Alvarez Family Case
PLO 8 – Intervene with Individuals, Families, Groups, Organizations, and Communities
Critically choose and implement interventions to achieve practice goals and enhance capacities of clients and constituencies;
Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment, person-in-environment, and other multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks in interventions with clients and constituencies;
Use inter-professional collaboration as appropriate to achieve beneficial practice outcomes;
Negotiate, mediate, and advocate with and on behalf of diverse clients and constituencies;
and;
Facilitate effective transitions and endings that advance mutually agreed-on goals.
Case of the Alvarez Family
Albert and Maria Alvarez, a married couple both 40 years of age, and their two children (Albert Jr. known as Albie, age 20, and Juan Carlos, known in the neighborhood as JC, age 16), live in a predominantly Hispanic middle-income community. Albert is the shop owner and manager for a successful auto repair shop and Maria recently got a promotion at a retail department store in the local galleria. They live in an area that is on the edge of their old neighborhood, where Albert and Maria grew up. Albie went through a difficult period involving drug use and gang activity in his early teens, but now has a good job as a senior printer for a local print company and has pulled away from his old gang associates. He takes classes at the local university at night after work, to complete his degree in journalism.
JC has recently become more heavily involved with the same gang and he is the reason the family has come for help. A close friend of JC’s was fatally stabbed and the entire family has been in turmoil, trying to dissuade him from engaging in revenge or violence. In spite of the family’s protests, JC pledges to “get even” with a local young man known in the community – in retaliation for the death of his friend.
The family has considered moving away from their community but is reluctant to move away from close extended family and friends, and away from the family business housed in the old neighborhood. The family is strongly connected in the community of their childhood through church attendance, community projects, and mentoring activities. Mr. Alvarez works with the youth center to provide apprenticeships to at-risk youth from the local high school. The Alvarez’s expressed a wish that the church would take a more active role in addressing community concerns and desire for someone to help their community fight the increasing gang violence that is now moving into their middle-class neighborhood.
Assignment:
Describe and discuss the two (2) social issues that are impacting this family and other members in this community. Discuss five (5) questions you can ask this family that can help you assess the social issues that are impacting their well-being as a family and community members.
Identify two (2) critical goals for this family and discuss why they are critical.
Interventions:
Describe and discuss two intervention strategies you will utilize to enhance the capacity and functioning of this family system (your answers should be supported by a social work authoritative source).
Describe and discuss two interventions you would implement to address the 2 social issues you identified in the assessment section that this community is experiencing, that would improve member capacity or well-being.
Pick one member of the family and discuss the following:
Identify and discuss two (2) components of human behavior and the social environment and apply them to the family member selected (you must use your social work text to discuss this component).
Discuss two (2) aspects of the Person-in-environment perspective that applies to the family member selected.
Select one from the following theoretical frameworks:
- Family Life Cycle
- Strengths Perspective
- Family Systems.
Discuss how the selected theoretical framework applies to the family member highlighted.
*(You must site social work authoritative sources to discuss all of the theoretical frameworks and support your discussion on each)
Discuss your plan to successfully terminate with this family and return them to effective, self-reliant functioning. Identify two (2) statements you will make, and five (5) questions you will pose, to the family that promotes goal attainment in which the family members will have an investment.
Collaboration:
Define what inter-professional collaboration is. Discuss two (2) ways you will engage in interprofessional collaboration to improve and enhance the well-being of these clients and other community members. Identify the top three (3) beneficial outcomes of engaging in inter-professional collaboration on behalf of these clients and the community (you must discuss both).
Assignment requirements:
This paper should be approximately 5-7 typewritten pages, not including title and reference pages, written in correct APA format and should cite no less than (3) scholarly references. All sources used should have in-text citations as well as a correctly formatted face and reference page.
The total points in this assignment will be earned in two ways:
1) 150 points for the content of the paper and
2) 25 points for writing skills as measured by The Universal Standard of Critical Thinking (see handouts file in course shell on Blackboard).