SWK401: One Week ago, Ms Sarah Contacted a Medical social Worker and Requested for help as her Older Brother Shawn was Aggressive Towards her:Social Work Practice I: Social Casework and Family Intervention Assignement, SUSS, Singapore

Case Study
One week ago, Ms Sarah contacted a medical social worker and requested for help as her older brother Shawn was aggressive towards her. Sarah is in her late 20s, an account executive, and her brother Shawn is in his early 30s. They live with their parents in a 4-room HDB flat. Shawn has a history of aggression towards all family members and a Personal Protection Order had been issued against him 2 months ago.

Shawn developed chronic anxiety when he was preparing for his A-level years ago. He has since been seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist at a mental health institute, but he has not been compliant to medication and his medical appointments since a year ago after his preceding doctor left the public hospital. Shawn’s anxiety has been affecting his sleep and mood and his condition worsened of late after Shawn’s father moved out from home suddenly for another relationship. Shawn’s parents were of the view that Shawn had offended one of the gods and was “demonised”.

As a new social worker, you have been assigned to attend to the family. During the first interview at your office, Shawn was noted to have a very low attention span. He engaged in conversation briefly, before standing up and pacing in and out of the interview room. Sarah informed that Shawn had threatened her with a fruit knife a few days ago over a small matter

One week after the interview, the social worker brought up the case during supervision. It was only then that the supervisor came to know about the details of the case. Both the social worker and Sarah agreed that they should work towards developing strategies to improve communication among family members, while other issues can be put aside for now.

1) Apply THREE (3) key concepts each from system theory and psychodynamic theory to guide your understanding of the case (you could consider using a subset of the theory to conceptualise the case).

2) Evaluate THREE (3) key areas about the case in terms of:
(i) Individual functioning of Shawn; and
(ii) Family functioning

3) Discuss some of the ethical principles and issues in this case.

4) Construct a case or intervention plan with the inclusion of:
(i) key case goals and their justifications; and

(ii) key short-term tasks to be undertaken by social workers and other professionals in order to achieve your goals.

5) Formulate a goal attainment scale on 2 main goals based on your question to Q4 (i).

6) Prepare a reflection (maximum 350-word limit) on your learning from this social casework and family intervention module.