Method of Intervention in Social Work Practice - Term Paper Example

Lecturer: presented: This essay will address task centered and crisis intervention approaches. It will explore principles, techniques and phases, which will be illustrated on the chosen scenario. In addition, anti-discriminatory practice will be addressed. Furthermore, this paper will also address the similarities and differences of the two approaches as well as the advantages, disadvantages and its limitations. Finally, it will address the effectiveness in application of these interesting approaches. Task centered approach has become a very popular method of intervention in social work practice. This method provides social workers with the opportunity to focus on the individual needs, in order to bring about changes to the service user situations. The effectiveness of the task centered approach is clearly identified from the great outcomes at the end of the intervention. There is an element which is usually important to recognize when using the task centered approach; that is, when service users are facing problems they have also the means to solve them. The social worker in partnership with the service users will come across solutions to the problem in question. This approach provides social workers with a duty to empower service users while using it. (Coulshed & Orme, 2006). Moving on to the task centered principles, mutual clarity between worker and service user about the purpose of their interactions is required. This is achieved when good communication is maintained between them. This model is very practical as it allows the service user to make smaller and meaningful changes. This model is limited as it can not deal with more than three issues in order to ensure effectiveness of the intervention. It requires work in partnership and maximum collaboration from the service user. The intervention should be measured to ensure its effectiveness. The social worker and service user should evaluate the outcomes to ensure positive results (Healy, 2005) When applying the task centered model with a clear aim to succeed in the intervention with service users, five sequential phases it should be observed; both the social worker and service user should be absolutely clear of the process of the intervention. Clear explanations must be provided by the social worker, including the time limited process. In addition, the social worker should explore the service user’s situation to find out why the problems have occurred, and identify the relevant issues needed to be addressed. Moving on to the second phase of the intervention, once all the issues have been explored and acknowledged, both the social worker and service user should start working together and ranking the issues according to their priority. The next step in this phase is to decide which issue to sort out first; the two parties should enter the goal -setting process. In order to reach the service user’s goals, different tasks will be assigned by the social worker. These tasks should aim to enhance the problem solving as well as empower the service user and provide self direction and decision making. The tasks must be clearly stated, in regard to how they will be done, by whom, and what will be done. Both parties should reach a formal agreement to work in partnership in order to succeed when sorting out the problems. The fourth and fifth phase could be regarded as one. It is about the social worker and service user reviewing the undertaken tasks to establish if the goals have been achieved. If it is established that they have been solved successfully, the problem would be assumed to have been solved and the intervention will be concluded. If this is not so, the deadline may be extended for further tasks. (Trevithick, 2005; Stepney & Deirdre 2000). The interpretation of the first scenario will be approached on the assumption that the service users (parents) are not drug miss users. Nevertheless, the children have been neglected by their parents. The scenario will be addressed following the same framework as the above five sequential phases used in task centered practice interventions as found relevant to solve Dan’s, Jo’s and their parents’ problems. This illustration will focus on solving three family issues. It is evident that the whole family is suffering due to poverty. The situation is chaotic, and the Richmond couples have developed a kind of reluctance towards making the situation any better, neither for their children nor for themselves. The children act of 1989 comes in to play here as the Richmond children are in need as they are unable to maintain reasonable standards of health (Opsi 2009). Looking at the Richmond children it is clear that they have not been provided with basic education, principles and norms. Thus they have grown up in unfavorable conditions in regard to what is understood to be good for the growth and development of children (Children Act 1989, 1989 Chapter 41). In the case of the Richmond couple, it is clear that the aspect of parental responsibility has not been fulfilled by either of the parents. Once a clear explanation had been provided from the social worker to the Richmond family members, the next step is to explain about the process of the intervention in a limited time, now that the children’s problems have been explored and issues identified. The aim is to work in partnership to rank the problems; the first problem that needs a solution is about the children’s misconduct at school. The social worker in partnership with the Richmond’s family decides what tasks need to be performed in order for the family to establish a solution to the problems they are facing. The first task assigned is for the social worker who in agreement with the Richmond’s family will send a letter to the family’s health visitor requesting an appointment with the Richmond’s family. This will present an opportunity for them to discuss about better health and hygienic habits needed for the children to regain their confidence in society and the school in particular, and also raise awareness on how they should behave. This task is to be accomplished in the first week. In the following four weeks, the parents will supervise their children closely to make sure they are practicing the new skills learned from the health visitor. For example, children should wash themselves every morning and wear clean uniforms, they should have a proper breakfast before they go to school, they have understood how to use cutlery amongst other things. The task for the fifth week is for the social worker and parents to review the progress made by the children. If the last sessions were successful, it might continue for other four weeks for if there is anything else that needs to be implemented and the children reach the goals improving their behavior the intervention should end. The second task is for the social worker and the parents to agree in a set of house rules, norms and principles. This task will be performed in one week. The next five weeks will be for the children to put these rules and norms in to practice. The parents will supervise them and ensure that they always follow the rules, at home as well as at school. This constructive work with the children is aimed at providing positive outcomes, and as a result they will behave in better manner, respecting themselves and the others. The social worker will follow through all the process; after week six, the two parties will review the rules to establish whether they are effective for the purpose of improving their behavior. If they continue practicing, by the end of four weeks time the children will already have learnt these rules and consequently improve their behavior. Task three is for the parents and the social worker to visit the job centre and arrange a job interview for both husband and wife with their consent. This task will be performed in the first week. In the next five weeks, the parents will enter a short training course for them to be able to get back into work. Week six will be for the parents and the social worker review the effectiveness of the task in order to solve the problem. In week seven, the parents will find a part time job. A path of earning will be opened for them and consequently, they will be able to gain back the confidence which slowly will lead them to develop confidence in their capability to make a difference in their life as well as make the lives of their children better. On the grounds that all the tasks and goals have been successfully achieved, and the problems have been solved, the social worker closes contact with the family and in the near future communicates with them again to find out how they are coping or if there is any other problem that they are facing. However, in the event of illustrating the scenario crisis intervention, the social worker will have to ponder over their psychological and physical condition. Moving on to the anti-discriminatory practice approach throughout the intervention on the scenario, the social worker’s duty was to empower the service users at all times, and working in partnerships while giving them choices, and respecting the children’s views, while promoting their autonomy. In addition, their diversity were valued and respected. According to Thompson (2006), the anti-discriminatory practice should aim at eradicating discrimination amongst social workers as well as challenging the services users to adopt same practice. This section will focus on the similarities and differences between tasks centered and crisis intervention methods. Both methods are consider as brief therapy concentrating in urgent and practical problems rather than long –term problems (Paine, 2007). They are time limited and are heavily criticized for their short term intervention which is not always enough to solve the individual and family problems. This situation might lead to social exclusion. Similarly both methods are characterized by the use of different phases, purposes and tasks to empower service users and help them sort their problems built on cognitive ideas. To come to the dissimilarities between the above methods, while the task centered approach is preoccupied in solving the problems in the day to day lives, the crisis interventions is projected to promote psychological growth. The two methods differ from each other in the condition of the time limit for the task centered approach. For example, the service users are motivated with the idea that their goals will be achieved soon. Whereas, in the crisis intervention approach, they believe that the crisis is an opportunity for exploring the client’s feelings, looking for a meaningful change. Though both methods are focused on problem solving, in the crisis intervention, the social worker interacts less with the service users due to their willingness to make the changes more independent (Healy, 2000). Moving on to the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods under study, the task centered approach has advantages in the sense that, tasks and goals are completely achievable, thereby enhancing an individual’s strength and capacity. More over, the outcomes are easy to evaluate as the approach is time limited. The task centered method is based on a personal approach, thus the service user’s self determination and decision making is vital. The advantages of the crisis intervention approach can be seen in the effectiveness in the use of resources and service user’s efforts. Crisis intervention can be applied in different contexts, for example to help service users to cope with bereavement or depression. This method provides an analysis to both internal and external factors in order to understand the reason for the changes that occur in people (Trevitick, 2005) In regard to the disadvantages of the task centered approach, it is seen as routine practice where the models are used only to exercise social control. What is more is that the service user may not be willing to complete the set tasks, and they might be blamed for having not been motivated to undertake the tasks (Adams et al, 2002) Moving to limitations task-centered model may not be effective if service users do not collaborate in completing the tasks assigned, it is limited as it can only be used to address short term problems. For instance, if the Richmond couple considered to be misusing drugs, this model may not be appropriate, they would have required long term intervention and treatment. On the other hand, the crisis intervention’s main limitation is that the social worker and the service user should act immediately when the crisis appears or otherwise, the service user will be compelled to find other mechanisms to deal with the problem (Trevitick, 2005) In conclusion, both models are highly effective tools that enable the social workers to empower service users to achieve their goals and help to sort their problems reaching positive outcomes as indicated by the above scenario. Both the service users and the social worker have to be dedicated in undertaking the tasks allocated to them. Without this enthusiasm, the goals of intervention can not be accomplished. If the above scenario was to be applied using the crisis intervention approach, the main aim would have been to help the Richmonds family to recover the equilibrium in order for them to get back to a steady state. I would like to state that this essay was delayed due to the proof readers fault. She had one week to make the corrections, but she only sent it to me just an hour to the deadline. I was unable to contact her since she was away on holiday, and therefore I had to engage another proof reader, who again took a week to deliver the paper. It took me extra time to amend the paper for the reason that I am a dyslexic student, and also the fact that English is my second language. I apologize for the delay. Read More