Family Assessment Paper Guidelines: Students will conduct a family assessment on

Family Assessment Paper Guidelines:
Students will conduct a family assessment on their family-of-origin using a generalist lens. The family assessment provides information about family dynamics, family structure and communication patterns, how they experience problems, past problem-solving behaviors, life-stage development, and relationships. The assessment should integrate and synthesize data about the family, utilizing a generalist lens.
In addition to gaining new insights about your family-of-origin, this assignment will help you to develop writing/documentation skills, family assessment skills, and critical thinking skills.
(Note: In this assignment, I would like you to reflect on your own family-of-origin—the reason being that you likely know a lot about your own upbringing. For this paper, you do not actually need to sit down and have a formal assessment meeting. Rather, it is assumed you should know enough about your family to be able to complete the assessment. For the presenting problem, you might think of something your family struggled with and might have liked to improve upon. If there are pieces of the assessment you are unsure of, however, you are welcome to talk to your family members to glean additional information.)

Each family is unique and has their own challenges, which can deeply impact us. While I think reflecting on your own family-of-origin is ideal for this assignment (and will be helpful in your development as a reflexive social worker), you are certainly not obligated to share personal information. You may pick and choose what you’d like to share and can be creative in providing fictitious data where needed. If, for whatever reason, you do not feel comfortable sharing anything about your family-of-origin, you may alternatively choose to focus on another family you know a great deal about (e.g., a friend’s family), just so you have enough information to adequately complete the assignment.)

Paper Components/Format
Social worker name
Date of assessment
Names and ages of family members

Background
Brief description of the family
Race/ethnicity
Marital status
Occupation/school grade of family members
Anything that would assist me in understanding thefamily (e.g., blended family, gay/lesbian)

Family Assessment

Presenting Problem: What is the presenting problem/need? How are family members connected to the problem?

Family Structure: Report on family norms, family roles, balance of power, intergenerational aspects of the family, nonverbal/verbal communication, family mood, interaction patterns, and alliances. What avenues of communication are they using?

Life Cycle Adjustments: In which stage of the life cycle is this family? Discuss.

Family Probes: Report on the layout of the home, description of a typical day, rules and regulations, discipline, cultural considerations, spiritual beliefs, and areas of disagreements.

Desired Family Changes: What changes does each family member want to see? How do family members’ goals for change overlap and diverge?

Previous Family Crisis: How have previous family crises and disagreements been resolved?

Additional Issues of Concern: Are there other problems or issues you think might emerge as you delve deeper into this case? What are they, and how might they affect the situation? Explain.

Incomplete Data: What information are you lacking about the situation and its context that you feel you need to know to gain an in-depth understanding? Explain.

Strengths, Limitations, Barriers: Identify the strengths, limitation, and barriers present in this family. Based on the strengths, where would you start to work with this family?

Motivation/Resistance: What issues of motivation and resistance (address both) do you think you are likely to encounter? How do you think you might handle them?

Family Formulation: Provide a synthesis of all this data from a generalist perspective.

Recommendations: What services do you recommend for this family? What are your general recommendations?

Genogram/Ecomap
Prepare a genogram and ecomap (preferably created in PowerPoint and copied into Word; hand in a hard copy if you are doing by hand)

Family Service Plan
Design a service plan for this family. The following should be addressed: (a) formulate three SMART goals in working with this family (i.e., Goal 1, Goal 2, Goal 3); (b) formulate two-three objectives for each goal (six-nine total); (c) what actions (at least one task for each objective) should be taken by the worker, the clients, and/or others to operationalize your objectives (e.g., “worker will . . .” or “client will . . .”)? Who will do what and when?

Evaluation
How are you going to set up your evaluation to track accomplishments or progress in goals and objectives? What method of evaluation will you use? Explain.

Reflection
What did you learn from this assignment? How has this assignment contributed to your professional development?

This paper should be 6-9 pages, double-spaced, in assessment format (using the above headings as a guide). Remember to maintain a generalist, strengths-based perspective.
Example Student Paper: Here is an example from a previous semester. Please note that this example is not perfect and has room for improvement. Use it, along with the above guidelines, to complete this project.

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