Empowerment Practice with Families in Distress by Judith Bula Wise

Author:Judith Bula Wise [Wise, Judith Bula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Work
ISBN: 9780231124638
Google: HKurAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2005-02-05T03:30:25+00:00

Part III

Helping Families

6

The Phases and Actions of Empowering Practice

The three phases of helping—beginning, middle, and ending—can aid the social worker in conceptualizing the progression of the work. It is useful for the worker to know the generalities about each phase, but the specific shape that each phase takes for an individual family can be determined only in the moment-by-moment transactions with that family. Each phase is characterized by a context, by developmental needs (of the family unit, of the individuals in the family, of the work itself), by a complex web of multicultural factors, by different qualities in the relationship between worker and the family system and subsystems, and by tasks specific to the work of that phase. Individual family members are likely to be in different phases at the same time. While some are ready to end the whole process after ten minutes, others may never leave the trust-building of the beginning phase. Even when a family reaches an active and involved middle phase of work, common post-trauma responses, such as intrusive memories or flashbacks, may enter the working relationship. In these instances, tasks specific to the beginning phase may need to be revisited. Avoidance of a “flight into health” that would prematurely end the work may need to be explained.

Sometimes families are self-referred, such as the Laurencio-Smith family. Sometimes they are mandated to receive services by a court decision, such as Cynthia Brown-Wiley and her children. And sometimes there is a combination of both self-referred and mandated requests for services, as in the Williams family. Many families include at least one reluctant member at some point in the work. Often these members voice their wish not to participate, and that wish is refused. Therefore, this insistence on their participation against their wishes becomes a kind of internal mandate, occurring as part of the family dynamics rather than coming from an external source. These dynamics of both formal and informal mandates have a marked influence on all phases of the work.

Variation exists in the middle and ending phases as well. In highly distressed families for whom chaos and complexity are the norm, rapid change is a given. It is extremely unlikely that such families will be able to follow a treatment plan smoothly from beginning to end. Therefore workers need skills in the middle phase that are consistent with managing rapid change, that enable them to stay with the family from one moment to the next, assisting with actions that are familiar and doable in the moment.

Highly distressed families frequently end their work with social workers prematurely, suddenly moving to other locations or simply deciding to end the work without informing the social worker. When it is difficult to access services, the sheer effort involved in gathering the family together may be too overwhelming to continue. Family members may also leave the work emotionally but still attend physically.

These variations call for us to look at practice in phase-specific ways, discarding rigidity about how and when each phase occurs or “should” occur.

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