The Major Challenges in the Mental Social Work - Case Study Example

Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Introduction In the cases where a person is suffering from any form of mental problem, it takes the efforts of the society to work effectively with these people and ensure that they do not experience any form of prejudice in the society. The mental health facilities usually have some employed social workers making it a field of practice for the various social workers. This is because the workers in the field have to learn how to approach the mental illness cases and analyze some models that the society and other medical fields have. This paper looks at the factors to be considered in making the social work assessments and in the development of a case management plans with the mental health clients. The major challenges in the mental social work The workplace for the mental social workers is highly contested. This is because the workplace of the health departments usually has people coming from various disciplines and those various disciplines have their own practices when it comes to mental health cases. As a result, the social workers face competition for expertise and authority (Bland, 2009). This in turn affects service delivery of the social workers in dealing with the mental health issues and thus the efficiency is usually low (Kemp, 1994). The other problem is that there is lack of work paradigm in the context of social work. This means that the social workers are not able to clearly define and understand the domains that they should use in their social work. This also has some effects in the delivery because they are unsure of the extent that they should reach in offering their services (Bland, 2009). They sometimes make shallow deliveries and sometimes take it beyond the extent that they should reach leading to quarrels with the practitioners from the other health departments. The social workers also have a challenge of connecting the practices in the workplace to some theories of practice. Mental illness presents itself in various ways and as a result, various theories need to be put into practice (Bland, 2009). Some social workers use some form of a unified practice in all cases and this does not work for all the patients. Thus, challenge arises on how these social workers should apply different theories as demanded by the various cases arising. Collaborative work between the caretakers from homes and social workers also stands as a major challenge. This is because families have posed some strict rules on the caregivers and as a result, they handle the patients with too much care. In some cases, they stop the social workers from administering some practices based on the strict rules that they have to follow (Bland, 2009). This in turn leads to some forms of quarrels between these two parties thwarting a collaborative work between them. The training of the social workers also has some challenges associated with it because people are not sure on the kinds of knowledge to be fostered in the training of these social workers and the effective means of training these social workers. These training uncertainties leads to the establishment of a gap in the delivery of the training itself (Bland, 2009). Thus, the social workers do not have the best knowledge because of the uncertainties. From this, it is clear that formulating relevant strategies to close these gaps can improve training and in turn increase the working efficiency of the social workers. The social work practice based on Case Study 1 Justin is unable to corporate socially because she is suffering from the mockery people made on her while she was growing up about the issue of her being neither white nor black. This stigma grew in her because she did not open up early enough to find a solution to her problem. Even though she states that she has moved on and cannot be affected by what she went through after the teacher touching her inappropriately, it is clear that the experiences have made her suffer from a psychological disorder and this is negatively affecting her social work (Bland, 2009). There is thus a need to develop a recovery approach for her that will enable her cooperate well socially and be able to merge well with her neighbors who have started considering her acts as strange (Bland, 2009). If the correct healing mechanism is not found in due time, there is a possibility that her neighbors could end up associating her with some bad things because they might think that she is avoiding her neighbors because she does not want them to know of what she does. In addition, if this defect continues, Justin might end up looking for solutions from other negative things such as the use of narcotics that can have adverse effects to her health. Thus, finding an appropriate solution to her problem could be a major step in avoiding such negative occurrences. Chances are also high that she might end up committing suicide because of her inability to cope with the social part of life (Kemp, 1994). The recovery oriented approach The best social recovery for Justin her understanding that she has a problem that needs to be resolved (Bland, 2009). This would enable her cooperate well with the various recovery mechanisms that would be recommended for her. If she is unable to understand that she is suffering from a social condition, she might act in ways that oppose what those recovery mechanisms would demand. In addition, her understanding that she needs help can help shorten the recovery time because her cooperation can do tremendous job in making her heal. The first recovery mechanism would involve encouraging her to associate with those people who understand her situation (Bland, 2009). The first person in this case would be the bar patron that told her to consult a social worker. It is important to understand that supportive people plays a vital role in easing the works of social workers. The bar patron having worked with Justin for quite some time can help the social workers in understanding Justin’s situation that would help the other social workers to understand her well and help the team manager in establishing an effective recovery mechanism. The first thing to encourage in her would be to make her understand that she is not limited in any way just because she is neither white nor black. Her ability to lead in classes while she was growing up means that she is much superior compared to others and she should be encouraged to rise up from her comfort zone and shine using the super brain that she has. This would encourage her and make her understand that she is a very special person that life needs. One way of doing this can be through involving her in social things like meetings, taking her contributions seriously, and putting them in practice. This is important because through such things, she will be able to understand the roles she plays in social contexts and this would raise her self-esteem (Bland, 2009). The other way of making her recover can be through social therapy. This can be through enrolling her in counseling that would make her realize that there is no need of avoiding people and socializing just because of her past. The counselors should encourage the mentality that she had based on the sexual molestation that she experienced that the past is the past and she should let go of all the bad things that happened to her in the past. She should be made to understand that not all people would be similar to those ones in her past and she should use her past to be cautious with the people that she interacts with (Bland, 2009). Justin’s case is a normal reaction to her experiences because some of the people who have had negative experiences in their past tend to avoid people as a way of preventing such negative past experiences. Incase all the above procedures fail; Justin can be taken in the process of mental processes to be able to establish the effects of her past on her mental state (Austin, Boyd & Austin, 2010).. The manager should organize with some efficient psychiatrists who would effectively diagnose the mental status of Justin. This is important because effective diagnosis would help in choosing the best social treatment program for Justin. There are possibilities that she could be suffering too much and a well-established set of processes could help in providing a window to the mind of the victim making it easy to establish the level of the problem. The other way of dealing with Justin’s problem is organizing for talks with the people who have undergone what she went through. This will make her realize that she is normal and make her understand that what she is going through because of her past can happen to anyone. This can be very helpful because it can make her committed towards healing and resuming a normal social life that others have (Bland, 2009). From the information provided, it is clear that she has never given herself the chance to interact and share with other people and it could be that her past is now hitting on her. This process can best be achieved through the process of rehabilitation that exposes her to the various social treatment mechanisms such as setting her own individual goals, vocational training, and recreational training. All these processes help in encouraging social activity. It would be very important to include approaches that facilitate individual relationships. This is because the level of damage to Justin has reached a point in which she cannot even concentrate in her relationships (In Donohoe, 2013). In the psychiatrist cases, she could be treated using CBTs that would help her in coping with the stressful symptoms that could be making her avoid people. CBTs also help in building a stronger self that would help her in future. Some antipsychotics could also be recommended to her that helps in treating some forms of mental illnesses. The bad thing with this form of medication is some side effects that are usually difficult to mitigate (Austin, Boyd & Austin, 2010). Factors to consider in the process of assessment Some factors play important role when assessing the assessing the victim. One of them is the general appearance of the patient including her attitude. Obtaining of this can be through looking at some physical factors such as the way the patient dresses, the facial expressions, and the mannerisms. Just by looking at Justin, it is clear that she is unwell because she no longer bothers about her grooming. This shows the level of mental illness in her meaning that she needs special attention because the condition has reached the damage level (Avison, McLeod & Pescosolido, 2007). Another factor to consider would be speech characteristics. This is considered based on the quantity of speech, the rate at which she produces her words and the quality of her wording. Justin has low speech rate meaning that she is mentally unwell (Bland, 2009). She does not associate with her neighbors and does not case of either her boyfriend or her parents. This is indicative of the state of her mind and the level of damage that her situation has caused her. it would be said that the level of damage is not severe if there would have been quality in the level of interaction with the people that she is close with notwithstanding whether she communicates with her neighbors or not (Gold & Shuman, 2009). The third important factor to consider when assessing Justin would be her mood. This can be in relation to what she says and what a social worker would observe in her. Based on mood, the most important thing to look at would be the affect. This is what leads to the manifestations of feelings of the patient in more than just moods. In the case of Justine, they present themselves in various ways including her abandonment of a relationship with a boyfriend (Hersen & Thomas, 2002). Another factor to consider is the thought process and the content of those thoughts. What Justin went through while she was growing up affected her thought process and even though she performed well in classes, the social context of her thoughts had been affected with relation to content and as a result, she avoided socializing with other people (Avison, McLeod & Pescosolido, 2007).This was detrimental to her and it affects adversely in her later stages of life because she could not even relate well with her parents. The theories to apply in the assessment process One of the theories applied in assessing the social work is the theory of moral conduct. This is the theory that judges how people should behave in social context and in case they fail to show any of the behaviors stated or they show conflicting behaviors then they would be considered to be mentally unfit (Gold & Shuman, 2009). This is the case with Justin because she fails to socialize effectively even with her parents and the reason being that she is afraid of a repeat of what she had gone through while she was growing up. Ethical issues when dealing with social work When dealing with patients in this case, some issues normally arise. First among them are the rights of the patients vs. risks. Issues normally arise on self-determination and the protection of the patient and the existence of social control (Bland, 2009). The assessment and administration of some mechanisms, which lead to recovery, might mean avoiding some important things in life and this leads to the breaking of the ethical laws of conduct. The practitioners usually do not give the clients the chance to choose the kind of medication to be administered to them and this does not respect the freedom of choice of the clients. One of the reasons given by the practitioners is that giving the clients this chance would make them chose some medication procedures that may lead to the relapse of the state (Avison, McLeod & Pescosolido, 2007). Another issue that arises is the fostering of respectful relationships with the clients. This is normally hard because the social workers have to be controlled in terms of behavior and some of the patients usually consider the social workers to be restrictive and this deters them from having good relationships with the patients. Thus, there are difficulties in making good relationships with the practitioners. The practitioners and the social workers on their part strive hard to facilitate this relationship because they for sure know that good relationships helps in understanding the conditions of the patients which helps in the designing of effective recovery methods and procedures. Some of them normally do this by arranging involuntary treatments which tends to impress the clients in some way (Bland, 2009). Conclusion Social work practice in mental health proves to be difficult because caution has always to be taken to protect the interests of the mentally unfit. Thus, some considerations and issues have to be solved to ensure the success of the process. It is also clear that this field has various challenges with other fields and this affects the efficiency of the social workers. Thus, solution needs to be generated for such challenges and issues to facilitate an easy working condition for the social workers. References Bland, R. (2009). Social work practice in mental health: an introduction. 1st ed. New York: Read How You Want, pp.1-400. Kemp, D. R. (1994). Mental health in the workplace: An employer's and manager's guide. Westport, Conn: Quorum Books. Hersen, M., & Thomas, J. C. (2002). Handbook of mental health in the workplace. Thousand Oaks [u.a.: Sage Publ. Tausig, M., Fenwick, R., & SpringerLink (Online service). (2011). Work and mental health in social context. New York: Springer. Austin, W., Boyd, M., & Austin, W. (2010). Psychiatric & mental health nursing for Canadian practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. In Donohoe, M. (2013). Public health and social justice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons. Gold, L. H., & Shuman, D. W. (2009). Evaluating mental health disability in the workplace: Model, process, and analysis. Dordrecht: Springer. Avison, W. R., McLeod, J. D., & Pescosolido, B. A. (2007). Mental health, social mirror. (Springer e-books.) New York: Springer. Read More