Role Of Family Support Worker: Understanding Risk Assessment, Management, Young People’s Rights, And Essay.

Concepts of Risk Assessment and Management

A very good morning to one all. In today's presentation, I will be dsiscussing the role of a family support worker. The main character of the case study being discussed in today’s presentation is Tim. 

In this slide,

I will talk about concepts of risk, risk factors, risk assessment and risk management. Top understanding the concerned case study, it is important that we at first explore the core concepts related to the topic. Risk management in healthcare would mean systems and processes that employs strategies to mitigate, uncover and the present the risks in health. Risk assessment on the other hand would mean the process involved in identifying the hazards and risk factors that have the potential to cause harm. Risk factors and the risks are caused by the risk factors. 

In this slide,

I will discuss the risk concerns of Tim and Kiraa, the target group. Tim belongs to the Indigenous community. He and her mother stay in the small rental property. His mother Kirra has often been verbally and physically abused by her ex-partner. The risk concern that the client has is that he is often intimidated and threatened by the aggression and frustration shown by Adrian. The other risk concern that Tim has shown is that he is always slow in learning. It is difficult for him to socialise in school. The behaviour that he has been putting of lately is of concern to the teacher. He is finding it challenging to cope with education and manage class. The other client named Kirra has shown a long history of symptoms of alcohol abuse and addiction to other drugs. She had long been addicted to alcohol but has never received any treatment to gain control on her addiction. Kirra had been complained against by other parents for being intimidating and loud in the school under the influence of alcohol. 

There are many statutory and non-statutory service systems that can treat addiction in youth and behavioural problems in youth. There are social care services that are involved in the treatment of youths. 

In this slide,

I will discuss the concepts of young people’s rights. In this regard it is important to understand the concept of child protection. It provides protection to vulnerable children who are at risk of being harmed, abused and neglected. Tim in this case study is being tormented by his father whenever he gets frustrated. Kirra gets physically and mentally abused by his ex-partner and Tim also has the probability of being harmed by his father. Out of home care is provided to indigenous male, (aihw.gov.au, 2022). 

In this slide,

I will discuss the concepts regarding several laws safeguarding the concerns of Tim. laws like Youth Law Australia provides justice to youth in problem. The law will be dedicated to help children in finding legal solutions to Tim in his problem of being intimidated by his father, (yla.org.au, 2022). The SA Youth Plan can also be implemented on Tim. The project will help develop strong futures of the youth of  Australia, (South Australian Government Office for Youth, 2019). Behavioural problems can be detected in Tim and thus protection and care are needed to be provided to them, (Robinson, Power & Allan, 2011).

Risk Concerns of Target Group

In this slide, 

I will discuss the micro skills that will be needed to deal with Tim, who is showing behavioural issues and socialising issues. He has also of late become a problem to be managed in class. Micro skills that are needed to engage with the young person and family are effective communication skills. Family support workers as a part of their micro skills need to have self-awareness. They need to have awareness of others and they also need to be able to employ their skills consciously and purposefully, . The other micro-skills that are needed to be possessed by the worker is commitment. Family cantered approaches can be administered while dealing with the family. Parental resilience and social connection will be helped to be developed. Through this process, aim can be made towards child development in terms of behavioural and emotional development. Tim’s behavioural problems and learning disorders can be taken care of. Family based approach can promote peer networks to be developed. Tim has faced abuse and neglect. Children are often considered to be vulnerable. A Protective And Responsive Framework can protect Tim. However, in Australia there is lack of speci?c legal and administrative framework that will protect and investigate the probable exploitation and violence against Tim, (Robinson, 2012). 

Having the knowledge about the impact of parental substance abuse on children is important. Kirra’s addiction towards alcohol and substance can affect mental and emotional health of Tim like that conduct and behavioural problems, (Velleman & Templeton, 2016). 

In this slide,

I will discuss the various social service theories that are in relation to the selected case study. Social work theories provide the workers with the interventions to plan their work and address client problems. The interventions needed to meet the client’s needs are research based. The complex human behaviour is better understood by the help of the theories. Theories like that of social learning theory can be used for better understanding of the behavioural problems in Tim. he has been observing physical abuse being conducted by his father and has learned the behaviour. It will help understand the effect of role model on the behaver being expressed by the youth. Psychodynamic theory suggests that childhood experiences might colour the behaviour in the youth. Social workers examine how early childhood experiences influence the client’s behaviour. Childhood experiences of Tim lead to behavioural issues, (Caputo & Tomai, 2020).

In this slide, I will discuss various ethical dilemmas while working with youth who are having disturbed families. Confidentiality and its limits are a part of ethical issues. Tim being suffering from physical abuse and emotional abuse, there will be limits of maintaining confidentiality. Confidentiality to parents about Tim being abused will need to be reported to her mother. If he is threatening to self-harm, this  needs to be informed to his parents. The behaviour issues that the teacher has complained against will also need to be informed to the mother, (Petrova, Dewing & Camilleri, 2016). The workers will face dilemmas in how much to confront to the significant others and how much is to be hidden from them.  Treating Tim might be challenges as maintaing a professional relation. Being a youth, he might not be able to understand the importance of maintaining a boundary or they might not be able to maintain a boundary in their relation with the counsellor. In such cases, it is challenging to maintain a professional relationship. The solution to this problem is that the counsellor needs to be skilled in detecting any probability of transference or counter-transference in the client-family support worker. Transference and counter-transference is evidently possible to occur in a therapeutic relation. The other challenge might be to respect the cultural background that Tim and his family belong to. They belong to the Aboriginal community. The community has long been discriminated against when it comes to medical health or mental health care, (Kendall et al., 2020). Thus, for a non-Aboriginal health worker it might be difficult to be able to respect the differences in the cultural values and traditions that each culture bears. The solution to such problem is that the community worker needs to skilled enough to be able to respect every culture and treat them equally without discrimination. They also need to acquire information about the community there are working with, their traditions, their cultural norms and most importantly their language, communication needs to be effective to develop a good therapeutic relationship. It is evident through research that communication skills are very important aspect of counselling and thus for the therapist, it is important they show respect to all community and not show biases towards aby community, (Ratts et al., 2016).

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that family support worker has responsibility while treating family and youth and they need to play their role while also ensuring to solve the ethical dilemmas at work.    

References

Caputo, A., & Tomai, M. (2020). A systematic review of psychodynamic theories in community psychology: Discovering the unconscious in community work. Journal of community psychology, 48(6), 2069-2085. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22407

Kendall, S., Lighton, S., Sherwood, J., Baldry, E., & Sullivan, E. A. (2020). Incarcerated Aboriginal women’s experiences of accessing healthcare and the limitations of the ‘equal treatment’principle. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-1155-3

Petrova, E., Dewing, J., & Camilleri, M. (2016). Confidentiality in participatory research: Challenges from one study. Nursing ethics, 23(4), 442-454. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/41557024/Confidentiality_in_participatory_researc20160125-6969-1nke5v8-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1649189658&Signature=EvGfeHgMCzUCNcbQ9C9DaiCkjscUkl6LXmvAh3AsZN22CzjpyL7QrfMErOk6xpRCVBj~MsSfJ-Fp2tC0DJ0aNaG2cc568xTD17CpT~yWIMo~cNAHCOFi~7roTnn5l87Wplp50zTLRwySM6wQOosBJNcmUCLHv1hV4ZR5x8pkzwzgmdldmBqoveeenAFUoyfXkk4JqyPmAAbNsiuo-tZbxH56TwyUNao~hIGptOz8o7vP0INIhOUG~HQmJPd8YSbksEdm4xvwYEpwVViMowM4-Zw24HVgMYqu-Fbndh6mW97EU-7vVJjX7tApsr-lpKnjCrBQuxa3nqoKjhlNtCjYKQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

Ratts, M. J., Singh, A. A., Nassar?McMillan, S., Butler, S. K., & McCullough, J. R. (2016). Multicultural and social justice counseling competencies: Guidelines for the counseling profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 44(1), 28-48. DOI: 10.1002/jmcd.12035

Robinson, E., Power, L., & Allan, D. (2011). What Works with Adolescents?: Family Connections and Involvement in Interventions for Adolescent Problem Behaviours. Family Matters, (88), 57. https://aifs.gov.au/publications/family-matters/issue-88/what-works-adolescents

Robinson, S. (2012). Enabling and protecting. Proactive approaches to addressing the abuse and neglect of children and young people with disability. Melbourne: Children with Disability Australia.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235666106_Enabling_and_protecting_Proactive_approaches_to_addressing_the_abuse_and_neglect_of_children_and_young_people_with_disability

South Australian Government Office for Youth (2019) Working with Vulnerable Youth Key Concepts and Principles found at https://officeforyouth.sa.gov.au/resources/working-with-young-people

Velleman, R., & Templeton, L. J. (2016). Impact of parents' substance misuse on children: An update. BJPsych Advances, 22(2), 108-117. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296631855_Impact_of_parents'_substance_misuse_on_children_An_update