Discuss and develop an assessment and treatment plan for a family using an integrative usage of attachment based family therapy and structural family thearpy.
The family I am working with is multi-generational composed of two grandparents caring for their three grandchildren. Both grandparents and grandchildren have experienced multiple traumas within their lives. For example, the children’s mother and grandparent’s daughter committed suicide in front of her now 13-year-old daughter, where the now 12-year-old brother and now 11-year-old daughter were also present in the home at the time just in a different room, and the grandparents transitioned quickly from the nurturing grandparents who often served as a “safe haven” to the guardians of the children. The 13-year-oldhas had an extremely hard time acknowledging the shift from the soft, nurturing grandfather to the parental figure. The grandfather believes that he must be tough and strict for parenting and does no longer want to be seen as “soft”. The grandfather enforces nightly prayers as a family and as the children get older, they have expressed wanting to pray in solidarity, and often become upset when the grandfather does not allow such, which result in behavioral issues as well due to issues with regulation. Additionally, the children have often shared an outlook of resentment towards the grandfather and describing him as “controlling” because the grandmother has never worked throughout life and has been expected to always cook, clean, and care for the children, and their view of him is of that which would be technically described as an authoritarian style. Additionally, the grandfather has verbalized his feeling of the grandchildren being “the worst children ever” and “too sensitive”
the goal would be to allow the grandfather to see there are various parenting styles that can be considered other than those utilized with previous years which may be more effective with grandchildren and shed light of how the view of the grandparent versus the parent and expectations of each are different, and because the roles have shifted, expectationsmay need to as well, and that the thought of the children being “the worst children ever” and “too sensitive” is something that has been communicated, the children have developed the identity of such as well as harboring feelings and resentment.
For the assessment and treatment plan, you should consult the research on treatment effectiveness (where available) and clearly articulate the rationale for your plan (i.e., why did you choose your particular approach(es) for your case?). Describe how race, ethnicity, gender diversity, social class, and other contextual variables (the community in which the family lives, child welfare involvement, etc.) would be important in therapy with this family. This is an opportunity to “fit” the approaches you have learned to an actual family and to your own style and characteristics as well as agency environment
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If your treatment approach has not been studied empirically at all or not been studied with your population, include 1-2 paragraphs describing how you think this intervention should be evaluated in a research study. Also include a plan for evaluating the results of your particular intervention.
In addition to referring to required class readings, it is expected that you will conduct a scholarly literature review regarding the substantive problem(s) in the family (e.g., alcohol/substance abuse, HIV, marital infidelity, violence) or the special population of concern in your case (e.g., homeless families, ethnic minority elderly, urban poor). This should include at least nine articles or chapters from outside of course readings.
uidelines
The paper should be no more than 8 pages and include:
nature of the problem
family genogram
literature review
family system assessment (you can use/adapt an assessment outline from the Nichols text or supplemental class handout)
family system formulation (what do you think is going on and why from a systems perspective, not an individual perspective)
treatment plan/goals
reasons for choosing particular approaches
evidence of effectiveness from available studies
description of course of treatment or a number of family sessions
