Walden University Sociology Social Workers Who Work with Children and Families Paper

Most social workers who work with children and families will be expected to create assessments or integrate assessments conducted by other professionals into their work. The purpose of an assessment is to synthesize evidence to better understand a client’s background and needs and develop plans to address these needs. Although the social work profession is grounded in a strengths-based framework, assessments can easily become deficit-focused as the collected data may be recorded as a lengthy list of problems. Assessments can serve as a foundation for subsequent work with clients, and deficit-focused assessments provide a poor foundation for strengths-based work. Therefore, social workers need to put conscious effort into maintaining a relational, strengths-based lens throughout the assessment process to create balanced, supportive documents that will help any professional working with the client to build upon strengths while simultaneously addressing needs.

In this Assignment, you practice transforming a deficit-focused assessment of a child into a strengths-based relational assessment.

To prepare:

Review the Learning Resources on child-centered assessment.  

Conduct a close analysis of the two assessments of Oscar Winters recorded in your textbook on pages 102–111 and consider how each assessment might impact professionals on a team working with Oscar’s family. 

Review the Biopsychosocial Assessment of Lin Yang-Harris. Think about how you could transform this deficit-focused collection of observations into a more relational assessment that integrates the child’s and family’s strengths into the narrative.  

• BY DAY 7
• Using the Relational Assessment Template provided, submit a strengths-based relational assessment of Lin Yang-Harris. Your assessment should include the following components and integrate relational theory throughout your narrative: 
• Demographic      information including the reason for referral and relevant history.

Summary      of relevant domains including biological, psychological, social,      cultural/spiritual, and relational factors.

Formulation:      Brief conceptualization of the issues that need to be addressed that      integrates the child’s and family members’ perspectives. Brief      conceptualization of the strengths you could build upon in your work with      this child and family. 

Make sure that you do not duplicate the original assessment. Instead, your task is to transform the content within the original assessment and rewrite it using a strengths-based relational lens. 

 Note: You only need to complete the sections outlined in the Relational Assessment Template. Your textbook’s relational assessment of Oscar Winters includes additional sections on relevant literature, goals and interventions, and the clinical relationship, but you do not need to include those elements. 

References

1. Cohen Konrad, S. (2020). Child and family practice: A relational perspective (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 

Chapter 4, “Child-Centered Assessment” (pp. 81–114)

1. Belitz, J. (2018). Ethics in assessing and treating children and adolescentsLinks to an external site.. In APA handbook of psychopathology: Child and adolescent psychopathology (Vol. 2) (pp. 589–606). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000065-025