Rodao Family
Case Summary
Handling children with aggressive behaviors can be a challenging experience for teachers, parents, and guardians. Social workers play a crucial role in managing children with various disorders and face the daunting task of building a rapport with the client and their families. In the Case of the Rodao family, the client, Michael, a 10-year-old African-American student, exhibits negative and impulsive behaviors. Michael is reported to be constantly opposing his teachers and infringing the set rules and guidelines in school, thus impeding his social and educational learning experiences. Michael’s problems originate from his unstable home environment, where he lives with his mother and stepfather, who passed away due to drugs and substance abuse (opioid overdose).
Initially, before his father’s death and family relocating, he excelled, forcing him to switch schools, but his performance deteriorated. That could be attributed to the chaotic home with frequent domestic violence instances, the elder brother being expelled from school due to underage drinking, and the instabilities when they moved frequently changing schools. His mother actively sought jobs but was unsuccessful, making them struggle to find security and stability, ending up in rural parts of the area and insecure neighborhoods with gang members. Her mother seemed overburdened, striving to sustain her children to the point of neglecting Michael’s health and well-being. She seemed uncooperative to the social worker trying to help Michael, thus impeding follow-up activities.
Identify the specific social work roles demonstrated by the social worker.
Social workers play a crucial role in ensuring the well-being of needy individuals. They help people solve issues in their daily lives. The most common duties include identifying and reaching out to people in need, assessing needs and implementing action plans, assisting people in adjusting to life changes, and connecting individuals to vital resources and support systems. Besides, they evaluate social services and support programs, advocate for individuals when needed, and follow up with the clients to improve their circumstances. The social work industry focuses on critical areas, including schools, child welfare, mental and physical health, drugs and substance abuse, older people, courts, children, adolescents, and young adults. Therefore, social work tends to be unique since it is available in most community life aspects.
The social worker ensured Michael’s well-being through various initiatives in the assigned case study. The social worker partook in therapeutic rapport building with Michael and the family to make the client be open and develop trust and respect for the social worker to ensure the client feels safe and improve chances of successful outcomes (Hodgkinson et al., 2017). The client, Michael, responded positively, but the parent remained cagey and uncooperative, making it hard to achieve the objective. Besides, the social worker applied cognitive-behavioral therapy, which initially proved successful for the client, but the family relocated to another state, making it hard to accomplish the goals. After some period, the family came back into a new neighborhood. The social worker did due diligence and followed up with the client to realize that his symptoms had become severe, making the worker reestablish therapeutic rapport. The workers’ consistent resilience paid off as Michael cooperated with the interventions despite her mother refusing to be involved. Eventually, the intervention was partially successful. Michael could not meet his goals but showed a willingness to implement the strategies learned in life events whenever he felt out of control.
Identify at least two additional community professionals you would invite to support the Rodao family once the social work services have terminated and what you hope they could offer.
Rodao’s family tends to be plagued with various issues. The two additional community professionals I would recommend to work alongside the social worker are child welfare services. Child welfare services would help by providing services that would make children safe and ensure families have the support system to care for children. Besides, the welfare services assess child and family resources, needs, and strengths, arrange for children to live with relatives or foster families, and meet their educational needs. Also, welfare programs play a crucial role in supporting children living with relatives and foster families, thus ensuring that people in need are in a better position (Husby et al., 2018). This is crucial as childhood experiences determine children’s life outcomes, as those born and bred in high socioeconomic families have better life outcomes.
In contrast, those in lower socioeconomic statuses struggle to obtain basic life necessities. Every child has the right to security and safety and food, clothing, access to education, and health. Michael struggles to adapt to new environments due to family instability; hence, he needs to settle in an environment that would enable him to focus on his schoolwork.
In conclusion, Michael has been affected by his life experiences primarily caused by losing a parent, a chaotic family, and an unsettled home. His conditions deteriorated and required the intervention of social workers and cooperation from his family to achieve success. Social workers are crucial in improving individuals’ lives and well-being by ensuring children obtain necessities.
References
Hodgkinson, S., Godoy, L., Beers, L. S., & Lewin, A. (2017). Improving mental health access for low-income children and families in the primary care setting. Pediatrics, 139(1).
Husby, I. S. D., Slettebø, T., & Juul, R. (2018). Partnerships with children in child welfare: Trust and pedagogical support are important. Child & Family Social Work, 23(3), 443-450.
Quinn-Lee, L. (2014). School social work with grieving children. Children & Schools, 36(2), 93-103.
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Question 
School social work is not always practiced in the school building. School social workers often work with a child at home and involve various community resources to support the child and family.
Rodao Family
In this Assignment, consider the work done by the school social worker with the Rodao family. How would you prepare the family for continued success once your role is complete?
Review the Case of the Rodao family from this week’s Learning Resources.
Submit a 2- to 3-page paper addressing the following:
Briefly summarize the Case.
Identify the specific social work roles demonstrated by the social worker.
Identify at least two additional community professionals you would invite to support the Rodao family once the social work services have terminated and what you hope they could offer.