Social Work Case Study: April's Recovery-Oriented Approach

This case study analyzes the challenges faced by April, a 21-year-old graduate, exploring issues such as low self-esteem, lack of motivation, depression, and social problems stemming from her childhood experiences. The analysis examines April's situation through the lens of recovery-oriented approaches, highlighting the importance of individual uniqueness, real choices, and dignity. The assessment process is discussed, emphasizing the significance of understanding the interaction of different life domains. The case study further applies social work theories, including the feminist perspective and cultural competence, to understand the underlying causes of April's issues and to devise effective intervention strategies. The document also touches on ethical and legal considerations relevant to social work practice, providing a comprehensive overview of the case and potential solutions.

Case Study 1
April case study
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1. KEY PRINCIPLES OF RECOVERY ORIENTED APPROACH
The recovery oriented strategies offer a transformative conceptual frame-work for practice,
culture and service delivery in the mental health service provision (Aneshensel, 2013).
The recovery oriented approach recognizes the value of lived experience and get it along
with the expertise knowledge and the skills of the peer support workers, who have lived
experience, and use this experience to assist other individuals (Bland, Renouf and Tullgren,
2015).
There are various recovery oriented approach principles which the social worker uses to
deliver best practices of treatment to the mental individuals (Corrigan, Druss and Perlick,
2014). These are uniqueness of the individuals, the real choices, attitudes and the rights,
dignity and the respect, partnerships and the communication. Additionally, there is also the
principle of evaluating recovery (Turner, 2017).
HOW SOCIAL WORK ASSESSMENT CAN BE CONDUCTED WITHIN
RECOVERY ORIENTED APPROACH
The assessment is important part of helping process and it start from the moment one begins
to engage in the working relationship (Corrigan, Druss and Perlick, 2014) When it comes to
the assessment of the social work it is important to follow various guideline such as focusing
on the child--client, planning and developing on a clear analysis (Aneshensel, 2013). These
aspects are important since they demonstrate one is taking a systematic approach when it
comes to assessment through use of conceptual model using recovery oriented approach and
be able to deliver a comprehensive analysis (Daniels and Amour, 2014). It is important to
understand that a good assessment is one that highlights the three domains. The interaction of
these domains entails a careful investigation during the assessment (Aneshensel, 2013).
2. KEY ISSUES FROM THE CASE STUDY

Case Study 3
In this case study, it is about April a 21 year of age girl who has recently graduated. The past
experience of April has not been good. First, she was bullied by the other students in her
childhood because of being of mixed race. This caused her to have a low self-esteem as she
felt less unattractive and fat.
During her entire time in school she has in no way invited friends over to their residence as
she felt embarrassed by her mixed racial heritage. Putting this aside she managed to outshine
the other students and she was chosen as the student representative, this was the happiest
period of her life. When it came to relationship with the boys she had extreme anxiety
especially when it came to handling their sexual advances. She was involved in two
relationships one with Graham but after end of high school they broke up. The second
relationship was with Josh who she had been dating but she does not feel devoted to the
relationship. April is not devoted to her job nor motivated to work and socialise with other
people. She has been feeling agitated and she lost interest in doing anything like clearing her
apartment nor her personal appearance. She is avoiding everybody particularly Josh, her
parents and even her brothers. She is even lost interest in furthering her education. One of the
issue she lack self-esteem (Flanagan, Farina and Davidson, 2016). It is very evident since
childhood she has been bullied and she felt unattractive and fat.
This can be linked to the life domain of self-identity problem domain. This problem is more
rooted to the identity of person in other people who are associate with her. Identity is
regarded as what one knows but rather how you know it (Daniels and Amour, 2014). In the
case of April, hers is associated with the low self-esteem she feel not worth anything. This
aspect in most of the time occurs when a person believes they have no worth, and cannot
achieve anything (Rogers and Pilgrim, 2014). This happens when other people in your life, in
this case April’s classmates bullied her. She felt she is not worthy anything. When addressing
this issue it is important to ask yourself these questions do you like yourself? And are you

Case Study 4
good at anything that is useful? (Payne, 2015). On her issue that has been observed is that she
has given up in life and lacks motivation. It is seen that she does not care about her job, nor
motivation to continue with her studies as previously she had projected. Further, it is
observed she has lost all interest such as she does not clean her apartment and pays less
attention to her personal appearance. This individual seems to have lost all hope in life and
wants to give up. This could be aligned on the principle of real choices and the attitudes and
the rights. When looking at the real choices important to support and empower April to
enable her to make her own choices about how she intend to lead her live and acknowledge
the choices she made to become meaningful and creatively explore.
The life domain is based on aspect of education. As observed from the case study April
studied hard in school and got into a career but later on she realized she might be better off
working in a different one, and this would require a different education. In her case she
previously wanted to pursue a post graduate, but because of the lack of motivation she felt
that returning to school as an adult responsibility would be seen as a daunting task on her end
considering she currently has a job. Another issue which needs to be addressed is the state of
depression she is having. Based on the case study it is evidence that April has a depression,
this can be clearly being seen from the way she wants to be alone and she is avoiding the
people who loves her such as her boyfriend, parents and even her brother. Any individual
who separate themselves from the other may feel lonely or even experience some depression.
However, this is dependent on individuals as some do not experience the same. In the case of
April she seems depressed because of the following observation; one aspect on why she may
be feeling depressed is that she has been feeling on edge when getting ready for work or even
for drama group. She uses all sort of excuses to avoid going with others. She is much anxious
when the social functions have been sprung on her without prior notice. Another aspect is that

Case Study 5
she has lost a lot of weight. Moreover, April has lost all the interest in cleaning her apartment
as well as personal appearance.
Based on the shortcoming which have happened to her in past experiences; she feels less
attractive, fat and sees herself hated by other people. This leads to low self-esteem, and
negativity thoughts striking in and she ends up in depression (Healy, 2014). When individuals
belittle one they tend to develop feelings that they are not worth something or perhaps they
cannot achieve anything. This could be in regards to the physical aspects, or race. In the
context of the case study, it is evident that April is avoiding her family members, and Josh,
the reason is because she does not want them to see what she has become. They highly
regarded her as a focused individual, who has a great job and wanted to achieve more in life.
Currently, it seems this has changed greatly, she does not want her current job, does not want
to pursue further studies, lost her weight tremendously and she does not appear presentable as
she used to be.
This issue can be associated to the domain of social problems especially on the part of the
family and friendships (Bryman, 2015). Individuals are the social creatures who need the
comfort and support of healthy relationships. It is easy for some individuals to accomplish,
but other individuals find it perilously difficult task. This is because, some individuals have
specific difficulties when it comes to forming a particular kinds of a relationship. They may
have a good relationships, but may be uncomfortable in a dating or even a romantic setting.
In the case of April she had a difficult family life while she was growing up, which resulted
to having no prospect for satisfying adult relationship even though she has a boyfriend. She
had a difficult time all around her family life, had few friends and no prospect to satisfy adult
relationships which she had with the men. Evidently based on the case study she seems
lonely, particularly, when she does not want to go to social functions, does not want to be
associated with others including her family members and Josh her boyfriend. Moreover, it is

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also evident she does not want to meet others from the fact that she feels anxious when social
functions are sprung to her without notice (Bland, Renouf and Tullgren, 2015). Aboriginality
has also placed a significant part towards the development of April life. She was more buried
by the other children because of her race and her physical status since she was also fat. This
issue greatly affected her self-esteem and she grew wanting to prove to others she was as
better as they are. She did through education and outshone the other students and was even
elected the student representative.
SOCIAL WORK THEORIES
As a social worker it is important to understand various theories which would be important to
help individuals who have a given habit or even exhibit behaviour and assist them (Healy,
2014). Feminist perspective theory views the social world in way which illuminated on the
forces which create as well as support inequality, oppression and injustice and in doing so
promotes to the pursuit of the equality and the justice (Bland, Renouf and Tullgren 2015).
The theory focus on how the systems of power and oppression interact especially on the
systematic racism, sexuality, as well as hierarchical class system.
In this theory it would draw issues on why April has been behaving socially with other
individuals especially her family and friends. In her childhood she has been previously been
confronted by the other children especially on her looks. This is a life crisis which occurred
between her and the other children and it can greatly shape someone’s life by impacting their
self-esteem downwards (Bland, Renouf and Tullgren, 2015). This theory would offer a
centred approach for constituting a practice based service which is built on the research
which would help the social worker in addressing diverse situations (Parker, 2017). The
social worker could use the theory to relate and examine the condition which lead to the
conflict which occurred to April childhood life and consequently help her to get over it as
most of the time individuals tends not to forget when bad things happens (Parker, 2017).

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Cultural competences entails understanding and appropriately responding to the unique
combination of the cultural variable which could include the beliefs, ethnicity as well as the
gender identity. For the clinical approaches it would involve interviews style, assessment
tools and therapeutic techniques which would be appropriate to address the issue affecting
April. This is a social work practice which searches for the social barriers as well as structural
inequalities in the activities which are conducted with the service worker. This theory will be
useful to the social worker since it will offer a suitable, responsive as well as perceptive
services which will react to the needs of April without considering their cultural variables
(Bland, Renouf and Tullgren 2015). The theory will further help them to obtain knowledge
and an understanding of their own selves, various groups and cultures to be able to effectively
face the issues to a personal level and be able to help April to deal with her personal issues.
Some of the issues she needs to address is how the society has oppressed her because of her
race. She was often bullied as a child by the other student and this contributed negatively on
her self-esteem and self-worth.
3. LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES
Social workers have always encountered legal as well as ethical choice in relation to their
work with families, communities and organization. In the legal realm, the social workers
should be cognizant for various set of the requirements and guidelines such as statutory law,
common law and the regulatory law (Bland, Renouf and Tullgren, 2015). When it comes to
the statutory law there are many federal laws which have been enacted by the legislatures and
they affect the practices of social workers. Sometimes the social worker could encounter
situation in which the legal standards could conflict to the professional ethical standards. In
the case of the regulatory law they should be fully aware of the wide range of the federal state
as well as the local regulations. One such is concerned to the protection of the confidential
information. In the case of the April the social worker should keep what they are told

Case Study 8
confident even though it is related to the cases of alcohol or drug usage. This is based on the
confidentiality Act of 1987.
5. FURTHER INFORMATION.
On the further information as a social worker are important to help the client. Some of the
things which I intend to discuss with the client before starting the sessions are as follows; one
to contact the medical practioners (Rosenbaum, Tiedemann, Sherrington, Curtis and Ward,
2014). Based on this case of April I intend to involve other practioners to help me assist her
such as nurse-midwife, as well as the clinical psychologist but before I can contact them it is
important to discuss this with her so that she agrees and feel comfortable with them handling
her case. Secondly, it is important to involve and liaise with her family member. In any
mental health case as a social worker it is important to involve various parties such as family
members to offer support to the patient to enable her recover quickly (Bryman, 2015). This is
a fundamental aspect which I intend to discuss with her.

Case Study 9
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