Asking for help

To insure that the five themes of the Just Practice Framework are consistently applied when working with service users: Meaning, Context, Power, History and Possibility

1. Think of a person that you are working with and identify where you are in the process (i.e. engagement, assessment/planning/review). Identify the issues being addressed in the situation presented by the person. For example:

· Alexia is a 32 year-old White woman from Staten Island.

· She was taken away form her biological mother and placed in kinship foster care with her maternal grandparents when she was 3 years old.

· Past trauma (both parents in prison, loss of community, loss of relationships, loss of parents, loss of self, domestic abuse)

· Recent trauma, Alexia’s daughter was “jumped” at school

· Substance use (marijuana and alcohol)

· Dealing with abusive ex-boyfriends, bringing up past emotions

· Low-income, and receiving public assistance

· Feeling like a hopeless and inadequate mother who is unable to protect her daughter

· Little stability and few supports

· Worried about what will happen to her daughter

· Wary of child protective services (child welfare) getting involved in her life

· Lack of high quality social work services in the community

2. How are you working with the service user in order to find out what their understanding of the situation is? How are you ascertaining the MEANING they give to the experiences and conditions that shape their lives, as well as their wishes, and feelings?

3. How are you taking into consideration the CONTEXTS in which the experiences and conditions unfold? What are those contexts?

How are contexts adding to the meaning given by the person to their lived experience and conditions?

How are contexts impacting your understanding of the situation?

Context defined: is the background and set of circumstances and conditions that surround and influence particular events and situations in the lives of all of us. Context allows us to look beyond the obvious and see things that might otherwise be missed. Within social work, it is evident that the interwoven context that cause this are interpersonal, community, and sociopolitical.

4. Consider how your approach is/may be affected by any similarities between you and the person(s) – e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class status, and education. [Positionaity]

5. Consider how your approach is/may be affected because of any of your social identities that are not the same as those of the service user – e.g. age, sexual orientation, ability, class status, or education. [Positionality]

6. How much weight/consideration are you giving to this person’s story about the experiences and conditions of their life as well as their wishes and feelings?

As an individual in a ‘professional position’, the social worker has to be aware of how their role might connote ‘POWER’ to the service user. According to Finn (2016), there are different forms of power. Power over, power within, power with, and power to act.

Where is the service user experiencing someone having power over them and their life? Where in their life is the service user exercising power over people in their life?

Where is this happening in their personal life as in people close to them having power over them? Where is the service user exercising power to act with people close to them?

Where is it happening in their external environment, as in a child welfare system having power over them? Or do the police and or justice system have power over them? Are the service recipients having issues with the school system? Where is the service user exercising power within relationships that are a part of their external environment?

How has HISTORY marked the person or their group or community for oppression? How has history shaped their resilience? What might their history tell us about POSSIBILITY for the service user? For example, the service user has had to deal with adversity since they were 12 years old due to sexual orientation, gender non-conformity. The service user has an immigration story. [Power & History]

7. What other avenues are there for the service user’s meaning, wishes, and feelings to be presented – including them doing so for themselves? Are you sure that you have adequately explored their meaning, wishes, and feelings? [Power & Possibility]

The Just Practice Framework Assessment should total between 10-12 pages, using standard APA formatting.