What I Know

Total Situation and Resources

This is the last lecture that I had from my first Human services course. This will cover some approaches and some basics to counseling. There is a Systems Ecological Approach that is a perspective in how we as professionals see the world and that will effect your work with clients. You need to understand and seek the worldview of your clients and also allow you to preserve human dignity, respect the individual, value diversity and reach your and your clients full potential in life.

Approaches to helping there are problems as dealing with cause and effect in dealing with various relationships with a singular approach to the give and take of the cause and effect issues and if there are specific causes of the problem(s). You will not see other factors that effect the problem. You could use association to use different factors that contribute to a problem. Multicausality (focus on the person and community as a complex relationship. You as a human service worker need a broad framework to understand.

Systems Theory Perspective

This is when a group of related living parts shares some functions in common interrelated parts. The human systems as immediate family to a larger family to the local community to the society at large till gets you to an institution. What is 'synergy?' This is an energy and information 'the whole is greater then the sum of its parts.' There are combined energy from smaller parts will be greater if each part does things separately and combined later and then add contributions. There are boundaries that point where one system ends and another begins. Beyond the environment and defining boundaries of various agencies. There are also open and closed systems. 'Open' means allows others to enter its system. 'Closed' means cannot be penetrated by others, which means it could become stagnant with no positive interactions for others like a battered family. There is an idea called 'entropy' which is a loss of ability to function and will eventually die. Some families can be too open as an example a family of sexual abuse or parents are too much friends then parents that are too permissive or have a laizze-faire approach. There are systems interactions that show the how of interrelationships and the fluidity that are between them. There must be one (1) system that will effect another system that are interrelated. There is also an idea called a 'steady state' that says in a constant state of adjustment there should maintain some balance and must adjust and not be disorganized. There should also be 'equifinality' or a final state of a system that is equal and victims reached decisions in various ways. Problems allow for multiple ways of solving. It should be the clients choice in how he/she is helped.

There are criticisms to this way of thinking, as being too complicated and mass critical aspects of situations. Bronobrenner and Garbino looked at different systems and divided them at different levels. There is and 'ecological approach' which is a series of concentric layers that are developed and shaped by the opportunities and risks in these levels.

Level One or the 'micro-system' level which is the smallest and includes the person and from a intra-psychic perspective there are emotional and cognitive and other intimate ideas from a consistent basis and differs in this way-what is a persons level of functioning in the micro-group. There is also a 'meso-system' meaning the relationship is between the micro-group and someone else in both is the cause. An 'exosystem' effects the microsystem and the individual is not directly involved or no influences. The 'macro-system' are the large 'blueprints' for society with their values and attitudes.

Germaine and Gilderman - Problems in living in three (3) areas as in life transitions and the various child development stages from being single to married. To use and influence the elements of their environment and utilize social networks, which is the case managers job to try to establish networks. There are also maladaptive interpersonal problems as needed for co-dependancy and passive-regressive clients.

The Social Welfare System is setup to help or address dysfunction in other systems in own country such as personal disability. It is a product of interactions and interrelatedness of historical, economical and political forces and its target is the population of socially aggressive subgroups not adequately served by primary social services. There is a 'Generalist Model' that is a diverse group of settings utilizing the ecological approach systems model as an umbrella so organized to the understanding of their environment conceptualized the problem and will not be microfocused on separate issues. The goal is to develop a healthy personal environmental fit. The 'Strength Perspective' will focus on strengths not only on the weaknesses. It is building a case for or against. It also assumes others have the capacity to live in the lives and strengths and to manage their resources. When there is an emphasis on weaknesses that makes clients feel inadequate and form a negative self-fulfilling prophecy along with having low self-esteem.

Ethics and the Law

When professional violations occur along with ethical issues there is a question to ask 'How did the job influence my decisions if judged?' There is the concept of 'Confidentiality' that is an assurance given to the client that what is discussed in the relationship of human service worker/client what is shared will not be revealed outside of this professional relationship. There is an exception if anything that will harm anyone will have to be revealed for this is a legal and ethical issue and changes do occur and how willing is the client to cooperate. There is a lot of information in the databanks dealing with these issues.

There is the 'Federal Privacy Act' that states can have own beliefs and then the agencies can have their beliefs to carry this out. How much should be allowed to be revealed by the client and/or helper. There is an idea of 'privileged communication' that is a legal protection of confidences that are revealed in certain relationships. The human service worker is protected against unless the client consents to reveal unless you as the human service worker can be a supoena by the court. Not an absolute privledge even with considerable debate about this. Should it be restricted when harm may be done or if something significant will be used to help society. Clients may write or sign a waiver on certain information about the case. Clients should be informed about the limits of confidentiality and then the contract or other forms will be signed by the client, but it might limit any progress the client may reach.

In the famous court case 'Tarasoff vs. Caliafornia Schools and Boards or Regents 1974' there was an 18-year-old high school senior that revealed to the psychologist that he was going to kill a female student while school was in session. The question was 'Should the psychologist reveal his information. The psychologist was found neglient for not telling about the possible crime. Was/did they prove that there was a clear and imminent threat. The human service worker should always follow protocol of their agency and to do the best of your human service abilities. Privacy is the right to be left alone or of how much to share with anyone. The Release of Information or informed consent form is what is to be signed so everyone will know what information will and can be released.

Current legal issues

The client has the right to treatment and legal assurance that he/she is or maybe placed in an institution will receive necessary treatment. The right to treatment is to be in a least restrictive setting and provide the most effective treatment for the type, location, and the freedom of the client. This applies to individuals with special disabilities. The Education for All Handicapped Children Law (94-142) is that mainstreaming mentally handicapped and mentally retarded when possible can be housed in MH/MR facilities, proper juvenile facilities and educational facilities. There is a right to refusal of treatment with legal protection provided that is usually prescribed by professionals and that is not forced treatment which is problematic if the client is forced into treatment. The human service worker must always respect this right to refuse treatment and accept the consequences if what happens when treatment is refused. There is also what is known as 'mandated treatment' and the human services worker must make sure if this type of treatment is refused realize that the client is an individual , recognize that the client can also help produce what is needed to change in the system. Find as many ways as possible for the client to be involved in the decision making process and make what is their goals and prioritize what they do. The human service worker must also tell them about the treatment that they are about to receive and explain the reason with the reason they are there and tell them the methods used in this treatment.

Crisis Intervention

Crisis Intervention is a time limited service and is applied to various life situations or crises. There are several types of crises. The first one is the 'developmental crisis' and this is a response to a normal predictable part of the life cycle and as we motivate at different levels. The second one is the 'situational crisis' that has no regular happenings in life, but only during particular types of situations. The third one is called a 'social crisis' and this is when there is a conflict with society or a culture like discrimination or unemployment. There is a fourth one that is a 'compound crisis' that has to deal with a current trauma due to something from the client's past life occurances affecting the current life issue. *The Human service worker must quickly establish trust and rapport so that they during this particular crisis receive support, keep their self-esteem and reliance. The worker must establish this relationship very quickly, but a good human service worker will do this as if part of a normal day.

Phases of Crisis Development

The client reacts to a traumatic event with incresed anxiety that the person's problem-solving ability fails. The Human services worker will try to increase the attempts to get at the issue(s) but if results in failure to solve for further anxiety still with poor results things will become unbearable with dealing with their emotions and family to stop the crisis dealing with increase anxiety and having no problem-solving skills or just decreased. The Human service worker must remain calm, use their critical thinking skills and exhibit self-confidence. The worker will also learn about referral and activating a support network. Do this immediately and often as you can.

The factors that are affected are how much disruption has the crisis caused in the clients life, how much time has passed since the event happened, try to identify the persons strengths and coping skills, activate referrals to another person who could help in the crisis, now plan the intervention to be used on what kind of problem and plan for the future and the skills to handle the crisis that may occur with different outcomes.

Now the human service worker can return to pre-crisis state and help problem solve to help to de-escaluate with the cognitive skills taught and learned as well as new skills learned is ideal. Engage in abnormal behavior or withdrawal from the problem the human service worker will utilize the clients strengths and allow to express true feelings whether lousy or overwhelming to a lead to make a new meaning or purpose. A team approach from a psychiatrist, social worker, nurse and maybe other ancillary people could help in these situations.

Suicide there are assumptions that they must be mentally ill, but can still experience normal life function but again feel out of control. The factors that effect these attempts as tried before, family history, drugs and alcohol and exhibiting impulsive and aggressive behaviors. The human service worker will be required to do their best to save the clients life and not be responsible for another person's decisions or actions but assess for the lethality of suicide by checking it out with hearing hints and asking if the client is even thinking about it, then assess for the lethality and to what degree of suicide the client is thinking by the way of checking for suicidal ideations with their thoughts and feelings along with suicidal plans, gestures, and threats and then starting to develop a plan and then if they have a plan in place how are they going to do it. Do they have a weapon of some kind - a gun or are they going to use medicine for an overdose. The planned actions are very dangerous and the human service worker must consider the clients intentions to die whatever method is chosed is dangerous.

High intent -------- Low intent (does not really want to commit suicide

High lethality ------ Low lethality (method will work, but miscalculates

High intent ------- Low lethality (Chose good method of suicide)

Low intent ------- Low lethality (a gesture or cry for help)

This ends my course notes for the HSV 201- Introduction to Human services course. Just a reminder it has been awhile since I had the course and I know there probably have been changes made. I hope that all of my Human service articles will at least give you the basics to create maybe an interest in the this field.

I am thinking about either writing my notes from a few psychology courses I had taken at the same time as my Human services courses for I also was a Psychology minor during my undergraduate work.