Introduction
Petersburg Department of social services is a field placement agency that focuses on offering quality services to everyone in society to ensure self-sufficiency, responsibility, and safety (Social Services /Petersburg, VA,n.d.). The field placement agency in Virginia addresses social needs such as medical assistance, SNAP Food stamps, Medicaid, General relief, and Child Welfare programs. In this assignment, I will focus on the parental group since the services offered by the placement agency are more likely to benefit adults. Therefore, the social problem that will be addressed is poverty, which results in a lack of funds to purchase nutritious food for families and access health care services.
Intake
The target population will be African American households, particularly women between the age of 23-35. The field placement agency will work with a group of five people meaning that it is more manageable, and the agency can offer sufficient funds to cater for food and healthcare compared to large groups where more resources will be needed. In addition, the seating arrangement is another important aspect of the agency. In this case, the most effective arrangement is the chevron-style seating which provides two columns of short, angled rows with an aisleway down the middle. This arrangement will ensure everyone can see the agency officials and work in small groups as needed.
The choice of the women to be part of the intake will be voluntary, and the duration for teaching them the process of agency services will take one day. Lastly, the members will be selected based on the number of children each woman has, with the primary aim being the nuclear family.
Group development
Some of the goals will be to educate their family on the importance of providing a nutritious meal. In addition, the field placement agency will also highlight the significance of women’s empowerment and working to ensure they can provide for their families. Also, the agency will educate the parental group on what quality healthcare entails and encourage Black women to seek medical care to avoid diseases such as Cancer constantly.
Sometimes controlling a group can be challenging. Therefore, they are various ways to establish power and control. For example, I will outline the agency’s focus; therefore, everyone will be inclined to the goals and have a clear purpose for what is expected of them. Consequently, enthusiasm will help in having power and control, especially by expressing interest in all the women’s needs and being open, thus will get feedback and having engaging conversations.
Communication and relationships are important in each group since they ensure that all the activities do not stop at any given time. When they do, there is a solution for that. In this case, I will foster communication and relationship by having sessions where the parental group has open discussions; therefore, they can exchange ideas. Also, I will ensure that there are no instances of a long-winded indirect argument that would lead to resentment amongst the group.
In groups, conflict is bound to happen. Therefore, one of the ways that I will manage the conflict and disruptive behavior is by ensuring turn-taking, where everyone has a chance to speak freely without interruption. Also, I will investigate the situation and clarify the position of everyone. Through this, it will become easier to identify ways the individuals involved in the conflict can have a common goal.
Intervention
One of the interventions will be offering family support. The primary goal will be to create a healthy home environment while ensuring the safety of the family and children(Anderson et al.,2007). This intervention will be beneficial since it will ensure that every African American woman can be held accountable for offering their family nutritious food and quality healthcare.
The second intervention will be health promotion. It will help ensure that African American women can directly pay for health care services through Medicaid and the Family Access to Medical Insurance Security Plan whenever they can pay for the required medical services (Berkley-Patton et al.,2018).
Also another intervention will be crisis intervention, which will focus on offering urgent and temporary care whenever an issue arises. This intervention is beneficial since it will ensure that African American women can still return to their pre-crisis functioning even after facing problems such as diseases and natural disasters (Bowie,2003).
Evaluation and Termination
Termination occurs whenever a member is unwilling to participate in the group discussion. Also, I will evaluate the group’s progress by asking them to discuss issues such as the time standard for medical assistance for pregnant women, the days needed to apply for the SNAP benefits, and the eligibility for such assistance. Through this, I will know whether they understand what the field placement agency is all about.
Conclusion
I think the ethical dilemmas I might encounter when dealing with Black women is the individual vs. community. Sometimes, a woman is aware of the benefits of having medical insurance, but the community has an ingrained perspective of healthcare discrimination among Black people; therefore, they are unwilling to seek the program. Lastly, some personal biases when dealing with Black women are that they believe they are difficult to deal with, therefore, avoid engaging with people.
References
Anderson, E. S., Winett, R. A., & Wojcik, J. R. (2007). Self-regulation, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and social support: social cognitive theory and nutrition behavior. Annals of behavioral medicine, 34, 304-312.
Berkley-Patton, J., Thompson, C. B., Bradley-Ewing, A., Berman, M., Bauer, A., Catley, D., … & Aduloju-Ajijola, N. (2018). Identifying health conditions, priorities, and relevant multilevel health promotion intervention strategies in African American churches: A faith community health needs assessment. Evaluation and program planning, 67, 19–28.
Bowie, S. L. (2003). Post-disaster crisis intervention with older adults in public housing communities. Crisis Intervention, 6(3), 171–184.
Social services | Petersburg, VA. (n.d.). Petersburg, VA – Official Website | Official Website. https://www.petersburgva.gov/457/Social-Services
write