Family Assessment Process

Purpose:
This assignment aims to enhance your skills in family assessment and resiliency practice by simulating a family assessment process. You will practice identifying, addressing, and processing family-related needs. You will also reflect on your own feelings and experiences regarding this assignment and family assessment.

Step 1: Family from a TV show, documentary, or movie: Select one family system to focus

Select a movie/documentary/show from the following list: A note of caution about movies/shows on this list. This is a diverse list of titles that deal with a wide variety of family dynamics, challenges, and content. Some of the content in the video title selection may be triggering to some people.
Therefore, you are not required to view a specific selection.
• Gracie’s Choice
• 3 Generations
• Wonder
• The Pursuit of Happyness
• Instant Family:.
• Precious
• White Oleander-
• Missing Mom (2016)-Documentary available on Prime
• Switched at Birth (the series) Minimally view episodes 1-4
• The Fosters (the series) Minially view episodes 1-3
• Parenthood (the series) Minimally view episodes 1-2
• This is Us – Choose 1 Family

2. Be sure to view the entire movie/show at least one time before conducting the assessment.
3. The assessment should not be a narrative on what the movie is about, but should instead carefully assess the family in the movie/show.
4. You do not need to use timestamps unless you are doing a direct quotation.
5. The first page of the assignment is the certification page if you chose a real family from an agency. If you choose the option of film/documentary/movie/show, please provide a brief overview of the family members that you will be focusing on and any specific details in your write-up that you changed/added for purposes of this assignment. Your certification statement should be an overview of the details that you added to the assessment. You don’t have to include small details, but anything major that would result in questioning of major details that you added would go here. This step is only necessary if the film that you viewed left out key points that you needed for your assessment.
   Step 2: Introduce your family or movie/film This should be the first page after the cover page.
   • For Movie/Film: Introduce the movie/film by name. Identify the characters that you will assessing and their relationships. Add any additional details that you created (for purpose of this assignment only, never do this in actual practice) in order to ensure a complete assessment.
   Step 3: The following headings must be included in your paper. The instructor must be able to locate required content without question In order to get credit. Accordingly, it is recommended that you use heading/subheading format. The main headings are listed after ‘heading’ and subheadings are in parenthesis.
   Heading 1: Description of Family Please write the paper in narrative format rather than question/answer, but be sure that the instructor can clearly see the response to each question.
   • How did you select the family (Reason for Referral)? In a true assessment, there is typically a reason for a referral with a distinction between how the client(s) were formally referred and the client(s) perception of the reason for the referral.
   • Who is in the family and what are their relationships? (Relationship Dynamics)
   • Describe the diversity factors within the family. (Diversity Factors): In this section, please include enough to demonstrate clear understanding of the client family system. Diversity factors do not just include race/ethnicity, age, gender, etc. Other areas of diversity might include religion/spirituality, education/work background, marital status, culture, disability, etc. **If you are using a ‘real family,’ demographics can be changed accordingly. You can replace the name of a town that they reside in with type of town/city. For example, small, rural town instead of Palatka, Fl. If a child is 2, that might be relevant to your assessment from a developmental perspective. However, the exact ages of the caregivers may not be relevant. If you are doing a movie/show, you may or may not know those details and may need to use other diversity factors.
   • If this family is in treatment or were to come for treatment, identify the 2 main problems that would be the focus of clinical attention (Focus of Clinical Attention).
   • Identify at least one theme and one pattern in the family dynamic (Themes & Patterns).
   • If from a TV show/movie, include an in-text citation.
   Heading 3: Family Resilience
   o Examples of Resiliency in the Family: (Resilience in the Family): Identify at least two ways that the family demonstrates resilience. You can use examples of where one family member demonstrates this in order to support the entire family or where more than one family member is involved.
   o Belief Systems & Values (Belief Systems): Identify at least 2 belief system and provide specific examples of the impact on the family.
   o Organizational Patterns & Coping (Organizational Pattern & Coping): A family’s organizational patterns refers to the structure and dynamics of how roles, responsibilities, and power are distributed within a family system. Please describe the family’s organizational pattern and how it supports their resilience. Include specific coping patterns. Identify at least one positive and one negative coping pattern displayed in the family.
   o Communication Style (Communication): What patterns and styles of communication contribute to the family’s resilience? What are some ways communication adds strains to the family?
   Heading 4: Current Risks and Protective Factors
   Describe the Family’s Risk Factors (Risk Factors): Identify and thoroughly describe at least 3 risk factors for the family and how they respond to those risk factors.
   o Identify & Discuss Family Stressors (Family Stressors): While these can be individual, interpersonal, or environmental, try to focus on the family unit as a whole.
   o Identify the Protective Factors Related to the Family (Protective Factors): Identify and describe at least 3 protective factors. Discuss how these protective factors manifest within the family system.
   Heading 5: Assessment of Strengths, Needs, & Recommendations (Recommendations)
   In this section, provide a brief assessment of the family’s (as a whole) strengths, needs, and your recommendations. This should not be summary of what was already stated and the content should lead into the recommendations. Your recommendations should include any family or individual counseling (recommend type), resources necessary to support the family, and/or areas warranting further assessment. *Be sure to highlight any immediate or acute needs.

In this final section of your paper, please reflect on your personal feelings and experience on this assignment and family assessment:
Heading 6: Reflection on Family Assessment In this section of the paper, you are being asked to conduct a thorough reflection of your experience. If you are using a video/movie, feelings are going to be a bit different than they might be in conducting an assessment on an actual family.
o Reflect on your experience conducting the assessment (Personal Reflection):

1. As you reflect on this question, what were some of your strengths in doing the assessment? Please identify and discuss at least 2 strengths. If you used a video/show, please include one example of where you think this strength is transferable to actual practice.
2. Identify and discuss at least 2 challenges that you experienced as you conducted this assessment.
3. Discuss at least 1 example of feeling apprehensive or unclear about how-to proceed or where discomfort is felt about addressing a topic/concern.
   o Reflection on Personal Feelings & Experiences (Personal Feelings & Resolution): The goal of this final section is to think about your own circumstances and how they may affect your response in the family assessment process. Identify and discuss your feelings about conducting this assessment. Specifically, try to think about the topics (especially if you assessed movie characters), that may create strong feelings for you or conflict. It is not necessary to divulge personal background information about yourself (unless you want to). The purpose is to start thinking about internal conflict and how you will aim to face that when/if it presents. Please be aware that there aren’t any right or wrong ‘feelings’ or responses. If you don’t feel like you have strong feelings or anticipate those, it is okay to be write about that. Just be sure to account for your management and response of feelings. Here are some questions to consider for your self-reflection. You are not required to answer these specific questions. Points in this section will be based on the quality of the reflection. This part is not a summary, but a second part of a paper which requires equal attention as the assessment portion.
4. Have any of your own experiences affected your ability to conduct an objective assessment?
5. Did you find yourself feeling connected to or uncertain about a specific area of the assessment?
6. What did you do when you came across a challenge in conducting the assessment?
7. Did you identify any self-care activities or coping strategies that you feel you might need to incorporate when working with a specific topic