Critical Reflection on Social Work Practice

This document presents a critical reflection on a social work placement experience, focusing on a complex case involving domestic violence. The reflection explores the challenges faced, the lessons learned about domestic violence and social work theory, and how the experience challenged pre-existing theoretical assumptions. It also discusses the application of crisis intervention and task-centered approaches, highlighting the importance of ethical practice, non-judgmental approaches, and the need for further research in social work assessment tools for domestic violence. The reflection emphasizes the significance of building relationships with clients and multidisciplinary teams for effective social work practice.

Critical Reflection Piece
(Social Work)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Critical Reflection ...........................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Critical reflection / Incident ........................................................................................................3
Challenges I came across ............................................................................................................4
What I have learned about domestic and family violence in relation to social work..................6
How some of my theoretical assumptions in regards to critical social work was reflected .......7
Some of the Theoretical perspectives observed...........................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11
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CRITICAL REFLECTION
Introduction
This reflective piece aims to shed light on my experience while on placements, why and
how this has shaped my own personal understanding of a social worker. The first two headings
based on reflection while third heading on theory. The first heading to present- aim to talk
about my reflection, including a brief description of the organisation, Details of context in which
critical incident occurred, clarify the critical incident and why I felt the incident was critical to
my development as a social worker and which aspects were most challenging. The second
heading is a discussion on what I have learnt because of the incident and what I have learned
about social work theory, how it has improved my learning in social work professional. The
third heading present discussion more based in theory, analyse how critical incident has
strengthened, challenged and reflected some theoretical assumptions developed prior to
placement.
Critical reflection / Incident
At week two of my first social work placement, I had the opportunity to be part of a
complex care team meeting (triage) and came across a case that has given me goose bumps. It
was the good experience for me because I got opportunity to work with the care team. I went to
the placement agency after reading the article in the new paper. I belonged from the social
background and I have good interest in this field. I always want to serve the society members
well. When I went to the placement agency they have taken my interview and given me chance
to work with the care team (Triage).
The case which I had to handle was the lady who has faced the sexual harassment. My
responsibility was to investigate the case of lady and find out the causes that has created difficult
situation for her. The case is of a deceased female client that had passed away recently on the
6/3/17 due to possible domestic/sexual violence which was referred to as being recurrent by her
spouse, the case was under coroner’s investigation and her body was stored in the morgue until
investigations were being carried out. I was under the assistance of care team where my role was
to assist the manager and support in investing the case so that I can present evidence and can
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apply in court to give punishment to the criminal. Apart from this I had to find out the causes and
conditions which is faced by the lady in her home. My investigation also included body check up
of the girl so that I can found out the pain which she faced while death and asked question with
the other groups as well.
It was in the social care team working as social worker which works for improving social
condition of the society so that no one gets suffer from the harassment and do not get distressed.
Challenges I came across
The event was very interesting where I had to height light the major evidence in front of
authorities. Critical learning event was very good and it has given me new opportunities that has
also given me experience so that I got to know about issues in the society. It was critical for me
because being a social worker I had to communicate with primary social worker team who has
presented the case in front of me. In addition, being social worker I found it difficult to engage a
victim of violence to promote safety for their child while being subjected to violence themselves,
hence, it is important to promote safety not only for the child but also for the victim, ensuring
child’s safety is not compromised (Melchiorre and Vis, 2013). This led me realize, that as a
professional my direction is not to judge people but to approach in a non-judgemental manner to
tackle challenging situations in my profession. Raised in a culture that believes that burial of a
dead body is practices within hours or days, heightened me to seek more details. I approached
the primary social worker that presented that case and asked her more questions. As the case
unfolded I got to find out that the deceased client has a 70 yr old husband who is suspected of
having dementia and is currently deemed cognitively impaired. The couple had no children
together, however the 70 yr old man has two children from a previous marriage and both
children provided no support to the parent and step parent and showed a lack of support and
engagement with the services at this stage. The lack of support and engagement from the
children made me feel annoyed and disappointed which led to pre-judge and assume the children
were neglectful and uncaring people. The two children report to have had limited contact with
father and report to have a poor relationship with the deceased patient secondary to family
conflict. Nevertheless, Hoyle (2008) states that studies have shown that violence of any form can
cause not only physical health issues but also mental health issues such as depression, eating
disorders, anxiety, self- harm behaviours and suicide for its victims, Power et al 2014 adds
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economic, social, spiritual and psychological issues are prominent. Furthermore, children
exposed to violence can display disturbed psychological behaviours and be scarred by trauma,
hence this may explain the neglectful attitudes from the children.
Furthermore, another situation which was critical for me was to analyse the deceased
patient’s medical records. Being a social worker I had to investigate the mental and physical
condition of the lady and for that I had to coordinate with hospitals those which have given
treatment to the lady in past few years. I discovered that patient had presented to hospital three
times previously dating back to January 2012, October 2016 and November 2016 with bruising
to the forehead, laceration to the cheek, pretibial skin tear reportedly caused by an unwitnessed
fall ambulance report - 28/2/17 stated that she slipped on a magazine. After the session I thought
about whether women are safe of not in the society. Power et al (2011) reports Australian studies
suggests that all health care workers will come across survivors of abuse in their practice while,
between 20-30 per cent of women that present to healthcare services are likely to have
experienced domestic or family violence. While victims of intimate partner violence use
emergency department three times more than non-abused women. After the event I felt that
could this have been prevented if professionals were trained and had the right tools to probe
possible domestic violence from the previous admissions. New South Wales Health Department
(2001 as cited in Power, Bahnischa, McCarthy. 2011) claims, some of the common barriers to
effective screening of family violence maybe the reluctance of the workers to enquire regarding
the possibility of being subjected to violence. If the social worker or initial assessment
professional would have taken their time to build a helping relationship, exercising empathy, as
Maidment and Egan (2016 p.120) explains, it is a key skill in attempting to understand another
persons thoughts, feelings and experience from their perspective combined with a non-
judgemental and understanding approach was enhanced by open ended questions with re
framing, rephrasing techniques and follow up once discharge might have narrated this incident
more positively (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2005).
On the contrary, Auerbach and Mason (2010 as cited in Pereira, Wire & Stiller. 2017)
states social workers based in emergency rooms provide rapid assessment and interventions
based on the patient’s social service needs and the aim of increasing hospital efficiency and
deliver better access to social services. This expectation and high workload may also explain,
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why certain aspects of assessment process are overlooked. The most demanding thing about the
situation was that people are not safe in the environmental, there are many cases of sexual
harassment are occurring in the society. Apart from his patients a re not getting right treatment
and that is why they have to suffer from huge problems.
What I have learned about domestic and family violence in relation to social work
The whole experience of event was very shocking for me because I got to know the real
situation of society and troubles what people face regularly in the medical services. Domestic or
family violence is defined as gendered crime which takes place due to inequality between
women and men in the society. Most of the girls and women faced domestic abuse in the form of
forced marriage, sexual harassment etc. It is physical, emotional and sexual in any form.
Interestingly, social workers were faced with violence in family setting in the late 19th
century when child protection work began, they found that not only was there neglect and abuse
towards the child but the husbands also had abused their women, while child protection agencies
regarded this type of violence as domestic disputes which was contributed by the woman’s
unappealing appearance or lack of housework capabilities and man’s ignorance or mental
deficiency. Hence this highlights the gender bias theories in initial era of social work, which in
return enforced family casework (Gordon 1988; Pleck 1987; Richmond 1917, as cited in Hahn
and Scanlo, 2016).
From the social event I learned many things, the most important thing that is learned by
me was values and ethics. It is our ethic that to respect the women and even government has
made strict regulation if any person harm the women or do bad behavior with them. I got to
know about code of conducts. Several norms and regulations which have been made by
authorities to protect the society members and fir their welfare.
Furthermore, I learned that being a social worker it is my responsibility to identify the
root cause of the problem and to provide safer environmental to the society members so that they
be safe and live their life happily. Being a social worker what I have to do and what are my role
towards the society is very important. I got to know about theses aspects and that has helped me
in fulfilling my responsibility well towards the community. While working on the case I realized
my skills and I have utilized these strengths well in order to work better for investigating the
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case. I realized that I had good communication skill and convening skill. That has helped me in
collecting the evidence about the case of lady.
I learned that Australian Bureau of statistics (2007, as cited in Power et al. 2011) reports
Domestic and family violence to be a leading form of violence against Australian women, while
one in three of these women experience physical violence, one in five will face sexual violence.
In correlation to this, it is believed between 40 to 70 percent of female murder victims in
Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and America, are accounted through partner violence,
while in United Kingdom it claims the lives of two women every week. Moreover, some studies
report majority of these victims have come in to contact with either health, social services or
criminal justice systems a year before their murder. In addition to this studies conducted in the
United states reveal that ethnicity plays a role as domestic violence rate is higher in black
minorities than the white minorities and even less reports from the Asian women (Hoyle, 2008).
While Power et al 2011, views that domestic violence is not bounded by geography, socio-
economically, age, gender, culture nor religion, Manthorpe & Bowen (2010 as cited in Killick,
Taylor, Begley, Anand & O’Brien, 2015) reports factors such as age, gender and cultural factors
can influence views of abuse, furthermore, older population may view mistreatment much
differently to professionals (Douglas 2015; as cited in Killick et al, 2015) and these different
views can effect social workers failing to recognise victims of domestic violence and thereby
system failing this vulnerable cohort in society.
How some of my theoretical assumptions in regards to critical social work was reflected
Despite different relationships over the past few decades in social work field and
domestic violence, history highlights connections based on feminist and social justice
frameworks. I was assuming before this case that in the society there are equality between men
and women and no partiality done on the bases of gender or age. But it was shocking to know
that there are many domestic violence cases occurring daily in the society. Although 92 percent
of social workers claim to have worked with victims of family violence and continue to nurture
their knowledge, assessment and strategies, it is surprising social work studies are lacking in
power imbalanced relationships and in assisting victims who are underprivileged or of colour
and different sexual orientation (Gay/lesbian/transgender) (Crabtree-Nelson, Grossman and
Lundy, 2016).
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I was thinking that human behaviour is influenced by the culture and income factor. But
my perception got changed after this event, I got to know about causes of human behaviour that
impact on their overall personalty. That inequality which in the mind of people is the main
reason that is why many domestic cases takes place in the society. This learning event has
changed my thinking and I started thinking from different ways so that I can investigate the case
in better way ad can look each aspect of the case.
My virtuous moment so far, was having attended the world social work day symposium
presented at the hospital which emphasized a vision on promoting community and environmental
sustainability and got to see forehand some ethical dilemmas faced by social workers dealing
with victims of family violence including elder abuse, and sexual assaults. which required the
social workers to explore debrief of the situation by incorporating gentle and sensitive
conversations with patients such as active listening, respecting opinions of the victims of
domestic violence, correct use of skills when performing psycho social assessments to assess
injuries and the impact this has on victims daily living.
Some of the Theoretical perspectives observed
Theories are ways of analysing human behaviours and society (Maidment & Egan 2016,
P21) and social work uses numerous theoretical frameworks. Analysing this case, it is evident
that a crisis intervention and task centred practices were used. Task centred approach applies
time limited brief intervention to people who acknowledge their problems and are willing to
change (Chenoweth & McAuliffe 2005, p.124). Similarly, this critical incident may act as a
stimulus that provokes a crisis response. Psychological trauma is known to be caused by extreme
stressors or critical incidents like natural disasters and violent actions caused by humans. In
response crisis interventions are evoked. Crisis intervention is a response which provides
emergency psychological care to promote and sustain optimal level of functioning and prevent
any potential negative impact that might be elicit by psychological trauma (Payne, 2014). In
addition, crisis intervention approach had been used where by rapid assessment of presenting
problems were conducted. Initially when the patient had presented to emergency services the two
previous times, she was treated for her medical issues and safety risk assessment was conducted
on basis of falls risks identified and interventions had been placed for this crisis focused issues.
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Social work ideas consist of promoting human well-being and social justice and includes
a holistic approach to their practice, they are thought to be well equipped to deal with family
violence. One of the key factors in social work when dealing with victims of family violence is
ensuring safety for vulnerable victims (child, elderly person, woman or man), ensuring
empowerment and motivation is provided simultaneously, so the victims can identify their
strengths to cope with their trauma and ordeal. In addition, it is paramount social workers
understand the effects of family violence on the victims and their family’s mental health and
ensure that they approach in a holistic manner and are trained in understanding how to work with
both the victims and perpetrator in a non-judgemental manner to provide best possible outcomes
(Marsh 2003).
In addition, it is evident Psychodynamic /psychoanalytic approach and radical, structural and
critical approaches – including feminist and anti-racist theories might have been beneficial,
where social worker practices active listening skills and be open to asking challenging questions
in a non-judgemental manner can be practiced where Conscious-raising and validation of
feelings of oppression, and the building of confidence is challenged and practiced.
CONCLUSION
This reflection has shed light on personal understanding and knowledge on domestic and
family violence and its prevalence globally. National Association of social workers (2017)
reports, domestic violence is impossible to measure at present due to numerous issues. However,
it is noted, this calls out for routine screening by social workers and other healthcare
professionals in the health setting. In conclusion, some of the key barriers in identifying domestic
violence in an hospital setting were lack of resources, time constraints and high workload
affecting screening process (Day, Fox, Majercik, Redmond, Pugh & Bledsoe, 2015). Maidment
and Egan (2016, p.104) states ‘The ability to form relationships is central to effective practice
regardless of the practice approach used’, Hence I truly believe when working together with a
multidisciplinary team, clients and their family’s, forming and strengthening relationships is a
crucial part to social work practice. During the research for this assignment, despite having come
across many resources around domestic and family violence, it was evident that there appear to
be studies conducted in Australia regarding social work assessment tools in identifying domestic
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violence. Therefore, it highlights the fact that much research on social workers assessing and
working in partnership with domestic violence victims is necessary.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chenoweth, L., McAuliffe, D. 2005, The Road to Social Work and Human Service Practice: AN
introductory text, Thomson learning Australia, South Melbourne, Australia.
Crabtree- Nelson, S., Grossman, S.F and Lundy, M. 2016, A Call to Action: Domestic Violence
Education in Social Work, National Association of Social Workers, pp 359-361,
doi:10.1093/sw/sww050
Day, S, Fox, J, Majercik, S, Redmond, FK, Pugh, M, Bledsoe, J, 2015. Implementing a Domestic
Violence Screening Program, Journal in trauma nursing, Vol. 22 (3), pp. 176-181, DOI:
10.1097/JTN.0000000000000128
Hahn, SA and Scanlo, E. 2016, The Integration of Micro and Macro Practice: A Qualitative
Study of Clinical Social Workers’ Practice With Domestic Violence Survivors, Journal of
Women and Social Work 2016, Vol. 31(3), pp. 331-343, DOI: 10.1177/088610991557873
Hoyle, C., 2008, Will she be safe? A critical analysis of risk assessment in domestic violence
cases, Children and Youth services review, 30, pp 323-337,
doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.10.009
Killick, C, Taylor, BJ, Begley, E, Anand, JC, O’Brien, M. 2015, Older People’s
Conceptualization of Abuse: A Systematic Review, Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect,
27:100–120, DOI: 10.1080/08946566.2014.997374
Maidment, J 2016, Assessment frameworks and components’, in J Maidment & R Egan (eds),
Practice skills in social work and welfare: more than just common sense, 3rd edn, Allen &
Unwin, NSW, Australia.
Marsh, J. C, 2003, The Social Work Response to Violence, National Association of Social
Workers, Volume 48, Number 4, pp 437-438
Melchiorre, R and Vis J.A. 2013, Engagement strategies and change: an intentional practice
response for the child welfare worker in cases of domestic violence, Child and Family
Social Work, Vol 18, pp 487–495, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00868.
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Payne, M 2014, Modern Social Work Theory: Crisis and task centered practice, 4th edn, Palgrave
Macmillan, New York.
Pereira M, Wire G, Stiller K. A, 2017. Retrospective Review of the After-Hours Social Work
Service in a Tertiary-Care Public Hospital in Australia. The Internet Journal of Allied
Health Sciences and Practice. 2017 Jan 11;15(1), Article 1. ISSN 1540-580X
Power, C., Bahnischa, L., McCarthy, D., 2011. Social Work in the Emergency Department:
Implementation of a Domestic and Family Violence Screening Program, Practice, Policy
and Perspectives, Australian Social Work, Vol. 64 (4), pp. 537-554, DOI:
10.1080/0312407X.2011.606909
Online
National Association of Social Workers, 2017. The social work response to domestic violence,
Pressroom, accessed 28 April 2017,
http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/events/domestic_violence/response.asp
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