Nobody Knows - Movie Review Example

Nobody Knows Introduction Briefly, the film Nobody Knows covers the story of four half-siblings whose fathers are not the same. These children are aged between five and twelve years old and they can never go outside to be seen by others and do not attend school as other children but this family seems to be happy (Koreeda, 2004). Their mother got married elsewhere and abandoned them forcing them to survive on their own. With no parent in their lives, these children start a life journey that nobody really knows. They depend on each other to face and overcome various life challenges as they create and follow their own set of rules. The eldest son is charged with the responsibility of taking care of other siblings and heading the family. As time goes by, they use all the money left by their mother and so they are forced to struggle and try to survive without power supply, gas or water at home, and no money to rent (Koreeda, 2004). After some time, one of the siblings passes on and buried by the eldest sibling in a shallow grave. These children continue to long for their mother and with their wary fascination towards the outside world and anxiety over their desperate situation, they do not give up treating each other kindly. They remain determined to survive in such terrible situation and the film ends as these children walk home (Koreeda, 2004). This paper provides an application of this film based on the provided questions. Q.1 There are many ways to engage such a family and work with them in more effective manner including strengths-based approach. Notably, a family is known to be an institution that comprise of parents and children staying together in a household. A strengths-based perspective is the practice which focuses on the identification of the strengths of individuals including children and society at large. This perspective acknowledges the fact that every child and family has a special set of strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, it emphasizes on the link between risks and strengths among individual family members, the family as a whole and the surrounding environment. More so, this approach helps in creating a positive relationship within the family or community. When working with this family, I will focus on every child’s strengths and weaknesses and encourage them to work hard to ensure that they overcome their weaknesses. These children have broken hearts; they are going through very tough situations with no parent to take control and guide them on what to do, therefore, it will be necessary to be considerate, open and positive minded, sensitive, encouraging and optimistic when handling these children in their situation. This is the kind of support these depressed children need to gain strength and overcome life challenges that they are facing. Q.2 Using a strengths-based perspective is the most appropriate way to deal with this family. This perspective is linked with enhanced parental competencies and increased association between members of the family. Increased parenting competency will force the mother of these four siblings to be dedicated to them and show these children their fathers. Generally, strengths-based approach helps in promoting family efficacy and empowerment and this will helps these children live a normal life with increased determination to survive in tough situations. This approach also enhances the capability of families to build positive relationships and develop social support networks. Moreover, the use a generalist framework entails using various conceptual approaches to guide certain practices including strengths perspective and ecological view among others. A generalist social worker should be focused on establishing social work practice to understand the interplay between persons, families, societal and global forces among others. More so, a generalist framework covers various models such as empowerment model, social change model and crisis intervention to guide practice. In addition, social ecology theory or ecosystem perspective is an essential framework that reveals how social members and families and the wider society mutually influence each other. Ecological theory focuses on possible ways in which those individuals facing difficulties can receive support through their social ecology like the community. Therefore, ecological theory is very useful as it provides the framework for the increased consideration of the community and family level interventions with children. Accordingly, having a potential service user in place is necessary because service users play a significant role in improving social care services. Service users will provide these children with enough support they need to survive and give them enough strength to overcome various challenges that they are facing. Q.3 A reasonable intervention strategy to work with this family is being a good facilitator. An effective facilitator helps individuals or societal members to understand their goals and guide them through to achieve these goals. A facilitator focuses more on collectiveness and collaboration and encouraging individuals to work in more effective manner. A facilitator supports every person to do his or her best, think critically and practice accordingly. Facilitation promotes mutual understanding and by offering enough support and encouraging individuals to do their best thinking enables individuals to provide solutions. As a facilitator, I am focused to guide and control these children to ensure that they all take shared responsibility in taking care of each other. An empowerment perspective helps individuals to realize their strengths and enables them to positively interact with others and survive in any situation. In the case of these children, steps in an intervention process start by identifying and understanding the situation these children are in. Another step involves using strengths-based, ecological and empowerment approaches to be able to identify and empower these children on their strengths and capabilities and guide and support them on how to deal with their situation and overcome challenges they are facing. These children need to a good facilitator who will understand them and encourage them to be strong and determined to achieve whatever they desire. With all the challenges in their lives, they need adequate support like supporting them to go to school among other need. They also need to be comforted in order to live a normal like other children. The last step is measuring the effectiveness of the above perspectives in improving the situation of these children. Q.4 From a broader perspective, cultural competencies are defined as the ability to interact effectively with diverse people. It involves having awareness of other people’s culture; positive attitude about cultural diversity; knowledge about other people’s cultures; and necessary skills to survive in a diverse environment. All these cultural competencies need to be considered when dealing with this family. For instance, these children are not allowed to go outside and be seen by others and so through these cultural competencies, they will be aware of the other people’s way of living and develop a broader perspective of the outside world. Having the right attitude and appropriate knowledge about their beliefs and other individuals’ cultures will enable them to interact with their peers effectively. More so, possessing some essential skills including communication and interpersonal skills will also help these children deal with the challenges they are facing. With all this in place, this family will be able to overcome the situation they are going through because they will be able to effectively interact with others and learn how to survive in different environments. By creating awareness on cultural diversity, imparting knowledge required and necessarily skills, and encouraging them to have a positive attitude towards others and situation, it will be easier to deal with this family in their difficult situation. Q.5 After putting a lot of effort to work and support this family, it is important to evaluate progress and success. Monitoring and evaluation is very critical for taking note of any progress. These processes help in identifying issues, measuring progress and improve on the identified mistakes. Evaluation assists in assessing results and effectiveness of my work with this children. Some of the methods that I can use during the evaluation process are observation to determine whether the situation of these children has improved or not. Reference Koreeda, H. (2004). Nobody Knows. Film. Read More