Person, Family, Household-All about the Life of Aboriginal Margaret - Assignment Example

? MULTIDEMENSIONAL SOCIAL WORK METHODS II Assessment Assignment PART A: a. Client identifying information Margaret,Stonehouse Age: 33 Gender: Female Race: Aborigine Address: Swan Narrows, a remote community in northern Alberta in Canada Social worker: Jamie b. Person, Family and household and Community Systems: i. Margaret Stonehouse an Aboriginal woman aged 33 years and is from Swan Narrows, which is a distant community in northern Alberta. She is not particularly close to her parents since they themselves had marital issues, but she shares quite an affectionate bond with her grandmother who helped bring her up as a child. She has three siblings: an older thirty five year old sister named Bertha and two brothers called Art and Mathew, all of whom reside in Swan Narrows. Margaret has lived there almost all her life, even attending school there. She graduated from high school and managed to do a certificate program on business management. Except for the occasional visits to the family gatherings and cultural events, she had never left the community until now. Henry James Laboucan is a thirty one year old who is Margaret’s partner. He parents were not able to look after him or his brother so an aunt looked after the two. He is employed at an oilfield production, and one of his job requirements is to be away from home for weeks at a time. When he returns to Swan Narrows, he helps out his brother – a member of the local band council – with administrative jobs. He spends time with Paul when possible, thus they are very close. ii. Family and Household System Margaret’s maternal side of the family consists of a grandmother, parents and three siblings: Bertha, Art and Matthew. She had a child called Paul, who is now 15, with her husband Joseph Cardinal who was killed in a car accident. Later she got together with Henry and they had two children: Misty who is now seven years old and Ella who is just five. iii. Family and Household System Margaret is very close to her family, particularly her grandmother who she calls ‘her guiding light and spiritual advisor’. Her parents did not have a smooth relationship, faced lots of problems but now they have settled down and are much happier. Margaret also shares a close bond with her older sister Bertha. They are each other’s’ emotional support and Bertha wants her sister to come back to Swan Narrows. The distance has had a negative impact on their relationship. It is just not her alone either; her children have also left their old lives behind. Now they have to attend a new school, make new friends and Paul being a teenager with the hormones all over the place obviously has lots of problems with settling down. Margaret being the mother does not like her children not being happy or satisfied with their new life. Her children want to go back home and even blame her for taking them away from the place they were familiar with, particularly Paul. The fight amongst themselves and it makes her upset. Paul is unsure of what to do. He is old enough to realize what is happening but young enough to want things to go on his own way. He wants to go back and says he will run away but at the same time he does not want to hurt his mother any more. His family needs him. On the other hand, he gets annoyed living at a place he does not like, a place where there is no one to play with and this makes him take out his anger on his siblings. He just screams, there is no physical abuse involved, but he realizes almost at once that he should not be doing anything like that. They ran away from their house to get rid of all the screaming and violence, and here he was again, following in his father’s footsteps. The only difference being that he actually realized where exactly he was going wrong and stopped when it occurred to him. At the same time, he blames his mother for what is happening; he says it is her fault that they were living at New Beginnings. That she particularly provoked a drunken man into attacking her. 2. Presenting Issues: Margaret and her family face problems due to her partner Henry who believes in domestic violence when there is alcohol in his system. On being argued with, beaten and finally threatened to be kicked out of the house during one of the usual drunken rages of her partner, one day Margaret finally decides to leave the house with her children. 3. Strengths, Competencies and Resources: Margaret had the brains to realize when enough was enough and got out of a bad relationship when a line was crossed. This may not seem that big of a deal but Aborigines do not take such steps, the women are generally treated badly and no one takes their side. Even Margaret’s sister Bertha once visits her and tells her to return and even takes Henry’s side. She talks about how she should forgive him for beating her up, return to the place and start a new life. She even refers to how she herself had it worse but apparently she stuck to being mistreated, whichever way it was. Taking such a big step as this required confidence. Also, the fact that Margaret had barely stepped out of the community, especially not alone. Now she was living at a strange place with people she did not know and was willing to adapt to that life even if she was not comfortable there and was responsible for three young kids. Her family is also quite supportive, particular her grandmother. 4. Referral Source and Process; Collateral Information: She had been talking about being physically as well as mentally abused to a social worker living in that area since months. She had thought things would get better but now the line had been crossed and she wanted to do something to bring her life back to track. Leaving one’s home is not an easy job. Margaret had to call up places and talk to a local social worker about her dilemma until she finally heard about the New Beginnings - a second-stage housing agency where women and children who have faced family violence are dealt with. Margaret is interviewed on the phone and her request to stay there is accepted. Waiting for a few days till Henry leaves the house to go for a hunting trip; Margaret takes control of her life and packs up the bags. Booking four tickets on a bus for herself and her three children, they are driven away to a new place to start a new life. 5. Social History: Margaret has not had the happiest of lives. She grew up with parents who constantly had problems with each other and she had to look up to her grandmother instead. As she got into a relationship in her late teens, she married Joseph who left her as a widow and the mother of their son. Not the easiest of lives but it got even worse when she got together with Henry who had an alcohol problem. He abused her till things got too much and she finally took the step of taking matters into her own hands. Her life did have a few good points though like her closeness with her grandmother and Bertha, and her children whom she loved. When she moves to New Beginnings, Margaret is clearly unsure of what is going on around her. She just needed to get out of the place where she was abused so often and she did that. But the New Beginnings is a new place, a new environment and she is not used to it, neither are her children. It is difficult to adapt to life from a local community and into a big urban center. Everything is different, the whole way of life. For Margaret, what is worse is that it is her family, especially her grandmother and elder sister Bertha who helped her keep herself together, live back home and here she is living in new surroundings with no one to turn to. At least, no one who had helped her all her life. Now she has to look to strangers for help. But she is willing to take major steps for a better future for herself and her children. Part B: Tentative Assessment 6. Person: Margaret strikes to me as someone who needs someone with her all the time, someone she could lean to for comfort when needed. She did not have quite a close relationship with her parents so she looked towards her grandmother. As she grew older, her sister Bertha became her confidante. Someone who would be with her all the time, encourage her in all the right ways, etc. Thus, I think, leaving her home must have been quite a big step for her, especially when her children, particularly the older two, are not happy with the decision. Neither is her sister Bertha who even tries to emotionally blackmail her to get her to return. Margaret seems to want to return, it would make things so much easier other than the occasional screaming matches and punches, but she knows what is right and what wrong. During the interview, Margaret is agitated and torn, her foot keeps tapping, and her voice is low and flat. She seems to want to cry but she controls herself. And she sticks to her original decision of not returning back to her old life, at least for the current time. She does not want her children growing up and being scared of such things. She wants to have a normal, happy life. She can probably have it if she stays at New Beginnings till she learns to get on her own feet, which would take considerable time since she has barely stepped out of her own community or used the transport much. It would take time but it would also give her the confidence to step out of the whole situation, she would be independent. She also seems to be lacking in self-worth. She is afraid that Henry might take away her children and she does not want to lose them. She is unsure and nervous about everything, does not what to do. Particularly because she is unable to bond with anyone at New Beginnings since no one there is from her community and she cannot seem to trust people whom she shares nothing with. 7. Family/Household/Primary Social System: From what I have observed through the conversations Margaret has had with various persons, her family may not be the close tightly-knit types, but they are there for her at the end of the day. They are there to support her, encourage her and, of course, her grandmother and Bertha have been present through every period of her life be it good or bad. Margaret probably does not want her children to be brought up by parents, who are constantly arguing, as she did, and that is why she decided to put a stop to it by leaving. 8. Environment: Margaret is an Aborigine and has grown up in a place where women are abused by the men of the house and nothing is ever done to stop them. Barely anyone complains, and even if they lodge a complaint to a man of law, rarely is anything done. And if still the charges are held against the man, he may return after serving his time and take his revenge. So for her to make the decision to leave is something quite unknown. Living in a close community, Margaret barely has any knowledge of the outside world. Even though she is employed at a local business where she has a part-time job as an administrative assistant, she does not really know how to communicate well with strangers. 9. Person’s Strengths: As someone who is dependent on their family, but decided to move away from them, Margaret has shown a great strength of character. By going against the social norms by leaving her partner, by reacting somehow to her being abused, she has shown how there has to be one woman who is brave enough to take a step outside of what is expected of her. The fact that she is trying to improve her life says a lot about her. 10. Patterns and Themes: Margaret is someone who is unsure of herself and needs someone rooting for her constantly. She willingly stayed with Henry in the beginning even though he abused her because that was what was expected of her, what everyone else in a similar situation did. She gets a splurge of confidence and leaves. Then again she is back to being nervous about whether she will be allowed to keep her children or whether she would have to pass them on to Henry. 11. Summary Assessment: Over here, we have talked about Margaret’s family life: her childhood and the bond she shares with some of her loved ones. How she is unable to open up to anyone due to cultural differences, problems she has had with Henry, settling in a new place with children who are not content with the changes. Part C: Potential Interventions: 12. Needs and Goals: Margaret should go out more and interact more with the public to gain confidence. Spending time with people she does not know would force her to talk and eventually her speaking skills and confidence level would improve. Going around, talking to people of various cultures would help her realize that the step she had taken was right. That, in fact, she should have taken it much earlier. Ecomap: Genogram: Grandmother Mrs Stonehouse Mr Stonehouse Margaret Joseph Bertha, 35 Art Matthew Margaret, 33 Henry James Laboucan, 31 Misty, 7 Ella, 5 Paul, 16 = Female = Male = Victim = Substance or Drug Abused Problem = Deceased Read More