Module 14
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Module 14 Outline
• Segment 1
(Slides 5-18)
•
– Adultcentrism
• Definition
• Roots
• Implications
Segment 2
(Slides 19-31)
–
–
Strengths
Perspective
Continuum of
Care
Module 14, Segment 1
(Slides 5-18)
–Adultcentrism
• Definition
• Roots
• Implications
I.
Adultcentrism & Strengths
Perspective
II. Course Review
Segments 1-3
Module 14 Outline
• Segment 3
(Slides 32-39)
– Course Review
– Course Review
• Outline-Bringing it
together
• AssignmentsOwning the
material
• Where to go?
Adultcentrism
• Is the tendency of adults to view
children and their problems from a
biased perspective
• Creates barriers to effective practice
with children
1
Adultcentrism
• Negative consequences
– miscommunication
– inaccurate judgments
– misuse of power
– undermining strengths and
competencies
Manifestations of
Adultcentrism
• The United States is one of a handful of
countries that has refused to ratify the
United Nation ' s Convention on the
Rights of the Child
• Only 33 percent of the families
responding to a recent national survey
stated that society places a great deal
of value on children
Roots of Adultcentrism
•
•
•
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For Thought
• Our children are not individuals whose
rights and tastes are casually respected
from infancy, as they are in some primitive
societies, but special responsibilities, like
our possessions, to which we succumb or
in which we glory, as the case may be.
They are fundamentally extensions of our
own egos, and give special opportunity for
the display of authority.
Adultcentrism in Child
Development Theory
Embedded in stage theories of child
development are two subtle, yet
central adultcentric biases:
1. that children are incomplete
2. that children are essentially
incompetent.
View of children as supports to adults
Influence of Christianity
Education and social welfare programs
Study of childhood
Human rights of children
Incomplete Bias
•
•
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•
•
•
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Children are:
dependent
amoral
egocentric
illiterate
irrational
emotionally
unstable
• unproductive
• present oriented
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Adults are:
independent
moral
sociocentric
literate
rational
emotionally
stable
• productive
• future oriented
2
Incomplete Bias
Incompetent Bias
• Although our society no longer views children
as miniature adults, stage theory encourages
us to view them as small, incomplete beings
on their way to becoming adults
• Stage theories of development become
intertwined with the process of socialization,
or "acculturation" to the dominant, adult
culture
• We view children as essentially incompetent
and incapable, because we measure their
competence against our own:
– child development theorists have
consistently underestimated the
competencies of children at any given age
– theories are so focused on the growing up
process that we fail to view children for
who they are.
Incompetent Bias
Ableism
•
•
So much focus is on the socialization,
growing up process that we fail to view
children as children, with their own
knowledge, skills and even culture.
Children are seldom studied in their
natural environments and from their
own perspective of what is important
Adultcentrism and Ableism
• Interlocking nature of oppression for
children with behavior disorders
–Consider the nature of our
understanding of children
–Consider the oppression against
children with a behavior problem
(mental illness/disability)
• Ableism is defined as stereotyping,
negative attitudes, and
discrimination toward people based
on a physical or mental disability
resulting in discrimination and/or
prejudice.
Social Work Ethics
• Value: Social Justice
• Principle: Social workers challenge
social injustice
• Standard: Cultural competence and
social diversity
3
Module 14, Segment 2
(Slides 19-31)
– Strengths Perspective
– Continuum of Care
Strengths Perspective in Direct
Practice
• Strength orientation is more
responsive to the humanistic, ethical,
and political conditions that
characterize the helping process
• A pathology approach is inadequate
because it tends to reduce the
complexities of the human state to
narrow compartments of diagnostic
schemes
Strengths Perspective
• Relies on areas of competence in
children
• Based on reinforcing positive attitudes
and behaviors
• Maximizes opportunities for children to
be involved in decision making that
effects their lives
Comparison of Pathology and
Strengths
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Pathology:
Person is defined as a "case";
symptoms add up to a
diagnosis.
Therapy is problem focused.
Personal accounts aid in the
evocation of a diagnosis
through reinterpretation by an
expert.
Practitioner is skeptical of
personal stories,
rationalizations.
Childhood trauma is the
precursor or predictor of adult
pathology.
Centerpiece of therapeutic work
is the treatment plan devised by
practitioner.
•
•
•
•
Strengths:
Person is defined as unique; traits,
talents, resources add up to
strengths.
Therapy is possibility focused.
Personal accounts are the
essential route to knowing and
appreciating the person.
•
Practitioner knows the person
from the inside out.
•
Childhood trauma is not
predictive; it may weaken or
strengthen the individual.
Centerpiece of work is the
aspirations of family, individual, or
community.
•
Comparison of Pathology and
Strengths
Strengths-Based Assessment
• Pathology:
• Practitioner is the expert on
clients' lives.
• Possibilities for choice, control,
commitment, and personal
development are limited by
pathology.
• Resources for work are the
knowledge and skills of the
professional.
• Help is centered on reducing
the effects of symptoms and
the negative personal and
social consequences of
actions, emotions, thoughts, or
relationships.
• Give preeminence to the client's
understanding of the facts
• Believe the client
• Discover what the client wants
• Move the assessment toward personal and
environmental strengths
• Make assessment of strengths
multidimensional
• Use the assessment to discover uniqueness
• Strengths:
Individuals, families or
community are the expert.
• Possibilities for choice, control,
commitment, and personal
development are open.
• Resources for work are the
strengths, capacities, and
adaptive skills of the individual,
family, or community.
• Help is centered on getting on
with one's life, affirming and
developing values and
commitments, and making and
finding membership in or as a
community.
4
Strengths Perspective and
Cultural Competence
Strengths-Based Assessment
• Use language the client can understand
• Make assessment a joint activity
between worker and client
• Reach a mutual agreement on the
assessment
• Avoid blame and blaming
• Avoid cause-and-effect thinking
• Assess, do not diagnose
Continuum of Care
•
Continuum of care is a concept that refers
to a system of care that provides various
options for children and families at various
levels of restrictiveness
– Least restrictive alternative: espouses
the concept that children and families
who need services should receive those
services in ways that are the least
restrictive of their basic rights.
Continuum of Care Across
Settings
• Mental Health
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–
–
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Weekly outpatient
Day treatment
Partial hospitalization
Short-tem hospital in
community
– Long-tern residential
treatment, outside
community
– State mental hospital
• Least Restrictive
• Most Restrictive
•
•
•
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Develop a set of abilities and capacities
See through the eyes of clients
Assess own values, beliefs, and culture
Think and behave flexibly and
nonjudgmentally
• Respect and value diversity as a
positive, enriching characteristic of
human life.
Continuum of Care Across
Settings
• Child Welfare
– Biological or adopted
family
– Extended family
– Friends
– Foster Family within
the community
– Group Home
– Locked facility
• Least Restrictive
• Most Restrictive
Continuum of Care Across
Settings
• Education
• Least Restrictive
– RC, full-time
– RC, instructional support
– Mostly RC, part-time with
outside resource room
– Mostly SEC in regular building
– Full-time SEC in special building
– Special school within district
• Most Restrictive
– Placement outside of district
5
Critique of Continuum of Care
and LRA
Module 14, Segment 3
These concepts:
• Implicitly legitimize highly restrictive settings
in various ways
• Equate level of segregation with intensity of
services, because they assume that the most
segregated, restrictive settings provide the
highest intensity of services
• Suggest that people will be uprooted
frequently as they move up or down the
continuum ladder
(Slides 32-39)
– Course Review
• Outline-Bringing it together
• Assignments-Owning the material
• Where to go?
Ecological Systems
Ecological Model
• Ecological models
– describe the child’s environment as a
series of nested and interconnected
structures
– Transitions bring about changes in roles
that change how people think and act and
how they are treated;
• Transitions result from development and
instigate developmental processes
The developing person is at the center of
and embedded in several environmental
systems, ranging from immediate
settings such as family, home
surroundings, school, and peer as well
as less immediate influences such as
mass media, extended family,
community health and welfare services,
and even the broad ideology, laws, and
customs of the child’s culture.
Themes Across Behavior
Disorders
Ecological Influences
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Development
Systems
Risk factors
Protective factors
Culture
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Labeling
Controversy in cause and treatment
Look for associated factors/influences
Consider environmental forces
Culture always plays a role
See the child as a person first
6
Student Accountability
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Case assessments
Module assessments
Chat sessions
Research topic
Exams
Readings
Where to Go?
• SSW992- Description of disorders,
contextualizing disorders in the field of
social work
• Practice-”now what do I do?”
• Policy-”where can I advocate for macro
change?”
• Research-”what do I need to know
more about?”
The End
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