Assessment 2 Case Study: How Couples, Family and Group Counselling Can Assist Your Family

The Family: Overview

Assessment 2 Case study

Penny presents to your service and describes a range of problems that she and her family are experiencing. She wants to know how couples, family and group counselling might be of assistance to her family.

Sam and Penny have been married for 5 years. Penny is from a South African -Australian background and Sam has a Chinese background.

Living with them is Sam’s 17 year old son (Peter) from a previous marriage and Penny’s two children from a previous relationship, Monique aged 15 and Sarah aged 12.  Sarah and Monique’s father, Dal who was from a Finnish background and lives in another city, and is remarried with two children from that relationship,  Monique and Sarahtalk with Dal via WhatsApp and see him a few times a year. Peter’s mother, Agnes died 8 years ago from breast cancer.

Penny is most concerned about Peter who is in the last year of his school but does not appear to be putting much time into his study, as he seems to spend a lot of time playing online video games and is very moody and does not communicate much with the family. Sam is concerned about Peter but feels he will grow out of his current behaviour. Penny feels unsupported by Sam as he is regularly away work sometimes for several weeks, producing a popular TV show that is filmed in different locations around the world. Penny works part time as a nurse. Penny feels that Sam does not understand the pressure the family is under and that she is walking on egg shells. When Sam returns from his work trips he usually likes to “chill out” and to switch off from pressures of family problems. 

Monique is doing well at school and enjoys playing sport and has started spending quite a bit of time with her boyfriend. Penny feels that her daughter is too young to have a serious boyfriend but Sam tells her to stop worrying so much.

Penny is very close to her younger sister Dawn who is recently divorced with two children, Tim aged 5 and Tom aged 7. Whenever, Sam gets home from his work trips, Dawn and her two children seem to be in the house and Sam does not like this. Sam thinks that Dawn is using Penny by often expecting Penny to babysit Tim and Tom. Dawn thinks that Sam (her brother-in-law) needs to step up with Peter and to take a more active role with his son Peter.

Once you have started working with the family, Penny phones you (the counsellor) as she has just discovered from Sarah (the 12 year old) that her sister Monique has been sexting to her 15 year old boyfriend. Penny has not told Monique that she has this information and wants to know what to do ?