Assessment of Families

Chapter 9Robyn Munford and Jackie Sanders

Background

• Social work practice with families has changed over time. The societal context of illness, disability and needs for assistance have also changed. – Eg. Disabled children are no longer removed and

institutionalized as early as possible, with families counseled to forget and move on

• Support for problems and issues is no longer confined to charity cases but can include foci of education and social change as well as others.

• Human rights and social justice are central principles to social work practice

Evidence on Assessment of Families• In the family therapy field a number of therapeutic approaches in a

range of settings have been adopted including:– structural family therapy, narrative approaches, multisystemic therapy, just

therapy, psychosocial approaches that connect the inner self to wider environment and system issues.

• Maintenance approaches typically are not associated with intense therapeutic work, focusing instead on the here and now and the immediate resolution of problems.

• Power imbalances are potential reasons why families are facing challenges, and some criticism of the therapeutic and maintenance approaches include that neither address these imbalances.

• A reflective approach enables a social worker to know how assessment fits within the other aspects of the helping process and to be explicit about the ideas that are informing assessment decisions– Also requires that the social worker knows how to use the evidence

available and make informed decisions about problems and possible solutions.

Diversity• “family” is a term that is used broadly to define life contexts,

but in reality is a unique identifier that must be individualized through direct assessment clients.

• The assessment process must explicitly allow for the family to articulate its own sense of family and to identify key values they have as a family unit.

• Cultural competency does not end with defining what family means to clients. It includes recognizing how the clients’ definition fits within the dominant paradigms of family.

• The environment that the family resides in can directly impact the opportunities that the family has available to them. – The key challenge here is to recognize how the common themes of

making available material and social resources and achieving health and well-being for all family members are constructed within the global economy and have different meanings across different contexts.

The Assessment Process within Social Work Practice

• The microlevel is concerned with direct work with the family. The focus is on working with the family system and its networks.– Assessment considers the family and includes an exploration of the systems

that impact on family life in all its diversity.– Assessment tools:

• Systems Assessment• Assessment of family history • Asking questions differently• Discovering successful change strategies

• The mezzolevel expands the assessment process to include organizations, communities and neighborhoods.– The worker pays attention to identifying the capacity of wider systems around

the family and developing interventions plans at this level.– Assessment tools:

• Community profiling• Organizational mapping and profiling• Asset-based inventories• Structural analysis approaches

The Assessment Process within Social Work Practice Continued• The macro level involves and assessment of the structures and

policies that impact family life and may involve the social worker in advocacy roles and in policy analysis critique.– Assessment tools:

• Policy analysis, development and critique• Advocacy• Research and evaluation

• The strengths based assessment of the family can provide opportunities for exploring both problems and resources within the family. – An understanding that a focus on strengths does not diminish the

importance of identifying risk and safety issues and finding ways to protect clients from harm and causing harm, is necessary for this approach.

• Effective social work assessment will include knowing how to achieve deep understandings of family life in a range of contexts on a range of levels…while not all social workers will be involved at all levels, it is essential that they understand how the relationships within these levels and the interactions between them will impact on the everyday experiences of families.