This week’s reading covered social justice and the global community. In the text it discussed how global issues such as poverty and economic inequality affect everyone. It also discussed the economic inequality right here in the United States in which the gap between the very rich and the very poor is becoming more clear every day. This can be seen in the recent protest around the world. In the middle east long times regimes have fallen and here in the United States people have since formed the “Occupy Movement”. Many times when asked the leaders of these movements have mentioned the growing gap between the rich and the poor as one of the main points of their movements. Even as the Presidential race heats up we have heard of issues concerning this same thing. Almost everyone of us has heard of Herman Cains 999 plan which has caught on like wild fire in an attempt to minimize the gap between the classes. We have all sen the signs saying we are part of the 99%, which forces us to realize that we are part of the ever growing lower class in this nation.
Also in the chapter international social work was discussed. It explained that social justice involves upholding the condition that in a perfect world all citizens would have identical “rights, protection, oppertunities, obligations, and social benefits,” regardless of their backgrounds and membership in diverse groups (Barker, 2003, pp. 404-405). This was seen in recent years in Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and in 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck and devastated the country and killed an estimated 220,000 people. During this time social workers rallied and made a huge impact on helping the country and although some progress has been made, Haiti has yet to recover from this and much more work remains.
In the last year I have become interested in international social work as I have been reading on the Masai people in Kenya. The Masai have lived in their traditional ways with little or no government support. It is estimated that less than half of all Masai children attend schools, have clean drinking water or receive any type of medical care, so help is desperately needed in that culture.
This week’s reading covered diversity, populations-at-risk, and empowerment in the macro social environment. The chapter discussed how African-Americans, Hispanics, GLBT people and women still faced many challenges in today’s society. The chapter explained that several things have been done to help these groups establish themselves within the community. African-Americans have established support groups, women have created community programs that educate the public about issues facing them, and the gay and lesbian community have started support groups and recently taken an active role in legal litigation in order to improve their standing within the community. All these groups have come a long way in recent years and still much is need to be done, however the one group that impacted me the most was that of the Hispanic community.
About ten years ago I never gave much thought to the Hispanic immigrants that lived in this country and may have even at one time agreed that if “they” were not here by legal means then we should deport them. Within the last few years several situations have changed my way of thinking and educated me concerning this way of thought. It seems like just recently several laws concerning Hispanics have been enacted which has made it pretty much legal to discriminate against this population. While other groups may be making small steps forward Hispanics have been kicked several steps back. No just looking Hispanic when you are grocery shopping is a reason to be detained and taken off to jail. This last issue is really odd in that I have been to Mexico several times and have seen several pale Hispanics with blond, red and brown hair.
In recent years mothers and fathers in Mexico have found their young sons forced into the drug trade and their daughters, sometimes not even 10-years old, forced into prostitution. I’m pretty sure if you asked most parents here in America if they would flee a situation where this was happening to their children they would all respond yes, weather it was by legal means or not. It seems odd that the Hispanic community is good enough to fight for our country pave our roads and work in jobs that are unwanted by the American population but they are not good enough to live here. A little food for thought……..Hurricane Katrina. This was the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. If anyone is familiar with the storm in Louisiana then they should be aware of the people that came to the rescue well before our own government did. This was the first time in history that our government opened the boarder and allowed the Mexican military to cross into the United States and help these people that were displaced and hungry. I remember sitting there watching the TV as a convoy of Mexican military trucks crossed over the boarder bringing food, water, and much needed supplies to our citizens when we were in need. It seems that the Hispanic community rose to the occasion when we needed them the most but have now been cast as a strain on our community since the situation has now been addressed by our own government. Guess we will just have to wait until once again we are the victims of some unforeseen situation and then we will call on them once again.
This week’s reading covered assessment of geographic communities. I found it somewhat odd that the recent readings were dealing with communities and the roles in which we play in them at a time when our country is facing as series of protest and sit in’s designed to address these very things. At the beginning of the chapter it discussed the significance of power in communities and who has it and why. It was explained that some people obtain power within their community by having information, wealth, reputation, and connections. It discussed the importance of citizen participation and social networks in an effort to address issues and concerns within the community. Once again as I was reading this I could not help but think about the recent “Occupy” movements all across the United States.
I took a break from reading and went and got a coffee from a local gas station and while there I saw the local newspaper that showed protesters in New York being drug away by police. I returned home and cut the TV on only to hear about an Iraqi war veteran who had been injured by the police as he stood quietly protesting. I cut the TV off and went back to my reading but the thought of these actions played over and over in my head. How could it be that our government has intervened in countries such as Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, but here in our own nation our government is doing the same things it has condemned other nations for doing. Now I know the situation in Libya was far different than what we are seeing here and that many people will respond that Gaddafi was a crazy murderous leader that needed to be removed from power but is it not true that when the citizens protested there they actually took up arms and confronted the government? The answer is yes!! Suppose any one of our protesters picked up a weapon and marched on Washington what do you believe would happen? I’m pretty sure we would see the same measures taken in Libya by their government.
The chapter this week encouraged members to stand up and address their concerns in numbers due to having a more powerful voice however one must tread lightly when doing this. I think these occupy movements are actually starting to form helping networks for people in the community that need a voice but are often left unheard due to the lack of power and money that they have at their disposal.
This week’s reading covered communities in the Macro Social Environment. The chapter started out explaining the concept of a community which it described as “a number of people who had something in common with one another that connects them in some way and that distinguishes them from others” (Homan, 2008, p. 8). As I read this I started thinking about our own community and wondered what we have in common besides our geographic destination, in that we all live in this area. The chapter also discussed how social-psychological theories stress how community members feel about their interactions with others in the community and their overall sense of well-being. I then went on to read about how the conflict theories emphasize how various community groups are in constant conflict in a power struggle over resources.
As I sat and read over this material I was drawn back to a meeting in which I attended last week for a school project. Working within our cohort groups here at Southern my group has agreed we would be focusing on helping the Hispanic population with financial resources and education. While conducting research on this topic we were informed that a leader within that community would be speaking at an event located in downtown Chattanooga. I decided to go and see if I could obtain any much need information about the population we had chosen.
Upon arriving at the meeting I found out it was sponsored by Occupy Chattanooga which is a local organization following in the footsteps of the much bigger brother “Occupy Wall Street”. I am in no way fond of these types of movements as I always felt it was individuals with nothing better to do then complain about current events. However by the end of the meeting I had a totally different outlook on our own community and how it was being run. Things such as our own community were discussed and conflicts that were being addressed by the group. I found myself sitting there thinking about the many things within our community that were broken and I had never stopped to realize them. I left the meeting with a new perspective on how our local government is handling our concerns and running our city.
During the reading I went from wondering what I had in common with the individuals from my community to looking back on this meeting and realizing that maybe I have more in common with the individuals around me than I first thought. I have since been actively watching the movement hoping that it grows in momentum, but I like many others with the same beliefs are unable or unwilling to help in the movement due to outside opportunities that could be hindered by taking an active stand.
The readings this week covered knowledge and theories about organizations. The chapter several organizational theories including the Classical Organizational, Human Relations, Feminist and Culture-Quality Ecosystems. It discussed how we have evolved from the Classical model in which the workplace was rigid and workers were told what to do with close supervision, to the other more current models such as the Contingency model in which all organizational elements are dependent on other elements and that there is no one best approach to managing employees. It explained that no organization is perfect and that some organizations are better places to work than others. While reading this I often thought back to several of the jobs I had growing up and tried to identify which theory they fit in.
The chapter also reviewed the scientific management concept and the administrative theory of management. In the scientific model employees were pushed to work as hard as possible to make more money for the company while little or no respect for the workers was given. In the administrative theory things changed and management began to form a clear hierarchy of authority to avoid confusion, enhance consistency, and maximize productivity. Workers were given one boss to report to and knew what was expected of them.
While all this was useful information I kept thinking back to the beginning of the chapter in which organizations were defined and explained. The chapter explained that organizations were social entities that were goal-directed. It mentioned organizations that handled social services within the community and explained that the goal was to improve people’s health, enhance their quality of life and support families and help people improve their functioning in the social environment. I could not help but think of what most people in society think when they hear the word social services. I can almost guarantee you they don’t think of an agency such as the one just mentioned.
In today’s society social services has become synonymous with child protective services which has the reputation of being the exact opposite of what was just described. I do understand that CPS has a job to do in protecting children that can’t protect themselves and many of them I have meet in my career are wonderful at their job, however society has begun to think of CPS as an agency to imposes its will on them and are now fearful that whenever something goes wrong they may see them at their door trying to “take” their children. Somewhere along the line we as a society have gotten lost when a parent has to worry about how they are raising their children out of fear of having them taken away.
Like I said I do believe that their job is a very important one in which they are task with protecting children in danger but I do believe that somewhere along the path the line was crossed and they took on more power than actually afforded to them under the law. Maybe if parents were allowed to raise their children the way they should we would not have overcrowding in juvenile jails. Yep, overcrowding in juvenile jails……. Guess the system is not working too well with the present guidelines, maybe we should let the parents take back the task of raising their own children and see how it goes. I know several people will disagree with this but all you have to do is look at history. Social workers were actually brought in to reservations to help the families and the females with personal issues but over time the workers interjected themselves into a position of power over these same families and lost the trust of the workers. All these years later many Native American individuals still don’t trust the agency and have all but abandoned seeking help from them for other issues.
The reading this week covered human behavior in groups. The article explained that there are many different things that go into making a successful group such as being able to work through problems, communication, and the roles in which each individual in the group plays while trying to implement the program. After reading the material I started to think about our own cohort groups that we were placed in last year and the new ones we were given this year.
Last year the group in which I was part of consisted of three individuals due to some people dropping the course. At first we were somewhat apprehensive towards each other as we had never met however by the end of the year we were really a close knit group. We would even meet for lunch or dinner and discuss issues that had arisen within our research proposal. We communicated really well with each other and knew our roles within the group, as some people had more experience in the issue that was at hand than I. I believe that it was easier because our group consisted of only three members. This made it much easier to communicate and set meetings. It also made it very clear who was to handle what task and when they needed to be done.
This year we were assigned new groups which I at first did not feel comfortable with. It would seem to me that individuals that were passionate about the same types of programs would actually work together and actually implement something that would be beneficial to the city long after we graduated college and not just some project to check the box. But then again I’m not the boss so reluctantly I had to follow. Our new group agreed to work with low income individuals and teach a financial management class, (I was not there they day this was agreed on). We had five members that made it hard to schedule meetings and communication was a barrier due to cultural issues as mentioned in the readings.
After facing our first big problem in which we could no longer offer the class to low income individuals we decided on changing our client base to Hispanic individuals in the area. It was during this time we really started to see our group come together and get back on track. Members began stepping up and working really hard to accomplish the task at hand. Our communication improved as much as it could due to the circumstances. I have actually become pretty comfortable in my new group and have a lot more faith in our members as I have seen each one take on new roles within the last month.
Narrative Theory……Where do I start? Unlike most people this theory has a special place in my education and in my personal life. Where reading the chapter this week it was the first time I had heard of it however not the first time I seen it. Upon starting school at Southern Adventist University I was enrolled in a class in which reflection papers were assigned. This was also my first run in with these so called reflection papers. I remember the first few were actually hard as I would read the material and then regurgitate the material right back out. We were then told they wanted to see how the readings applied to our own lives.
Little did I know that these papers were in some way a form of this theory or so as it applied to my life. It was a life story about where I came from and where I wanted to go and it actually made me stop and think about how I viewed things within my own life and realize others that I needed to change.
As stated in the text, the narrative theory is about empowering the client and helping them gain greater control over their lives and that’s what these reflection papers did for me. The readings also stated that the theory is premised on the idea that people’s lives and relationships are shaped by their life stories and the ways of life they develop based on those stories. This was so true for me as I looked backed I could see events that had impacted my way of thinking and in some cases hindered my outlook on life in general. One thing that stuck out to me in the chapter was the case illustration about the hospice client. The client was asked about little things and she began to reflect back on her life and this gave her a sense of dignity and empowered her and she finally got to tell the world how she saw things and to also leave a story for when she passed away.
The theory is said to have been researched and five out of six families reported that when using this method, relationships improved. I actually stopped and wondered what was wrong with the sixth family as this model is really nothing more than communication and from my point of view can be looked at almost like a conversation amongst friends. Communication is essential in improving relationships and I think this theory would work well in family settings. There have also been many criticisms of the theory which include it not being suitable as a primary intervention when people are in need of basic services and it’s rejection of general theories. I believe that maybe this is somewhat true as this is a good intervention to lead with but incorporating another type of therapy down the line would seem useful, however this being used as a standalone treatment may be right for someone that is facing a certain death and just wants a way to tell their story once they are gone. The fact that it rejects the general theories of practice actually made it appeal to me even more in that everyone is different and sometimes setting things in stone can actually harm progress with a client. Several theories throughout time have been rejected and later discarded when new evidence presented itself.
Since I first began writing those ever so popular reflection papers I have come to realize that this in itself is a type of therapy for me. I have continued to write these papers even after the class was over not only as therapy but to also leave my story for my daughter so that later in life she will be able to look back and see what made me the way I was and why I valued the things I did. I guess because of how much it worked for me I would defiantly use this theory with future clients whether it be as an initial type of treatment of as a standalone treatment depending on the situation.
This week’s reading covered motivational interviewing which seems to be used quite a bit with substance abuse treatment programs. These types of interventions are meant to be brief in which it is only a few sessions before the client is either moved on into some other type of treatment or released altogether. One thing that really stuck out with me was that the text stated that motivational interviewing is often times confrontational. This is sometimes true with programs such as the 12-step programs in which it is believed that being confronted by the darker side of their addiction is necessary in order to overcome the addiction. However many of the cases I have seen in with this type of intervention is used it is done in a respectful way and focuses in the beginning on building a rapport and understanding about what the behavior is doing for the individual. Within this type of intervention, the individual’s point of view about his own behavior is central to recovery and being judgmental can sometimes worsen the situation for the person.
The case illustration is the book in which a homeless man was hospitalized for issues related to his drinking was a story I had heard over and over again. I worked in an area in which several homeless individuals congregated and I had the opportunity to hear several different stories and many of them had problems of substance abuse. These individuals knew they had a problem and wanted to seek help however it was much easier to just go about their day to day activities than try and seek any type of help. Many could not or would not return to families out of shame or because their families wanted nothing to do with them while they were in this shape but in their current environment it was much easier to deal with their problems by the only means afforded to them at this time which was usually alcohol or drugs. In motivational interviewing the social worker starts where the client is and promote client engagement into programs that would be able to help them. I found it really odd that the homeless shelter here in Chattanooga says that if you are intoxicated you can’t stay there. I know there are rules in which to follow but it would seem that individuals with these types of problems would be the ones that would need the services the most. During winter months you can see several of them sleeping under bridges because they used alcohol during the day to escape their daily reality and then they are not allowed any type of assistance at night because they used alcohol. It seems to be a revolving door.
Motivational Interviewing does seem to be something I would use with future clients not only with substance abuse but other things as well. It appears it may be beneficial with substance abuse but from what I have read it looks like this would be used as an initial step toward other types of treatment programs for individuals that suffer many different types of disorders.
This week’s reading covered Solution-Focused Therapy which is in stark contrast to most other types of therapy in that this one focuses on short-term intervention. Like most other models the worker/client relationship is a vital role however in the solution model not too much time is spent at the onset of the therapy trying to develop the relationship and for this reason has been criticized for not adequately building a working relationship with the client. In this type of therapy the worker focuses on the ending of the intervention right from the start.
The goal of solution-focused therapy is for the client to focus on solutions to their problems and become aware of their resources. Unlike cognitive behavior therapy the worker uses their experience to help connect the client with outside resources in order to alleviate the client’s distress. The social worker’s role is dramatically changed from that of other types of therapy in that the worker will help identify and gain access to outside resources in order to help the client.
After reading this chapter I thought to myself that this sounded like a pretty good type of therapy for helping someone who is in a crisis at that moment, however upon further reading it appears that this is the type on therapy that many non-profit agencies use due to the high number of case loads and low funding inadequacies. This type of therapy reminded me of the first internship I did while here at Southern. I interned at an agency called The Relative Caregiver Program. The goal of the agency was to keep children who are living with relatives other than their parents from entering state custody by offering family advocacy and outreach to the individuals raising these children. The goal of the organization is phenomenal, however after working there it became apparent that many times no such advocacy or outreach was being conducted. Often times I would read through the files and find that the individuals in the case file were also receiving benefits from other organizations which was allowed. Upon being given my case load and talking to several of the families already in the system and families that had heard about the system every single one of them (9 in all) advised this was an easy way in which to get their electricity paid or get appliances for their apartments. It was also troublesome to discover that all the individuals I had spoken with knew each other and were all related in some way. Getting your electricity paid and getting much needed appliances in vital in the upbringing of a child but often times these individuals had several relatives living with them in an effort to gain more money which paid in monthly installments by this agency. This appeared to me to cause dependence on the program and hindered the members from seeking out long term solutions that could help them get on “their own two feet”.
I believe that this type of therapy does have a place along with all the rest but workers need to be careful that they don’t lead the client into a dependence on the services offered. Helping individuals acquire the necessary services that are needed at the moment is a great idea but much like this agency when clients become dependent on the agency as a source of income they are doomed to fail when the inevitable budget cuts come about. I could see using this for my future clients but only as a short term “crutch” and not a 5 to 10 year source of income.
In reading the chapter this week which covered the structural family theory the text explained how this theory unlike many others does not focus on the emotional lives of the parties involved as much as on the structure of the family. The theory forces the social worker and the families to both become active in their treatment. I liked how it was explained that the therapist does not concentrate so much on the lengthy process of formal information gathering but in turn uses such things as “ice breakers” to make the clients feel more comfortable. In doing this the social worker learns more about the family by observation and a non-threatening interchange.
The structural family theory focuses on things such as the rules, boundaries, and subsystems of a family and recognizes that power imbalances can occur within the family when there is a lack of structure. It went on to explain about subsystem boundaries that are too rigid and can cause some members of the family to become emotionally or physically isolated from others in the family. Disengaged members of the family may not interact with the family as needed causing a disturbance to the overall structure of the family.
We have all seen something on the news or in own lives in which an individual does something out of the ordinary and then several people talk about what a good person this was and they came from a good family. An example that comes to my mind once again is the infamous Menendez brothers who in 1989 killed their wealthy parents in Beverly Hills, California. The brothers grew up in Princeton, New Jersey and attended a prestigious school there and later attended Princeton University. These individuals came from the “good family” we read about in books however the structure of the family structure was beyond repair and no steps were taken to correct it. I believe this theory is an absolute must use with clients even if it is used with another to better treat the client. I would defiantly use this with future clients. It’s been said more than once that what you do tells more about you then what you say and I believe this theory helps to see the things you’re not saying.
Uncategorized | Mickel Hoback November 29, 2011 | 
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