The purpose of this assignment is for students to complete a family-focused psychosocial assessment. This will involve you watching a movie from pop culture that highlights family dynamics. The movie to watch is listed below:
- Madea’s Big Happy Family (selected movie)
- Please be sure to indicate the movie selected, including year of release, at the beginning of your assignment.
- Write the assessment as if you were a social worker writing about a family that you had just interviewed. In your assessment, apply systems theory and the GIM Model to generate a better understanding of the family. Your assessment should include the following components:
a) Agency context: Identify the agency where the family is receiving services. Briefly describe the agencies mandate and mission. (1 paragraph)
b) Names of family members and a description of their relationships to each other. (1 paragraph)
c) Presenting Problem: Identify a presenting problem from the movie you watched. (e.g., a child who is being bullied at school for being “a sissy,” a parent who loses his/her job and can no longer support the family, a teenager who abuses cannabis, or a family that is experiencing discrimination from neighbors). Keep in mind that your movie may involve several family subsystems. Please focus on one or two specific presenting problems. Describe the presenting problem as if it were a real problem: What motivated the family to come for services? How does each family member view the presenting problem, concern, or issue? What is the history of the problem (how did it emerge, how has it changed over time, how serious is it now, and what has the family tried to do to manage this problem in the past)? (1 page)
d) Family Structure and Dynamics: Apply family systems concepts, for instance, linking the concepts of boundaries, subsystems, triangles, norms, life cycle challenges, acculturation, rules, and roles to your family of origin. (2 pages).
e) Family Stressors and Needs: Identify the family’s biopsychosocial-spiritual needs and stressors, as they perceive them (e.g., medical concerns, emotional issues, anxiety, conflict within the family, sense of meaning or purpose, lack of resources). If there are differences in their perceptions, indicate how different family members have different views of their needs. (1 page for content, 1 page genogram, one page ecomap=3 pages in total)
f) Family Strengths: Identify the family’s strengths, including individual and family characteristics and resources that it can use to address the presenting problem and underlying needs. Make sure that nurturing support systems are included in the ecomap.
(1 to 2 paragraphs)
g) Diversity: Identify at least one diversity group to which this family belongs (e.g., culture, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status). Describe how the family’s diversity background may relate to the family’s needs, concerns, or strengths. Make use of at least one scholarly article related to the family’s diversity. (1 page-additional culturagram if appropriate)
h) Overall assessment: Provide your overall assessment of the family’s situation, from a systems perspective. Avoid blaming or judgmental language and highlight the reciprocal effects that different parts of the family system have on one another. (1 page)
i) Intervention plan: Develop an intervention plan that would help the family deal with the hypothetical presenting problem and related concerns. The plan should include at least one primary goal for work and three specific objectives. The plan should also identify what specific interventions will be used and who will be responsible for which tasks (for instance, if the family needed advocacy, who would act as advocate and what approach would that person use for advocacy; or if the family needed parenting skills training, who would act as trainer and what model of training would be used?). Provide references for the models of intervention that will guide your interventions and theorists. Make sure your goals, objectives, models of intervention, and action plan build on one another in a logical manner. Your intervention plan should include family systems approaches (e.g., strengthening specific relationships, helping the family adapt to life cycle adjustments, fostering a better fit between the family and its social environment, or referring the family for specific types of family therapy). Although your intervention plan may include individual counseling or therapy, individual work should not be the only form of intervention. (2 pages)
j) Evaluation plan: Describe how you plan to evaluate progress towards the goals and objectives identified above: how you will gather information; what measures you will use; and how you will ensure that your measures for evaluation are feasible, valid, and reliable. (half a page).
k) Reference page.
For this assignment, you may apply information from our class readings, but you will also need to make use of other scholarly research and readings. This paper must include 2-4 references. You may find useful journal articles by using the library’s online SocIndex or PsycARTICLES databases and searching for topics specifically related to your family’s dynamics – e.g., its ethnic background, structure, presenting issues, risks, or resilience. Family theory and family therapy textbooks may also be useful. Further, you may consult with immediate or extended family members to gather information for the genogram, ecomap, demographic information, important events/turning points, and emotional perspectives of others in the families. The paper will be 12-15 pages in length maximum (no papers will be accepted if they are longer than 15 pages. Points will be deducted if they are less than 12 pages) including any references, using APA format; no abstract needed). The assignment is to be submitted via Canvas. A hard copy is to be brought to class and submitted as well. With hard copy, please submit proof that this paper was reviewed by you and the writing center.
Grading for this paper will be based upon: Clarity and conciseness of your understanding of family systems and the GIM (in your own words); Synthesis and integration of information from various readings and class materials; Accuracy of definition and application of concepts; Comprehensiveness of the psychosocial assessment; Creativity and originality in the critique; Following APA format and rules of grammar [for APA Formatting Help, see link at http://www.fau.edu/ssw/links.html]. One additional point will be awarded with proof that you have had your paper proofed at the learning center.