingwoman and has a baby sitter for her son. According to Erikson that middle age is when a person is prone to be occupied with innovative and significant work and with matters close to their family. Even though she should be taking care of her son is at a learning stage but he she tends to get involved with the work, as she and he husband have to run their household. As for the child Billy Harper who is a young boy and is at a learning stage is usually in the care of the housekeeper/babysitter Blanca who is Spanish and the kid starts speaking in Spanish as he is usually with her which as to Erikson during this period, a person experiences a yearning to copy the adults around them and take ideas in making play circumstances. According to Erikson, victorious decision of development predicament supplies the base for victorious resolution of disasters, which are going to be later on in life, a procedure he referred to as the epigenetic recitation of character. Family Roles and Functions: Dick Harper and Jane Harper both work outside the house. Jane works for a travel agency, although Dick brings home a great sum of money from a company called Globodyne, which has somewhat to do with consolidation and media possessions. Both of them are content with their works as Dick Harper is about to become the Vice president of the company. Jane has the responsibility of the house to cook and make her house become an attractive place. Jane tries to take the responsibility of her son but as she is working she keeps a housekeeper to take care of her house and her son. Both of the Harpers are equal decision makers of the house, and both of them decide everything starting from what kind of grass and plants they would grow to the financial dealing of how they are going to run the house. Dick Harper is not satisfied with the fact that her wife has to work; he wants her wife to quit the job as he is being promoted, and she quits the job, which signifies that Dick Harper is the major decision maker of the house. The household tasks are divided between the housekeeper and Jane, and the child upbringing task is upon both the parents and they perform it well. The tasks are divided between both the parents in the financial matters and decisions are made on the mutual consent. Physical Health Status: The family members are all physically healthy and try to remain fit because of the work and friend circle environment. Jane tries to keep her son and husband healthy by cooking healthy food for them. But they don’t have any particular sort of preventives of health however; it is increasingly known that providing health care services that are ethnically perceptive can effect in improved health status. They do not go for routine checkup, which is very essential for the whole house. Especially for the little kid as he is at a growing age which makes it even more important for them to have a daily routine checkup. Family Health Beliefs: The Harper family, I guess are not great believers in health care, as they do not go for the routine checkup or to health care centers. It is not in any ways influenced by cultures or rituals. The movie does not portray a very good health care advice because when Jane Harper goes for an experimental test of Botox after they are almost on the verge of bankruptcy, she is in desperate need of money and goes for a experimental test where she gets an adverse affect her face gets swollen and which does not portray a very good sign for the audience. Interaction Patterns: The way a person expresses oneself in front of people especially in front of their family members gives the sign as to how important the family is to him/her. The way the people interact with each other in the movie is at some point very affectionate but at times it has a lot of antagonism. Dick and Jane are in love with each other and usually are affectionate towards each other. Dick Harper due to his bankruptcy situation loses his senses as he has nothing left but towards his wife and son he is always affectionate. Even though he is made a fool out of when he is losses his job he still reins his temper and uses his head to make a plan. The Communication style between dick and Jane is very simple and the love emotions the have amid themselves, use of touch, space, and eye contact shows that they have an understanding among themselves. The way they treat and show affection to their son is in a very special way; they try to spend more time with him and give him everything so that he doesn’t get bored while they are at work. The verbal techniques by the kid show that he raised more by the housekeeper as he speaks Spanish a lot, but then dick asks Jane to leave the job so that she would spend more time with Billy and she does, which indicates that openness of communication between all the family members. Family Values: Family importance and cultural values are very important but this is not portrayed in the movie, as it does not have any cultural practices. No religious orientations are presented in the movie, it does not teach the audience about anything related to the cultural and religions orientations. The parents are so involved with their lives that even though they do send their son to school they do not have and sort if intervention is his studies which maybe later on be bad for the kid. The movie does not show any health values or any nutrition diet or health care ideas. The movie does not show any family rituals, which would suggest the family goes to weddings or funerals. Coping Resources: Jane helps her husband at the time when he loses his job and is about to be bankrupted; it shows that she supports her husband in every way. When Dick decides on taking back the money he has earned and rob the CEO of the company he use to work for, Jane helps him in retrieving it, which is not a very good way because it does not give the right impression on viewers but it shows that the husband and wife both help each other at the time of need. Jane tries to give every sort of emotional support to her husband as he is on the verge of losing his mind; she helps in controlling it and helps him out with the plan. The support they get from outside the family is not much as the co-workers are not very helpful and the friends have turned their back, as they don’t have anything left because of Dick’s job. Family stressors: The greater stressor is the financial crisis the family goes through because they lose everything. After the closure of the organization Dick works for, the family goes through major financial crisis in which they are about to lose their house as well, and the way they handle the stressful situation is that they make a plan to retrieve what was rightfully theirs and was stolen from them. Family system strengths: The movie shows that family health persuades family performance, and family performance, consecutively, persuades its own and society’s perceptions of its health. As Dick is suffering from Constant stress resulting from inadequate functioning it adversely affects Jane and she decides to help Dick that displays the family hardihood is the internal potency and toughness of the family unit. As Jane helps Dick with the awful situation they are in it leads to the fact that their family strengths are really strong. Conclusion: The movie Fun with Dick and Jane is a family oriented movie, which shows a lot of positive sides of a persons life, of what a person goes through and how their families help them out in situation when at-times they are out of control. It has a lot of negative aspects as well; it is not a movie one would learn from. Summary of The family/cultural assessment A family assessment is about building relationships, which helps to construct a joint trust and respect among them. The partaking of families in the assessment of difficulty in performance and plan of behavioral intrusion suggests that families not only are able of appraisal, plan, and completion of behavioral support, but they can present information and aptitude that greatly improve the efficiency and competence of the procedures. The relationship among the family can be built upon when problems arise. In the turnout of open communication, families and assistants can work as one to recognize the familiar and official supports that can decrease or eradicate the factors causing harm or risk. An affiliation with the family helps build the family’s intelligence of organizing and the skill to do well, while guarantying that suitable supports and services are recognized. A family assessment frequently will help in setting apparent, specific, and attainable goals. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dorothy A. Watson, MSN, RN (2002), Psychosocial cultural family factors in health nursing, professional nursing journal, vol-4, pg-268-343. Reni Courtney, Linda Holland (2001), Journal of Community Health Nursing, professional nursing journal: vol-15, page 45. Denise J. Drevdahl, Belinda Y. Louie, Jill M. Purdy, Richard W. Stackman (2003), Advancing the scholarship of teaching through collaborative self-study. Journal of professional nursing education, vol-74, PG 150+ Wendy K. Berg, K. Mark Derby, Robert H. Horner, Stephanie M. Peck Peterson (2002); Education & Treatment of Children, Collaboration with families in the functional behavior assessment of and intervention for severe behavior problems, vol-25, pg-5+ Judith S. Brook, Patricia Cohen, Thomas N. Crawford, Jeffrey G. Johnson, Joel R. Sneed (2004) The course and Psychosocial correlates of personality Disorder in adolescence, Erikson’s Developmental Theory: Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol-33, pg-224, 256. Sue Pierman (2005), Carrey has some fun with “Dick & Jane”, Special Journal Sentinel, online journal posted on December 20 2005. Word Count: 2,115 Read More