Identify the Macro Practice Role(s) assumed in the following case scenarios. 1.
ID: 3452684 • Letter: I
Question
Identify the Macro Practice Role(s) assumed in the following case scenarios.
1. A social worker employed by a neighborhood center determines that the various workers and other professionals dealing with adolescent clients are not communicating with each other. (A neighborhood center is a locally-based facility intending to bring neighborhood residents together by providing services, resources, and opportunities for interaction.) For example, school social workers have no established procedure for conveying information to protective services workers who, in turn, do not communicate readily with probation and parole workers—despite the fact that these professionals are working with many of the same clients. The neighborhood center social worker decides to bring together representatives from the various agencies that serve the center and establish more clearly defined communication channels.
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Explanation:
2. A worker in a Child Protective Services Unit has developed special skills in family counseling by participating in a two-year training program. Her agency’s Assistant Director asks her to provide a series of six in-service training program for other Child Protective Services staff. (In-service training programs are educational sessions provided by an agency for its staff to develop their skills or improve their effectiveness.)
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3. The main tasks of a Foster Care Unit are to assess potential foster parent applicants, monitor placement, manage cases as children move in and out of foster care, and train foster parents in parenting and behavior-management skills. The unit social workers hold biweekly meetings to discuss how to improve agency service provision. The workers take turns organizing the meetings and running the discussions.
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4. A social worker employed by a large private family services agency specializes in international adoptions, especially those involving countries from Northeastern Europe, Central Asia, and China. He discovers that many of the adoptive children suffer from health problems caused by early nutritional deprivation. The worker is convinced that this is not a matter of one or two problem cases, but a disturbing pattern. No automatic referral process is in place to assess these adoptive children and direct their families to needed resources, including designated medical specialists. The worker devises a systematic process for assessment and referral.
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5. Agency administration asks one of three social workers in a large residential health care complex for older adults to assess the effectiveness of its social services program.
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6. A social worker employed at a sheltered workshop for people with intellectual disabilities is assigned by her supervisor to oversee a new program that will teach anger management and appropriate assertiveness skills to clients. (Sheltered employment such as this workshop for people with intellectual disabilities is a program involving work in a safe, closely supervised work environment for people who have trouble functioning more independently.) The social worker will also be responsible for supervising two other social workers and training them to implement the program with their clients.
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7. A group of clients inform their social worker that the community is trying to enforce a housing maintenance ordinance in a punitive and excessively picky manner. Enforcers have been sent to these clients’ homes and have cited them for such minuscule matters as having pieces of siding that need repainting and rusted rain gutters. These clients are poor and have almost no access to resources for anything other than basic necessities. They implore their social worker to help them. She learns that the original intent of the ordinance was to ascertain the safety of the clients’ living conditions: Were steps and railings broken? Were windows broken? Had lead paint been used? The worker, therefore, judges that both the client group and the community are trying to do the best they can, so she attempts to referee the dispute between the community client group and the community leaders imposing the ordinance.
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Explanation:
8. A social worker employed by a large public social services department increasingly hears client complaints about drug houses popping up in their residential neighborhoods. The worker identifies clients and other concerned citizens, and organizes a community meeting. He then assists community residents in formulating a plan to identify drug house locations and establish a procedure for reporting such houses to the authorities.
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9. A social worker at a public assistance agency is terribly troubled by the conditions in the clients’ waiting room and by the tedious process of client intakes. She explores the issue, develops a proposed plan for improvement, and makes an appointment to speak with the agency’s executive director about it.
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10. A local charitable organization cuts off its contribution to a Planned Parenthood agency with a large, centrally located main clinic and three satellite clinics. (Planned Parenthood agencies assist people in making decisions about pregnancy and promote birth control and contraception.) The result will be a severe cutback in services and the closure of at least two satellite clinics. A huge number of clients will find it difficult if not impossible to receive adequate services. A social work counselor at one of the clinics, with the support of her supervisor, gathers facts to show the importance of the funding and arranges a meeting with the funding organization’s leaders. She hopes to discuss the cuts and persuade the charitable agency to reverse its decision.
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11. A juvenile probation officer is distressed by proposed legislation that will shut down a vocational training program for juvenile offenders because of its expense. He talks to other workers and administrators in his state agency, and gathers facts and statistics that demonstrate the program’s cost effectiveness. He then calls and writes to influential legislators, and meets with the chairperson of the legislative committee that recommended closing the program. He also contacts other concerned social workers and encourages them to join his effort.
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12. A group of community residents approaches a social worker to ask about starting a Neighborhood Watch program. (Neighborhood Watch Programs are locally based crime prevention programs where neighborhood residents volunteer to keep a careful lookout for each other in order to watch out for and stop crime.) The worker provides them with encouragement and information.
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Explanation / Answer
Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.
(Answer) A macro practice role in terms of volunteer work is that which affects the community as a whole and not just the life of a single person.
(1) Macro Practice Role(s): Establishing a communication network for the neighbourhood system.
Explanation: Such an overhaul in the communication and the volunteer process would have an impact on how volunteer work is done in the entire neighbourhood.
(2) Macro Practice Role(s): One professional is appointed to train other professionals within a volunteer unit.
Explanation: One person trains many counsellors who in turn would counsel several community members.
(3) Macro Practice Role(s): Foster care trainers train parents on a biweekly basis which would help improve the condition of foster kids.
Explanation: This is clearly a large scale operation that would help improve a whole system.
(4) Macro Practice Role(s): The worker has designed a systematic process for the assessment of indisposed children who are put up for adoption internationally.
Explanation: This is an operation on an international level that helps the over the condition of children around the world.
(5) Macro Practice Role(s): One social worker is asked to survey and analyse an entire unit.
Explanation: Research and findings of an entire community would likely have solutions and updates that would affect the entire community.
(6) Macro Practice Role(s): A social worker is responsible for personality development for mentally impaired individuals and also training other volunteers.
Explanation: This operation affects several patients within the community and also volunteers who would also affect change within the community as a whole.
(7) Macro Practice Role(s): A volunteer attempts to mediate the issues between an organisation that oversees ordinances of a large community and the community itself.
Explanation: This task is something that involves two large bodies of the community that are likely to affect each other.
(8) Macro Practice Role(s): A community-wide operation to recognise and purge drug houses.
Explanation: This is an operation that is a=handled by the community, of the community and for the community.
(9) Macro Practice Role(s): A social worker attempts to fix a system that directly impacts all of the clients within a community.
Explanation: The plea for fixtures in the waiting room is likely to affect every community member that avails the services of that office.
(10) Macro Practice Role(s): A social worker attempts to keep funding for a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Explanation: This operation might affect the clientele that lives within the community.
(11) Macro Practice Role(s): A probation officer attempts to save a vocational training programme for juvenile offenders.
Explanation: An individual attempts to save a programme that would affect the delinquents and the structure of their social lives within the community.
(12) Macro Practice Role(s): Community resident attempt to start a neighbourhood watch programme.
Explanation: Members of a community are attempting to start a programme that would affect the goings on within an entire community.