Strength Based Approach
Strength Based Approach
Mrs. Cavaliere Identifying Information Parents: Mrs. Cavaliere aged 32, now living in Bayside Queens, NY. Mrs. Cavaliere uses the same address. She has a child of 2 years by the name John Race: American/Greek/Italian
Religion: Roman Catholic
Languages: English
No occupations: Mother OBGYN MD
Father Wall Street trader
Referral source: Children hospital Presenting
Problem: 32years old wealthy Italian female who graduated as a doctor with a specialty in OBGYN.
She was happily married for 4years until 6 weeks after the birth of her only child. According to Mrs. Cavaliere, she had no prenatal complications and had a normal birth except that the umbilical cord wrap around the baby’s neck. Post Partum had no complications. Her baby was diagnosed as a normal baby boy who weight 6.9lbs and had an APGAR score of 8. Being that she is a doctor she completely trusted the MD until six week post Partum. Mrs. Cavaliere noticed that her child had petit jerking movements with unknown cause or diagnoses. She now believes that her child was deprived of Oxygen since he had his umbilical cord wrap around his neck and that no early intervention was done for her son. He was not taken to NICU (neonate intensive care unit) and that the doctors made believe that she had a normal child. She has sued the hospital but because money is not an issue in her household she is not pursuing the suite, and she now blames herself for his defects, (Berg, 2009).
The child is now 2 years old with more diagnoses including hearing impaired and legally blind. Has a seizure disorder with 50 seizures a day. The baby can’t hold his head upright due to poor muscle tone with both upper and lower extremities. Her husband is Greek and works in Wall Street earning a 6 figure salary. The child gets early interventions such as visual, speech, OT, and aqua PT, PT, speech feeding. She is mad on the therapy or doctors because they are not fixing her child. Evidence shows that the child’s eyes are not improving. Mom is depressed because she feels trap for no one is good enough and qualify to take care of her child but herself. She is currently unemployed because of his daily seizures. The baby is under a lot of seizure medication whereby she does not trust anybody including doctors. She does not like anyone even her friends. She does not like to socialize. All her friends and her college’s doctors have normal kids that invite them to all parties, but Mrs. Cavaliere refuses because she has an imperfect child, (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
She is a prisoner at home. When people expressed that her son is a cute baby she doesn’t like it because she does not feel that he is a baby because he is 2 years old. For his first birthday, she did not invite her family or friends to celebrate. According to Mrs. Cavaliere she does not like parties. For his second birthday, Mrs. Cavaliere was forced by the family to do him a birthday party. After the birthday party, she went into a deep depression, overwhelmed after seen that her nephew that is only 6months old functions at a higher cognitively and developmental than her 2 year old child. Due to culture differences Mrs. Cavaliere started to assess his family history for any findings of Mental Retardation. Mrs. Cavaliere is also going through a trust issue which was build after the baby could seek help in the church. The advice she has been to bring priest to the house, (Buckley & Epstein, 2004).
Potential resources
The mother and the baby need a LPN or RN to help mom with daily nursing routine. This will help the mother take care for her personal needs such as salon, church and date night. Mrs. Cavaliere is recently getting early intervention from NYC early intervention program that is a service for kid’s birth to 3. When he is 3years he will have to seek continued preschool of special education. Due to culture differences evaluating her family history for any information for retardation. Once she gets a trust issues solution she can get therapy in the community. Intervention choices Building on family strengths and resilience are the primary goal in working with families. It is to be expected that many individuals and families react with a flood of emotions and sense of uncertainty, (Berg, 2009).
Yet many individuals and families adapt well over a time to life -changing situations and stressful conditions. Developing resilience will be the first family journey teaching the Cavalier family to take care of themselves and sensitizes them to deal with situations early or seek help early before a situation becomes worse. Assisting the family to establish and maintaining a good relationship. Accepting support and help from family well wishers and will listen to family members strengthen resilience. Teach a positive “can -do” approach life events and problems and assist families to interpret and respond to problems reflecting a positive approach to these events. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help families focus on circumstances that they can alter and not fell overwhelmed, (Beavers & hampson, 2000).
Maintain a hopeful outlook
It goes with a positive can do approach. An optimistic outlook enables families to expect that good things will happen again. Nurture a positive view about the family motivates families so as help to solve problems; when they trust in their instincts, this helps build resilience. Engage in opportunities of family discovery. When families learn something about themselves, they gain knowledge on their struggle with learning. For example, a greater sense of personal strength emerges an increased sense of self worth, even while feeling vulnerable, and a more developed spirituality, may all be possible. To reinforce generational boundaries, Mrs. Cavalier will learn about parenting roles and parental child relationships.
Reference:
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M.R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachment as a fundamental human motivation. Psychologica bulletin, 117,497-529
Beavers, W.R., & hampson, R.B. (2000). The beavers System Model of Famly funcitioning. Journal of family therapy, 22(2) 128-143. Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group (2002b). The implementation of the Fast track Program: An example of a large scale prevention science efficacy trial. Journal of abnormal child Psychology, 30(1), 1-17.]
Berg, C.J. (2009) A comprehensive framework for conducting client assessments: Highlighting strengths, environmental factors and hope, Journal of Practical Consulting, 3 (2), 9-13
Buckley, J., Epstein, M. (2004). The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale—2 (BERS—2): Providing a comprehensive approach to strength-based assessment. The California School Psychologist, 9, 21-27
Family assessment Handbook (2010) An Introduction and Practical Guide to Family Assessment. Pg Chapter 6, Page 92-94.
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