Assessments

in Social Services
By Jane Gilgun

Summary Assessment in social services is a complex process that requires disciplined inquiry into four main areas: behaviors, meanings, resilience processes, and responses of others. Although complex, disciplined inquiry leads to gentle consideration of how service users view their own situations and the meanings they attribute to their own behaviors and to the events in their lives. This article provides a schematic or mental map that guides the inquiry we call assessment and that also helps to organize complex information that we require if we are to provide effective social services. About the Author Jane F. Gilgun, Ph.D., LICSW, is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. She does research on families and children who have experienced adversities, how persons over come adversities, the meanings of violence to perpetrators, and the development of violent behaviors. Professor Gilgun has many articles, books, and childrens stories available on scribd, Kindle, and iBooks for a variety of e-readers and mobile devices.

Assessments in Social Services

Understanding service users is essential for effective practice. Service providers attempt to understand through a process called assessment. Assessment means to sit beside, suggesting that providers and service users are equals, each in our own ways seeking to promote the best interests of service users. As a process, assessment requires disciplined inquiry into a least four general areas of service user functioning. These areas are behaviors, meanings, resilience processes, and responses of others who are part of service user systems. By disciplined inquiry, I mean thoughtful attention to the details and meanings of these four aspects of individual lives. Through discipline, we approach services users believing we know nothing about them when we begin. We extend invitations to service users to speak while we provide as much of a sense of safety as we can. We give well-timed comments and ask well-timed questions. We observe service- user affect, how they say what they say, and when they are afraid and not. We pay attention to what is going on within us and discipline ourselves not to speak about ourselves except when doing so promotes service users interests. Mostly we listen with an open-hearted and quiet benevolence. Assessment is a complex process that takes place over time. The four areas of service user functioning are a kind of mental map or schematic that guides us in our inquiries and also helps us to organize the large amounts of information our inquiries generate. Behaviors We seek to understand behaviors. What happened? What is the sequence of events? For example, Jackie put cracker crumbs in her parents bed. Her father hit her, and her mother yelled at her. Jackie yelled back and ran out of the house. Jackie returned at 8 pm, and it was dark outside. Her parents were so worried about her, they yelled at her when she got back and sent her to bed without supper. They grounded her for two weeks. Jackie is eight years old. As disciplined and respectful practitioners, we can empathize with the parents and with Jackie, although we dont yet know what actions came before the precipitating cracker crumb incident. So, we after we offer empathy for the dilemma that parents and child are in, we gently inquire about what happened before the precipitating event. As service users open up the scenes of family life, we get a bigger and bigger picture of the individual and family issues and relationships and the events and relationships that affect family life.

 Soon, we have complex understanding of a particular sequence of events. Any number of other events and relationships contributed to the particular sequence that began our inquiry. It is the task of service providers to develop this deeper understanding. Ecomaps and genograms can help as can many other sources of information that typically go into understanding other persons in social services. Often, a NEATS assessment can be helpful, where service providers seek to understand the neurobiology, executive function, attachment, trauma, and self-regulation issues in the family in both developmental and ecological perspectives. The NEATS is both simple and complex, as is assessment in general. What is important is any assessment is disciplined inquiry that covers each area of client functioning well, while service providers keep an analytic stance that involves hearing clients and holding back on their own interpretations until they have brought together a great deal of information. Meanings While developing understandings of behaviors and sequences of events, we also get a sense of the meanings events have to individuals involved. Each person who is part of a family and part of systems that interact with families has his or her own particular sense of the meanings of various events. For Jackie, what is behind her putting cracker crumbs in her parents bed? What does doing that mean to her? Service providers get at these meanings by asking what happened right before Jackie put the crumbs in the bed. Such an action could have a revenge motive. Jackie may have been getting back at her parents because she experienced them as doing something hurtful to her. Another possible explanation is that Jackie may have been feeling left out. Maybe she experiences her parents as into each other and not enough into her. If she puts crumbs in their bed, they would notice, and they might even notice her. For Jackie, negative attention might be better than no attention at all. Service providers can ask questions that stick closely to service users accounts of events. Whatever the meanings are, it is Jackie who says what they are. Service providers discipline themselves to listen and to hold back on their own pet theories or their own unexamined assumptions. Their job is to understand service user meanings. So it goes, bit by bit, service providers discover the meanings of behaviors for each person involved. They keep their own meanings separate from the meanings that service users attribute to their own behaviors. Resilience Processes Resilience processes are indicators that service users have capacities to cope with, adapt to, or overcome adverse life events. Service providers pay attention to indicators that service users have capacities for resilience Sometimes service user life circumstances are so difficult that the only evidence of effective coping is that service users are still alive. In the case of Jackie, if her parents behaviors had hurt her, and she was seeking revenge, then

her actions were less harmful than setting fire to the bed or beating up a sibling. In addition, her parents could have beaten her bloody or kicked her out of the house. Sometimes resilience involves behaving in ways that are less harmful than other behaviors. In general, service users identify processes that led to positive outcomes, or at least outcomes that are not as hurtful as they could have been. In the case of Jackie and her family, that she came home is a possible indicator of resilience. That her parents were worried is another indicator of possible resilience. Those two aspects of the sequence of events are worth exploring so as to understand them better. The principle here is to understand the indicators of possible good outcomes. From these indicators, service providers can guide service users to consider positive behaviors that might build upon their love for each other and that also bring them closer to outcomes that benefit everyone in the family. It is fair to assume that family members do love each other, but the same time, service providers would do well to be alert for indicators that they might not or they might be so hurt that love is submerged. In rare instances, parents do not love their children and children do not love their parents. Responses of Others in the System In the case of Jackie and her parents, only three members of the family are involved so far in our discussion of assessment. Are there other members of the family who influence Jackies relationship with her parents? Is there a baby in the family whom other people coo over and ignore Jackie? Is there an older sibling who teases Jackie, and, when Jackie asks her parents for help, they told her to ignore the teasing? Do the parents think that the two children should work out the difficulties in their relationship with each other without parental interference? Is there a grandparent who eggs Jackie on to aggravate her parents because the grandparent is annoyed with one or both parents? In anyone in the nuclear or extended family or in other social networks related to any family member in ways that promote understanding? The influences of others outside of immediate systems under consideration can hardly be underestimated. There well could be a benevolent person in the system who could be help family member repair relationships or at least provide support until family members are ready for repair. Discussion Assessment is a complex process that requires disciplined inquiry into four main areas: behaviors, meanings, resilience processes, and responses of others. The procedure is not sequential because information relevant to all four areas can arise at any point. What is important is that service provides have this mental map or schematic in their heads to that they can ensure that they gather information about all four areas and also arrange the information in somewhat orderly categories that comprise the schematic.

 Service provider discipline is important. The discipline involves being able to inquire about relevant areas of family functioning that sticks close to family meanings while at the same time expanding these meanings to other relevant areas that affect individuals and their relationships. The discipline also involves keeping the inquiry focused on service users while remaining aware of their own responses. This is a kind of double consciousness. Finally, discipline means that service providers have a great deal of knowledge upon which they can draw as they slowly and respectful learn to understand personal meanings of service users and the influences upon these personal meanings. References Gilgun, Jane F. (2010). A NEATS analysis of childhood ADHD. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27120436/A-NEATS-Analysis-of-Childhood-ADHD Gilgun, Jane F. (2010). Children with serious conduct issues. http://www.scribd.com/doc/35742880/Children-with-Serious-Conduct-Issues-A-Case- Study-A-NEATS-Assessment-Case-Planning Gilgun, Jane F. (2010). The NEATS: A child & family assessment. http://www.scribd.com/doc/16496944/The-NEATS-A-Child-Family-Assessment