Please read the following scenario:
Participant story: You are a single parent with a case open through Child Protective Services (CPS), and have been linked with a preventative foster care agency to ensure you satisfy the requirements in order to establish safety within the household. You are 28, have two children all under the age of 9 and are a part time student obtaining your Nurse Practitioners degree. As a client, you are expected to welcome the SW into your home for announced and unannounced home safety checks, ensure your children are well fed, their grades are maintained, and their school relationship is satisfactory, and answer all questions and attend all suggested appointments the case planner sets up despite your schedule. You are expected to feel comfortable as the SW checks for scratches and bruises amongst the children, conduct spontaneous school visits, and check the household refrigerator and medicinal cabinets for expired medicine and foods. While this is all “expected” of you, it does not mean you are comfortable with the process and you are encouraged to push back, where you deem appropriate.
You are meeting with your SW for the first time to discuss why the case was opened and how you might establish safety and stability within your home.
Social Worker tasks: You are a graduate student at Columbia University, interning as a case planner for a Foster Care agency doing preventative work. You are 28, and have one child under the age of 10. You are expected to support your client and obtain the resources necessary that will help the client and their family establish a stable household. You have never met this client, and must complete an intake session creating a plan to establish household stability and safety.
It is your role to encourage the participant to tell you what they believe is their family’s struggle, and how he/she/they might need you as a support. You want to encourage them to share both their strengths and weaknesses, and discuss what safety might look like to them versus what safety looks like to Child Protective Services.
Try to remember to empower the family and ensure they understand they are the expert of their own lives. It is your job to listen, and support the client as you develop a plan. It is your job to develop realistic goals that the client is able to achieve and maintain.
As this is the first intake, it is expected that you discuss a follow-up appointment in order to conduct a home safety check.
Place yourself in the shoes of the clinician/social worker.
Discuss how you would navigate the scenario. Please use the PROP lens along with the following resource from this week as a tool and point of reference:
Morgaine, K. and Capous-Desyllas, M. (2015). Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice: Putting Theory into Practice. California: Sage Publications, Chapter 4, (pgs 152-161)
Please write how you would navigate the scenario and be prepared to view an in-class role-play based on this scenario and to provide feedback to your peers.
