Social workers frequently engage themselves in intricate affairs relating to emotions and emotions, whereby they employ scientific approaches to positively impact people’s ways of life. The life of Kirk Franklin, featured in “Father’s Day”, can be used to show how this dynamic plays out. Franklin’s story characterizes that the majority of people find it challenging to deal with the effects of childhood abuse, which affect them when they grow into mature adulthood, especially with family relations and other intimate relations. Then, I present in-depth information about myself as a counsellor regarding the client’s issues, the selected therapeutic approach, and the targeted goals and objectives. I also look into how the intervention was affected, its success, and its broader effects on clients like Franklin in response to social policy reforms. Such a holistic view emphasizes the broad scope of social work practice and the necessity for customized intervention strategies to create genuinely durable changes in client-specific contexts and circumstances.
As an emergent social worker, I aspire to provide individuals struggling with life issues with all-inclusive support and intervention approaches. It involves evaluating clients’ needs, developing an effective intervention plan, advocating for them, and linking them to essential services. I operate within an ethical code where I centre all my efforts around protecting clients’ interests, ensuring their privacy, and keeping my conduct upright. In my present practice placement, I gained the chance to specific to family processes, mental problems, supporting independence, resiliency, and empowerment to help my clients live independent lives of freedom, resiliency, and empowerment to enable my clients’ independent lives.
Characteristics and Presenting Problem of Client: Kirk Franklin in “Father’s Day”
The client under study in this case is Kirk Franklin, an adult who features in the “Father’s Day” program. The movie portrays difficulties surrounding the issue of fatherhood for Franklin, and those feelings have been developed mainly because of his lack of a father in his childhood. Although he succeeds in achieving success in life, Franklin faces mental problems and some unresolved issues that he came across during childhood, which affect his self-respect and relationships with people. Though a specific DSM-5 TR diagnosis is not mentioned in the documentary, Franklin can have some symptoms which are often characteristic of anxiety or depression disorders, probably because of his unresolved childhood trauma (McLawhorn, 2019).
Treatment or Practice Model: Empowerment Approach
The empowerment approach has been selected for its emphasis on enhancing Franklin’s sense of self-efficacy and personal strength, which are crucial for overcoming his past traumas and reconciling these experiences with his role as a father. This model, supported by a robust evidence base, effectively improves mental health outcomes by fostering a sense of control and self-determination in clients. The theoretical foundation of this approach is rooted in social learning theory and humanistic psychology, focusing on personal growth, resilience, and the importance of a supportive environment.
Treatment Goals and Specific Objectives
Its main aim is to improve Franklin’s self-esteem and perceptions of his competence concerning others. This entails involving him in activities highlighting his competencies, including power points. Secondly, his previous trauma should be processed, taking into account the procedures of narrative therapy aimed at examining his experience through a new perspective. He must also work towards improving his relations with his children, which will require the development of quality communication and parenting skills.
Therapeutic Skills Utilized
Various therapeutic skills were used throughout this intervention. For this reason, it was necessary to use active listening to understand Franklin’s perspective and acknowledge his experience (Chima et al., 2023). Trust and rapport were built on empathy. Franklin practised cognitive reframing by challenging and changing her negative cognitions. Also, this plan adopted a strengths-based approach, which identified Franklin’s strengths while leveraging her past successes.
Implementation of the Intervention
This intervention was segmented into discussions, reflections, and building skills for the different sessions. Talk about what you are feeling now, problems, and achievements. On the other hand, reflection sessions required analyzing old experiences in terms of their influence on women’s current position. The skill-building focused on practising communication, coping strategy and self-affirmation exercises. Franklin responded positively to these sessions, improving his perception of himself and his recognition of feelings.
Evaluation of Outcome
To assess quantitatively, self-report scales were used, which measured the extent of change in Kirk Franklin’s self-esteem and levels of anxiety. The objective method we adopted allowed us to know exactly how far we went in our meetings. This article will examine how my experience of employing empowerment in this context was remarkable. This approach helped Franklin’s confidence improve tremendously and even helped him face and overcome childhood trauma (Joubert & Guse, 2021). He described an incredible rise in his level of self-efficacy coupled with positive thinking, especially during his development and interaction with other people. It highlights the value of using empowerment in dealing with complicated emotional problems and building emotional strength. The fact that Franklin had a positive response and the measured changes observed in other clients who deal with such lifestyle problems makes us confident that this approach can change.
Discussion of Skills Repertoire
This experience taught me the value of patience and the power of a strengths-based approach. Indeed, I will undoubtedly go for this intervention again in the future whereby I work with the same clients and problems. Hence, in my future implantation, I would include several family-based sessions so that we can get straight to the point concerning family issues.
Social Policy Impacting Client Population
Many client populations are greatly affected by FMLA, a law that enables job-protected unpaid leaves for some family and medical reasons. To achieve greater financial security when one is sick in a family, I suggest widening the coverage of paid leaves. Such actions as lobbying lawmakers, participating in advocacy groups, and so on could be used to promote this change. Such a complete answer, including Kirk Franklin’s story from the Father’s Day documentary within the context of empowerment approaches, comprises several elements of social work practice. It emphasizes coping with personal difficulties, becoming more resilient, and improving the home’s well-being through therapy.
Conclusion
The experience of working together with Kirk Franklin depicted in the “Father’s Day” documentary reiterates that childhood experiences significantly affect one as an individual and within one’s family. Thus, this case study shows how social work should include personalized and evidenced intervention using empowerment. The approach was patient, empathic, and strength-based, which focused on building and elevating Franklin’s self-esteem, resolving unfinished business of his past and improving family relationships.
Improvements noted in Franklin’s behaviour and attitude support the effectiveness of the empowerment technique, especially for complicated emotional or social issues. It shows that such interventions can be equally helpful for others who encounter the same problems in social work. Moreover, this experience discloses the importance of social policies such as FMLA defining where client-social worker interaction is operated. The implication of this involves being flexible and continuously learning on the part of social workers, among other factors, as they move ahead in advocating for better policies relevant to their clients. Compassionate and person-centred social work is a force for change and a continuous process of looking for appropriate ways for each case.
Reference
Chima, T., Esmie Mkwinda, & Tendai Machaya. (2023). Employers Feedback on Psychosocial Counselling Graduates’ Performance in Selected Healthcare Facilities in Malawi. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, Volume 16, 2513–2526. https://doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s425614
Joubert, J., & Guse, T. (2021). Implementing solution‐focused brief therapy to facilitate hope and subjective well‐being among South African trauma survivors: A case study. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12416
McLawhorn, J. (2019, April 17). Weak nerves in China: Neurasthenia-depression controversy as a window on psychiatric nosology. Www.ideals.illinois.edu. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items/112304
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