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From the readings of the case study, it was observed that the client, that is, kelvin a six-year-old boy was very moody and oversensitive with his behaviour and he had a fear of talking to anybody as he grew issues related to trust because of the aggressive behaviour of his parents. He did not listen to anybody, not even his foster parents. He was not able to make new friends and was able to cope with his studies in his school. Although he liked his foster home as he had his favourite toys and things with him but he was unable to put attention and was taking a lot of time and no improvement was seen in his behaviour. He even had a problem of expressing his thoughts and feelings and often resorted to tantrums. Being unable to express his confusion about his parents, he never used to talk about them to Jane and Andy. out of the various psychological theories, two of those theories define his behaviour and his performance in the best manner. The theory of behaviourism and the theory of cognitivism. Both the theories are somewhere interrelated to each other and a individual’s behaviour and his brain/mind.
Principles Of Behaviourism And Cognitive Theory:
Behaviorism Theory: The theory of behaviourism seeks to explain an individual’s behaviour that takes place due to the antecedents and the consequences that are present in the environment of an individual and the learned associations they acquire from their past experiences (Clark, 2018). The main principles of this theory are:
Cognitivism Theory: This theory focuses on the minds, brains and the intelligence of humans and this theory is similar to the theory of behaviourism in some ways (Carroll and Seeley, 2013). The basic principles of this theory are:
The theory of behaviourism is directly affecting the client’s behaviour by impacting his actions and performance in any field (Bryant, et al., 2013). They theory of behaviourism is relating to the situation of Kelvin where he faced issues like domestic violence at his home and built-up trust issues because of watching his parents fighting and resulting in physical violence. His behaviour turned out to be very aggressive after experiencing all this and he started bursting out even on small things. Behaviourist believe that our actions and behaviour are shaped by what we see in our environment and same happened with Kelvin as well.
On the other hand, the theory of cognitivism tells that the client can get affected by the affected behaviour (Ertmer & Newby, 2013). It tells how Kelvin is not able to gain motivation and lacks in expressing his thoughts, emotions and feelings which is affecting his cognitive behaviour. Theory of cognitivism emphasises the person. Kelvin displayed an inability to concentrate and refused to cooperate, constantly fidgeted and this all happened due to his past experience of experiencing domestic violence happened between his parents and hence, it can be said that theory of cognitive behaviour affects Kelvin in a huge manner.
The theory of humanism talks and considers the study of a person and individual as a whole. The behaviour of humans is viewed in two different ways under this theory. The ways their behaviour is viewed is the eyes of themselves and the through the eyes of the person whom they are observing. Humans are considered responsible for their own way of lives and the ways they choose to observe the things around them. Each human has control over their actions, behaviour and their attitude. People who follow the theory of humanism can practice on self-actualisation by focusing on awareness and the acceptance of their own self, by having strong sense of humour and by having high peaks within the experience. The knowledge of humanism theory can help the client to get better with his behaviour by practicing self-actualization (Wandersman, Poppen and Ricks, 2016). As the theory will further help the client to live well and achieve what he wants. The theory values the personal ideals of individuals and provides them the genuine insights of more holistic information about their behaviour and make them aware about how to behave in certain situations (Jingna, 2012). As observed in the case study, that the client is in need of proper care and attention which can help him to recover from his situation so this theory will help him by fulfilling his needs by offering an effective knowledge of emotional, physical, social and intellectual behaviours that will help the client to a great extent.
As per the situation of the client, it was really necessary to have some special skills/requirements in order to work with the client. Due to his over sensitive behaviour because of his parent’s situation, working with the client needed extra attention. The two skills/requirements necessary to work with the client are:
Being patient: Every child goes with different stages. Kelvin was also the one who was facing problems which were concerned to his behaviour. In order to work with these kinds of clients, it becomes very important to be patient in what a child care worker is explaining. Being patient with children is considered to be the key for their emotional and educational development. This special quality of treating children with complete patience is all that is needed to deal with the behaviour and performance of those children (Colton, Sanders and Williams, 2017).
Monitoring skills: The job of care worker is not just limited to taking care of children and specially clients like Kelvin but being a care worker, one need to observe how they are developing in their planned activities and if children are facing any problem in communicating with other children or having any issue related to their behaviour, the workers are supposed to assist them with the solution to their problems. So, working with the clients like Kelvin will be in a need of special skill of monitoring so that proper care is delivered (Ben-Arieh, et al., 2013).
Person centred plan is process of solving the ongoing problems which is made and used to help the people who have disabilities and faces difficulties in different areas of their developmental stage. Person centred plans are made to help the individuals which focuses on person’s vision of what they would like to do in their near future (Ratti Hassiotis, et al., 2016). In the above case study, a six-year-old boy named kelvin faced many problems in his developmental stage and he was not able to focus on his abilities and never listened to his foster parents. He was even unable to get comfortable with his teachers and the schoolmates so it became very difficult for him to adjust himself with the environment because of what he experienced in his past. He developed himself having the behaviour which was not acceptable by anybody and his classmates started building fear in themselves. After every possible thing his foster parents could do, he was still taking a lot of time to adjust with the surroundings. He was built with anger and fear in his mind, experiencing his mum and dad shouting and fighting. He chose to sleep with lights on as to make sure he was safe enough. As a result, kelvin was taken care by the social worker because of his situation and his social worker always thought that he would be physically harmed if not taken care properly. Even after the personal care by the social worker, kelvin faced many difficulties and was unable to concentrate anywhere.
Keeping in mind the situations, scenarios ad the experiences of kelvin, a strategy (person centred plan) can be made so that the key worker uses those strategies to benefit the client in different areas like physical, emotional, intellectual and social areas. Strategies like:
Flexible care: Providing flexible health care to the kelvin could help him in rising. He can get flexible with the social worker and build on his physical, social and intellectual areas.
Firstly, by adopting the strategy of flexible care, a social worker could provide Kelvin with proper diet on time and ask him to exercise or could manage to have some exercise related games so that he could enjoy doing some physical exercises which will also keep him safe and the social worker could provide him with such an acute and flexible care like telling him good stories in night so that he could manage sleeping well.
Secondly, social worker could develop his communication skills by communicating with Kelvin by asking him to recite poems and stories of his own interest so that as and when he will develop his communication, it will be easier for him to get fit into the school groups with his classmates and find himself comfortable better than before (Peahl, Smith and Moniz, 2020). Apart from this, one on one sessions can be provided in school to Kelvin so that he can step up and will not rely on others and his intellectual leaning will build-up.
Thirdly, flexible care will make him able to get flexible with the external environment as well which will influence his behaviour and development. Social worker could arrange some creative play dates for Kelvin like playing indoor camping, board games and many other so that he can get socially active.
Providing some counselling sessions to Kelvin so that he could express his feelings and thoughts about how he feels will help in developing his emotional sense of mind and he will come to know the value of other’s feelings as well. (Teixeira, et al., 2017).
The client had really bad situation because of his behaviour and aggression. His situation and condition were not showing any improvements even after the constant care by his social worker. He was in a situation where he felt unable to concentrate on anything and was unable to make new friends in school and the community. His foster parents were worried about his situation and his aggressive behaviour. He behaved in a manner where he never liked to follow any rules while playing games in the school, rather he always wanted to play with his own rules. He was often not liked by his school mates because of his behaviour and was often reprimanded for puling, pushing and annoying other children in school. Although, he had a great strength and liked to play football but his situation made him unable to recognize his own strengths at times. The situation of client was becoming very critical and he was in a need of constant on-to-one attention in order to behave well. His situation of behaving in aggression all the time could get better if given one-on-one attention with proper care. As a result of getting affected in such a manner from his past experience of his home situation, the only things that could work for his situation was planning some intervention strategies by his foster parents to meet the needs of the client. His foster parents tried to be calm and tries praising his god behaviour but that did not work so some intervention strategies that could help him grow are:
Teaching social skills: the goal behind teaching social skills is making them aware about the socially acceptable behaviours that can help them to be accepted by their classmates, peers and the community. It can help kelvin to make new friends in community and school and get better with making relationships. Kelvin is in a need of special attention which can introduce him to share his thoughts and feelings with others by behaving in an appropriate manner. So, teaching social skills will make him able to assists others, requests help when needed and get out of the past experience of domestic violence and violent behaviour of his parents (Docksai, 2010).
Self-calming procedures: Kelvin was in a need of acute care after observing his aggressive and uncomfortable behaviour in the classroom. He was very angry and confused about his situation so he behaved stimulated in classroom. teaching him self calming procedures could help him in a certain manner. Teachers might provide a space to him to get calm down. The place for getting self-calm could include spaces like special corner or a separate room, away from the general classroom where he can sit and clam his mind and get back to normal. This could also help him in developing his emotional balance. He was very much emotionally affected by the past experience so teaching him the procedures would help Kelvin to resolve his behavioural incidents and handle his outbursts along with dealing with his peers and making new makes in his community. Other than this, Kelvin could also adapt to other environmental challenges and get comfortable in dealing every situation (Herbert, 2017).
As observed, kelvin was a kid of his own behaviour and he never listened to anybody in his foster family. Being unable to concentrate and express his feelings and thoughts, he always remained confused about his own parents and never discussed anything regarding his parents to anybody because of the feeling of fear and anger. He had trust issues so working with the client like kelvin, it becomes really necessary to take some self-care measures that could help in providing the best possible care to the client without any difficulties. The major areas that I will take care of while working with the client are:
Physical self-care: this helps in taking care about the proper movements of body and health in terms of nutrition, sleep, rest and many other. While working with the client, it can be the threat for me while working with the client that I might lose on my health safety by not giving time to self. My physical health can suffer so taking care of my health will be the upmost important factor by taking proper nutrition and nutritious diet, by focusing on getting proper and enough sleep by going to bed early and by getting adequate amount of fresh air by giving time to physical exercises (Moore, et al., 2011).
Emotional self-care: sometimes working with the clients like kelvin, it often gets difficult for us to take care of our emotional feelings and thoughts. Listening to the client’s emotional feelings the whole day leads to difficulties in managing own self in terms of emotional self-care (Moore, et al., 2011).So, I will make time for myself and will spend some time and will connect with my peers to get some relief.
Environmental self-care: while working with clients, it becomes equally important to take care of our own environment which involves having and organized and clutter free work, home and as well as business environment. (Moore, et al., 2011). I will maintain my environmental self-care by having clean clothes, well-maintained routine of work and will give some time to reading books after my work.
Social and spiritual self-care: I will give time to my own beliefs and values by practicing meditation and exercising with proper time and also becoming involved in healthy groups which will help me in healthy functioning of life. I will spend enough time with my family and will meet new people when needed which will help me in maintaining my social and spiritual health care.
Giving enough time to myself while working with the client by practicing on self-care measures will help me with maintaining and paying attention in such a way that will ensure self-care for me and by me and this will help me with distress, unwind and afflictions.
References:
Ben-Arieh, A., Kaufman, N.H., Andrews, A.B., George, R.M., Lee, B.J. and Aber, L.J., 2013. Measuring and monitoring children’s well-being (Vol. 7). Springer Science & Business Media.
Bryant, L.C., Vincent, R., Shaqlaih, A. and Moss, G., 2013. Behaviorism and behavioral learning theory.
Carroll, N. and Seeley, W.P., 2013. Cognitivism, psychology, and neuroscience: Movies as attentional engines
Clark, K.R., 2018. Learning theories: behaviorism.
Colton, M., Sanders, R. and Williams, M., 2017. An introduction to working with children: A guide for social workers. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Docksai, R., 2010. Teaching social skills. The Futurist, 44(3), p.12.
Ertmer, P.A. and Newby, T.J., 2013. Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance improvement quarterly, 26(2), pp.43-71.
Herbert, C., 2017. Overcoming traumatic stress: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques. Hachette UK.
Jingna, D.U., 2012. Application of humanism theory in the teaching approach. Higher Education of Social Science, 3(1), pp.32-36.
Moore, S.E., Bledsoe, L.K., Perry, A.R. and Robinson, M.A., 2011. Social work students and self-care: A model assignment for teaching. Journal of Social Work Education, 47(3), pp.545-553.
Peahl, A.F., Smith, R.D. and Moniz, M.H., 2020. Prenatal care redesign: creating flexible maternity care models through virtual care. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 223(3), pp.389-e1.
Ratti, V., Hassiotis, A., Crabtree, J., Deb, S., Gallagher, P. and Unwin, G., 2016. The effectiveness of person-centred planning for people with intellectual disabilities: A systematic review. Research in developmental disabilities, 57, pp.63-84.
Teixeira, M.R., Couto, M.C.V. and Delgado, P.G.G., 2017. Primary care and collaborative care in children and adolescents psychosocial interventions: facilitators and barriers. Ciencia & saude coletiva, 22, pp.1933-1942.
Wandersman, A., Poppen, P.J. and Ricks, D.F. eds., 2016. Humanism and behaviorism: Dialogue and growth. Elsevier.
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