Question

Chapter 25 Exercise – Developing Goals and Objectives V

Fundamentals of Case Management Practice, skills for the human services - 5th ed by Nancy Summers

Exercise 5: Developing Goals and Objectives V: Use the following vignette to develop a detailed treatment plan for the client.

Twelve-year-old Christina has come to the attention of your agency because her parents have abused her physically. The case was reported to Child Welfare, where you work, by a teacher at Christina’s school and Christina was removed from her home. The teacher noticed that Christina always seemed to have bruises, and when she asked Christina about these, Christina was reluctant to discuss them. You have met the parents and talked at length with Christina. All three say they want the family reunited in time. For the time being Christina is being placed with an aunt who offered to provide foster care for Christina. Christina is a good student, particularly in math and science. She is extremely shy and quiet and has few friends. You are not sure whether this is because she was forbidden to bring friends home or whether she has always been this way.

The broad goal is to help Christina and Christina’s family reunite successfully. List two very specific goals your agency will work on with Christina and her family. Next, place the objectives for each goal under that goal. Remember the phrase “as evidenced by. . . .”

Identify Christina’s strengths and any strengths you see within her family, and show how these strengths will help Christina and the family meet their goals. Explain how these will help them meet their goals.

Christina came into your office on April 4. What are your target dates for your goals?

Describe a service intervention you will use with Christina and her family to help them meet their goals.

Answer 1

Exercise 5-

Goals:

• Identification of the conflicts and reasons behind those physical abuses: We will try to speak to the parents and specially Christina to find out what were the reasons which led to those physical abuses. This will be done so that we can identify certain specific problems and issues to work on to ensure the reduction of these behaviours in the future.
• Working on reduction of aggression of the family members and helping Christina in developing assertiveness to protest against any abuses. It will also be attempted to help them in developing better coping mechanisms to use at times of conflicts and stress.

Strengths:

• The strength of Christina which can be identified from the given case report is that she is academically effective which may suggest atleast an average intellectual functioning. This will help her in understanding various ways in which she can deal with herself and her parents in the future. Another strength area is her willingness to be together with her family and this will help her in accurately and willingly attend the intervention sessions and work on the taught materials in order to get back with her family and get along better than before.
• Though much hasn't been said about the strength areas of the family yet one area which may serve as a strength is their willingness to be together with Christina. This can help them to realise certain mistakes made by them so that they can willingly learn ways in which they can be better parents.

Target dates:

The target date for termination will be October 4 or November 4. A weekly session will be attempted and after termination a monthly follow up can be attempted.

Service Intervention:

• Christina will be helped in developing assertiveness through assertive skill training.
• Christina's parents will be intervened with agression management skill training.
• All three of them will be taught advanced coping strategies and better interpersonal techniques to deal with tough situations.
• Finally, they will be trained to develop better communication and interaction skills.