A mental health crisis can occur in anyone’s life. Whether they have previously dealt with such issues, they impact people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Everyone experiences crises differently, and each one has a unique source. For example, an individual might be so distressed that they cannot leave home due to panic attacks. They may not have felt well enough to take their medicine (or it may no longer be working), or they may be first-time sufferers of mental illness. It can result from a shift in circumstances, the dissolution of a relationship, or a financial predicament.
Family issues have long been tied to social work. In the past, most family-focused social work techniques prioritized individual problem-solving. However, modern social work methods have emphasized development, functionality, and healing.
Numerous casework strategies that can be applied to families have been created during social work practice. Here is a brief history of these methods.
Charitable organizations and societies were active in big cities during the Industrial Revolution’s influx of immigration to help needy families. A group of volunteers known as “friendly visitors” visited people’s homes to learn more about their needs. Making “almsgiving scientific, efficient, and preventive” was the goal. In the early eras of social work, social workers believed that their roles included raising awareness of issues, awakening the public’s consciousness, advocating for participants, encouraging their engagement, and providing information about their needs.
The age of diagnostic social casework was marked by incorporating Freudian concepts into social casework, psychoanalytic methods, and movements like mental hygiene and child guidance. The diagnostic process focused on resolving psychological issues thought to show themselves in behavior and interpersonal interactions.
For example, early treatment with parents in child guidance clinics emphasized transformation through education; mothers’ personality issues often played a central role. This diagnostic method solidified the position of the expert in social work practice by focusing on the diagnosis and identifying intricate psychological problems.
This method, first used in the 1930s, carried on Freud’s emphasis on personal functioning and the need for a diagnostically oriented evaluation of inadequacies in the self and the environment. This method concerned character disorders and “multi-problem” families more than individual neurosis. Interventions based on understanding every component of the social and personal systems involved in the client’s problems were a feature of this approach.
Fixing issues
Those who took a problem-solving perspective saw problems as a natural part of life. Problems were made to seem commonplace by the central tenet that “living is a process of problem-solving.” This strategy’s focus was on improving problem-solving skills rather than psychological transformation. This strategy continued the historical trend of emphasizing deficits, presuming that any failure to deal with issues was caused by a lack of motivation to work on the topic or an inability to address it suitably.
Family Counseling
Some medical professionals developed a theory concerning familial diagnosis in the 1950s. Those looking for methods of diagnosing and treating families also used ego psychology. Social workers started turning to systems theory more as they discovered that individually focused conceptions were insufficient to describe how families functioned.
Here is a brief overview of what is involved in becoming a qualified social worker.
- Education: The first step is to acquire a social work bachelor’s degree. Those with a bachelor’s degree can apply for a two-year Master of Social Work program. Cleveland State University provides a unique distance-learning opportunity for aspiring social workers to complete an online social work master’s under the guidance of qualified and skilled faculty members.
- Registration: Once you have earned your academic credentials, you should register as a social worker with a local or national professional representative organization.
- Experience: After gaining some experience, social workers can advance into more specialist positions in policy and administration, research, mental health, family therapy, and academia. You can volunteer with a helpline or other more direct assistance roles to obtain expertise in the field and improve your résumé.
Social workers typically use the strengths approach, the problem-solving approach, the crisis approach, or resilience building to support and help families and individuals going through a turbulent life patch. A brief description of these approaches is discussed below.
The problem-solving approach
The first step in the problem-solving approach is identifying the problem. This approach aims to find solutions to the issues the client is facing. However, this may be constrained by the client’s capabilities, function, and organizational structure; however, a step in the problem-solving approach is the assessment, which entails identifying what the client wants and the issues causing the challenge. The main emphasis is on identifying and addressing the key causes of the problem.
Once the assessment is completed, the social worker will plan an intervention based on attainable objectives. A social worker must choose the best solutions while considering the client’s skills and potential obstacles.
The final step is to evaluate the outcome of the interventions used. The intervention may be successful if the problem is resolved or reduced.
The strengths approach
The first step of this approach involves identifying the client’s future goals and aspirations. The client is the one who defines their goals by their interpretation of their circumstances. In some cases, a social worker might help an individual uncover untapped potential and skills that can be developed to help them meet their goals.
The next step in the strengths approach is strengths analysis, which focuses on determining what the client is doing to improve things, what is effective, and what will make it easier to keep up with desirable behaviors and circumstances. The assessment focuses on what the client is doing “right” in light of their objectives and vision.
The third step in the approach involves the implementation of interventions, which entails working with the client to develop the abilities, skills, and knowledge needed to achieve their goals. It also involves considering the resources that are available to help the individual.
The last step is to evaluate the outcome of the intervention and how beneficial it has been in achieving the goals. However, it is important to remember that the plan may evolve in this approach.
The crisis approach
This approach is slightly different from the previous methods. A crisis is defined not only as a specific event but also as any additional stresses present simultaneously and the individual’s ability to cope with them. Crisis intervention is focused on action and dealing with the current circumstances. Support is also needed to assist people in adjusting once the crisis has passed.
The fundamental tenet of crisis intervention is that assisting at a time when emotions are more easily accessible is ideal. Instead of delving into unconscious concerns during crisis intervention, the social worker must engage the client cognitively to work rapidly to fix the situation.
There are various interventions that social workers might use during the crisis approach to help individuals and families in overcoming the crisis. For example, ego-sustaining techniques focus on supportive relationships, reflecting, and sharing feelings. Other interventions include providing clients with life skills training, coping skills, desensitization, assertion skills, and relaxation training. Social workers might also help their clients with cognitive restructuring and problem-solving.
Resilience building
Resilience building has long been a part of social work. However, it has recently started gaining momentum as the approach of choice for helping children, adults, and families suffering from an ongoing crisis.
Have you ever wondered why some families and children overcome their challenges in the face of grief, suffering, and challenging circumstances? When this happens, we refer to them as resilient because they can recover.
A social worker’s responsibility is strengthening families and children’s ability to bounce back from hardships such as neglect, exploitation, or separation. To succeed in this role, social workers must first learn to evaluate individuals for characteristics that support or hinder resilience. This enables them to comprehend the assets a certain family may draw upon to address its issues. Perhaps more crucially, they must be able to assist families in acquiring or preserving the capacity to bounce back.
The first step in this approach is to recognize resiliency, which involves the identification of risk traits and resiliency traits. Protective (or resilience) qualities are strengths that assist an individual or family in dealing with stress or other challenges in life, increasing the probability that they will recover from trying circumstances.
A sense of humor, being the firstborn, having situational awareness, and independence are qualities associated with resilience. People with these qualities have tools to help them overcome difficult situations and gain the upper hand. While these qualities do not allow them to avoid difficulties, they can aid in their resolution.
Risk factors may hinder a person’s or family’s capacity to handle stress.
Living in a family with domestic abuse or substance misuse, low birth weight, andg poor self-esteem are risk factors.
These characteristics may have a detrimental impact on how people respond to a crisis. For example, when a problem arises, someone might not know their alternatives or how to seek assistance.
The second step is assessing an individual’s or a family’s resilience. The individual, family, school, community, and environment must be evaluated for protective and risky features to achieve this. Then, the family and the professional may develop an intervention strategy that takes advantage of the family’s capabilities.
The final step is to decide on the intervention that will be implemented. Based on each individual’s problem, a social worker might use one of the following interventions:
- Reducing the impact of risk: The easiest solution to imagine, yet the most challenging to implement, is reducing risk impact. There are two methods of lowering risk. For example, the danger can be changed by giving a controlling parent a different approach to their child. Altering the child’s exposure to risk is another option. For example, working with families to increase the supervision of young people starting to engage in behaviors such as theft or fighting is one way to change the child’s exposure to risk.
- Reducing negative chain reactions: Social workers must alter the individual’s surroundings to minimize risk impact and counteract harmful domino effects. However, it is not always feasible to change a person’s surroundings. Social workers, therefore, need to determine what character attributes will enable someone to overcome significant hardship.
- Promoting self-esteem and self-efficacy: Self-esteem and self-efficacy are two qualities that can foster resilience. However, a person has to be raised with these values. A solid relationship with a primary carer is crucial in early development. Even in the face of significant challenges such as poverty, inadequate nutrition and education, and mental illness, a child may develop into a healthy adult with a high sense of self-worth with the help of a stable relationship with their parents. Achievements in the arts, academia, and the workplace also boost one’s self-worth.
- Providing opportunities: Opportunities for academic assistance, job training, and fulfilling social interactions serve two functions. First, they impart skills to young people, such as improved literacy, acceptable social interaction, or technical instruction. Second, they instill a feeling of optimism for the future and a sense that life has some purpose. Social workers can inform clients of opportunities to help set them up for a better future.
The bottom line
While many think of social work as largely focused on individuals, working at the family level can effectively solve problems and identify improvement opportunities.
