For Sasha
SOWK110_04 Case Study 1
Case Description
Vanessa, Shauntay, Brandon, Dacey, Tiara, and Lawrence
Vanessa is a 32-year-old, African-American mother with four living children: Shauntay (15 years), twins Dacey (4 years) and Tiara (4 years), and Lawrence (1 year).
Vanessa dropped out of high school during her senior year but received her GED a few years later while pregnant with her first child, Shauntay. She took various “odds and ends jobs,” frequently relying on welfare when she was not engaged in work. When she was in her early twenties, she completed an eight-month course at a local business college and became employed with a government agency as a receptionist. Vanessa’s mother moved in with her and provided childcare for Shauntay while Vanessa went to work. About 6 months after starting her new job, Vanessa’s mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack, and Vanessa eventually quit her job due to stress. Her boyfriend at the time introduced her to opiates not long after her mother’s death and soon the drugs consumed Vanessa’s life. Shauntay went to live with her paternal grandparents and Vanessa lost her benefits because she no longer had a dependent child living with her. She eventually applied for General Assistance where she received about $125 a month.
In 2006, Vanessa gave birth to a baby boy, Brandon, who was born addicted to opiates and was immediately removed from her care and placed into foster care. Unfortunately, soon after Brandon was placed in a resource home, he died of apparent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome while in the care of his resource parents. In 2013, Vanessa had two more children, twin daughters named Dacey and Tiara. When Dacey and Tiara were four months old, the girls were taken into child protective custody, after Vanessa left them in the care of a woman neighbor who was in the process of being evicted. The landlord stopped by regarding the eviction, saw the two unrelated and unsupervised children, and called the child protection agency, DCP&P. When Vanessa returned the next day after working overnight to pick up the children, she was charged with neglect and the girls were placed in foster care. When the twins were first removed they were placed with Vanessa’s aunt, but due to unexpected health issues, the aunt was unable to keep both girls long-term. The twins were eventually removed again and placed together with a non-kin resource family.
In 2014, Vanessa was court ordered by Family Court to enter an inpatient drug treatment program, and by May 2015 she was reunited with her children. Vanessa’s recovery was strongly motivated by her guilt surrounding Brandon’s death. She visited him infrequently when he was in the hospital, and she believes this is one reason he was placed in foster care. In addition, if he had been in her care instead of with foster parents, she wonders, could his death have been avoided? Her remorse over Brandon’s death permeates her feelings about being a parent. These feelings impact her sense of herself as a parent. She describes herself as “forgiving” with her children, a parent who ought to say “no” but cannot because of past mistakes that led to the children’s foster placement.
Vanessa began collecting TANF at the time she regained custody of the twins. Her children lived with her at the recovery program until October 2015 when the family moved into the program’s transitional housing apartments. Vanessa paid $280 per month in rent, which was equal to 30% of her income at the time. She was allowed to remain there with her children for up to 3 years. While living in the apartments, Vanessa was able to continue to receive substance abuse services and supports, as well as guidance on job training. Vanessa expressed feelings about DCP&P, stating their involvement gave her a “wake-up call.” However, she subsequently felt herself to be under constant surveillance, in which her behavior could be critically examined at any time.
That fall of 2015, Vanessa took a job with a new government agency, with a starting salary of $8.60/hour. She gained this job without any assistance from the WorkFirst NJ program. At this hourly wage, she continued to receive assistance from TANF, food stamps, and WIC. After roughly nine months at the job, her salary increased to $12/hour and she was no longer eligible for TANF. WorkFirst NJ continued to pay for her childcare costs, and she also continued to receive NJ Family Care for the family. Vanessa was aware of the time limits and the family cap with welfare benefits. As a result, she felt increased pressure to achieve stable employment, pressure that only intensified her conflict between her need to work, and her desire to spend time with her children.
Vanessa felt the stress of her job impacted her relationship with her children. "A lot of times when I come home I’m tired and stressing and trying to get them in here and get them situated and ready to go back to daycare - it takes a lot out of me raising them and spending time with them - having the patience and, you know, being gentle with them." Thus, along with limiting the time she has available for her children, work also impacted Vanessa's parenting when they were together. Although Vanessa regretted leaving welfare assistance for work, she also recognizes rewards of working. "Working I feel independent and, you know, like I’m doing what I should be doing." However, with only a temporary job she was not sure if the benefits of working outweighed the costs. Vanessa felt a full-time, permanent position would be more stable, would offer vacation time, and would provide better medical and dental insurance for herself and her children.
Vanessa's involvement with child welfare services initially damaged her feelings of control over her relationship with her children, and weakened her already fragile self-esteem. Although she had made major changes to her life, she felt that the child welfare system continued to base its judgments of her, on her past mistakes. She therefore believed that she would never be free of monitoring from the child welfare system. Vanessa continued to feel that DCP&P would reenter her life if she made the smallest mistake. "They're just watching me from afar, you know, waiting for me to pop." This perception of constant surveillance added to the pressure Vanessa felt, to maintain her employment status, and to care for her children well. But over the course of the year, this generated some pride in her accomplishments. "It just makes me feel proud now that whoever is watching me can say, 'yeah, well, this chick, she's pretty tough - so far so good. She's still all right.' I'm showing whoever's looking at me that people can change."
In June 2016, Vanessa gave birth to her youngest child, Lawrence, and took three months maternity leave from her job. She did not receive any additional assistance upon the birth of her son due to the family cap with WorkFirst NJ.
When Lawrence was born, the children’s father seemed to exist in the background of the family, seldom providing direct childcare and often gone for days, working as a mechanic at a local auto body shop. With the addition of the new baby to the household, the dual demands on Vanessa – as parent and worker -- increased and she frequently seemed exhausted. These demands were complicated by logistical (e.g., transportation) and institutional challenges (e.g., lack of benefits through her employer). Such competing demands, combined with limited resources, made her tired and less available to her children, and contributed to somewhat frayed nerves in the household. When Vanessa was especially tired and emotionally unavailable, the twins Dacey and Tiara tended to intensify their most defiant behaviors. This had the effect of getting Vanessa’s attention and involvement. Both Dacey and Tiara, Vanessa felt, were “traumatized” by their separation from her while in foster placement, therefore requiring especially attentive parenting. But while chaos often reigned, there was also a high degree of warmth and intensity of affection by Vanessa with her children. The baby appeared to be developing well and was remarkably adaptive to the high-energy environment he shared with his sisters. Although Vanessa’s style was erratic and sometimes ineffective with her twins, she had no major problems responding to the children’s basic care and protection needs. In fact, she was remarkably attentive to details of her infant’s experience in the midst of a fairly chaotic home environment. Vanessa also attempted on several occasions to reconnect with her daughter Shauntay who still lived with relatives, but Shauntay did not express the same interest. Vanessa continually expressed tremendous guilt and sadness surrounding her relationship with her eldest daughter.
Shortly after she returned to her job in September 2016 after maternity leave, the government office hired Vanessa permanently, and her wages increased to $14/hour. She excitedly claimed that after 6 months, her salary would double to $28/hour, and that the job provided both medical and dental benefits for herself and her children. Vanessa felt that her personal determination contributed to her achievement of this high-paying job. In addition, she attributed her success to supervisors who were sympathetic towards her, and respected her efforts to transition off welfare, to employment. In May 2017, however, Vanessa was fired from her job because she released, to a friend, a confidential document. Vanessa was told this was a violation of the code of ethics, and although she understood the decision, she felt had she needed to provide the friend with a favor.
This unfortunate decision generated new stress. The next month she found a temporary job at $9.00/hour, once again without benefits; and during the month she was without employment, she did not receive TANF assistance. She had recently bought a used car and the value of the car was great enough to disqualify her from welfare. She was also very late on her rent payment that month. Losing the income from both her job and welfare for just a few weeks created a precarious situation for Vanessa and her three children. During the last contact with Vanessa, in June 2017, she talked about her worries, laughed nervously, and dismissed the fact that she had begun occasionally drinking alcohol.
Efforts to contact Vanessa again in August 2017, December 2017, and January 2018 were unsuccessful.
Please review Vanessa’s case and respond to the following questions:
Use the person-in-environment and ecological models to conduct an assessment of Vanessa’s situation. Describe the difficulties she faced and reflect on their potential causes by identifying specific risk factors present in her case. Address risks at different levels of the system, i.e. individual, family, neighborhood, etc. Please describe in detail how these risks affected Vanessa and her situation.
no family support
mental health issues
financial strains
unstable home/house
prostitution
criminal record
drug addiction
domestic violence abuse
dropped out of school
lost her kids
unemployment
unhealthy relationship
single mom
behavioral issues with kids
The different systems that it applies to
How risks can impact each other
Use the strengths perspective to identify potential protective factors/strengths present in Vanessa’s case. Identify strengths at different levels of the system, such as individual capabilities, family strengths, community strengths, etc.
parenting class
was in counseling
drug treatment
removed herself from toxic relationship
recognized her struggles
cares about her kids
Propose an intervention plan for Vanessa at the micro level. What would be the overall goal of the intervention? Indicate which theory would guide the intervention (e.g. psychodynamic, problem-solving, task-centered, cognitive-behavioral, etc.) and why. Please make sure to explain in detail why you chose a particular theory. When designing an intervention, make sure it addresses risk factors and incorporates protective factors (as identified in questions 1 and 2).
Problem solving theory - (rehab, support group, counselor) how to fix substance abuse
It is the best theory because …
(doesnt need to cover all risk factors, just main ones)
(good time to use the book, explain theories)
Propose an intervention plan for Vanessa at the macro level. What are the goal(s) of the intervention, and how does it complement micro-level work? When designing the intervention, make sure it addresses risk factors and incorporates protective factors (as identified in questions 1 and 2). Also, indicate if assigning a case manager would be beneficial in this case, and if so, why.
macro intervention could be having programs that are closer , help transportation
start a program in the area she and others live in and with help others in the area as well.
Develop a program that will help the community as a whole
*Program development
*Advocate
Guidelines for submission : The case study is due 10/11/18 by 4:00pm. The paper should use font size 12 and must be double-spaced. The entire paper should not exceed 5 pages. Late submissions will not be accepted, with the exception of emergencies approved by the instructor.
The textbook must also be appropriately referenced and cited within the assignment. References to outside articles and readings are optional.