Introduction

This paper is aimed to inform the reader about the case work conducted with an individual client named

Yolanda. A single parent of two you children, Yolanda is a 26 year old Peruto Rican female, who is

surviving her boyfriend’s suicide. The agency who serves Yolanda in this case is called Intensive Familiy

Support Services (IFSS). Becasue of the unique morphogenic(Netting, 2004) structure of IFSS Yolanda

was able to receive services in an agency where her case is outside the normal parameters of clients

served. As her caseworker, Yolanda and I agreed to work on her interpernsonal relationships. The theory

which ultimately led to our shared goal was an ego-modifying approach (Goldstein, 1995) in order to

enhance and restore Yolanda’s current ego functioning with particular focus on object relations.

Agency Context and Background

Yolanda came into contact with the agency Intensive Family Support Services (IFSS) in Union County.

The IFSS mission is to help families cope with the stress of having an adult family member diagnosed

with a severe mental illness. The current Director started the IFSS operation in Union county in 1997.

She began with one caseworker, since then the organization has not grown in size, yet the need of the

clients is greater due to economic changes and the political environment.

The authorsF. Ellen Netting, Peter Kettner, and Steven McMurty wrote on macro-level practice as an

unaboidable and fundamental value of working as a social worker. The structure and setting of IFSS is a

good example of how smaller systems can create change in larger systems, and the interconnectedness of

systems in a community. The philosophy behind the agency as well as the funding within the community

has been an ongoing learning process at IFSS. The Director as a “change agent” (Netting et al., 2004)

who dedicates most of her time working with the most vulnerable out of the population served by IFSS

and in advocating them within the community and within the political arena.

The funding for IFSS comes from the

Mental Health Association of New Jersey (MHA). The MHA of New Jersey is a state affliliate of

National Mental Health. The MHA building is in Essex county which provides vertical linkages (Netting

et al., 2004 )within the state by fuding county based services (like IFSS) and through a referral hotline for

information on other statewide and county based community organizations and agencies which are not

funded by MHA.

Because of the vertical direction of funding from the national level down to the IFSS in Union county,

there is no refelction of community needs in the funding resources given like a community based non-

profit organization might have. A non-profit cannot advertise its services and IFSS does little

fundraising. So the needs of the client have increased without any internal change sin the agency since

1997. This has enabled the Director to create change through horizontal linkages, ingenuity, advocacy for

her clients, and community organization.

In the four quadrant model, her roles at IFSS lay mostly in quadrant D. She has some open cases she has

had for over five years which are all single female elders with a child with schizophrenia. She has a lot of

experience and expertise in schizophrenia and interfacing with the various systems for service delivery

for these high risk individuals. Otherwise her work is in creating change through community

organization. The true gift that comes as a client of IFSS is the enormous amount of horizontal linkages

between the agency and others services for the mentally ill and their families which co-exist with IFSS in

Union County. The case worker works mostly in quadrant A doing work for client on their behalf through

family therapy, psychoeducation and support groups. He also does intrapersonal work in helping families

cope with the role changes they face. My job there has been mostly with one patient. This is work on her

behalf in quadrant A. I’ve also had to document a great deal in the agency which helped me understand

the philosophy of the agency and the cost perspective from the state’s perspective.

.

Agency as an organization

The problem addressed by this agency is essentially caretaker stress. The fact that there is no significant

source of fundraising means that the budget for services is very small, so the funding is not enough to

encapture the entire population of those within the arena of Union County (Netting,Ketner, & McMurray,

2004). While this means they serve fewer clients they potentially can, it also benefits those clients who do

seek service with IFSS. Small fundung keeps the agency small and intimate, which allows for flexibility

and creativity in the service of clients. The intimate nature also lends for personalized service and

dedication to each case and person.

The direct services provided at IFASS are with client for themselves, and also with non-clients for the

sake of the mentally ill and their family. These two areas of social work are referred to as the A and D

quadrants of the quadrant model (Wood & Tully, 2006). The Director has cases that are as old as far back

as 1997, when she began the office. These are nearly all cases where the client is a single elderly mother

with a schizophrenic child. The director works with these women to make sure they can afford their own

housing and medications and their adult childs. If legistlature threatens the welfare of either elders and

the mentally disabled, the Director organizes within the community to appeal such decisions and

underline the longer term cost consequences of making decision on short term gains. This macro level

work outweighs the new cases she takes on. The caseworker opens most of the cases, and as a screener

for Trinitas, the County Pscyhiatric hospital, he also receruits clients who have a family member

committed. Most of his work lies in quadrant A. He works with family on the crisis they are facing, by

giving them goals and prioritizing and partializing their concerns. He also does family therapy and

ensures the family is getting proper service links with other agencies involved. He advocates for his

clients withing the mental health community, where he is well connected and knows many social workers.

The caseworker is involved with the family in orchestrating several levels of care and support for their

family member, as well as for themselves. Support for their family member can take the form of

brokering when the caseworker calls the social worker at a housing facility on behalf of his client.

As an intern at IFSS, my role has been in quadrant A. I have called clients to check in them and intiate

case work. My first month I learned a great deal about the macro system of social work agencies, since

the Director explained to me how funding impacts the services available, and what work she does to

enable clients to cope with service gaps. I also went to Trinitas with the caseworker to learn the screening

system and recruit clients. The company car is used to drive clients to places and to visit them in their

homes. In October I was assigned an individual case .This client receives in-home visits from me for

individual therapy.

Engagement1. Presenting Problem

My client is a 26 year single mother surviving the aftermath of herboyfriend’s suicide. They had lived

together for eight years in an apartment adjoined to her mothers. Yolanda and Ricardo had two children

together. Emily is 8 years old, and Natalie is 2. She had worked with the case manager at IFSS for six

months after her boyfriend killed himself in their living room on Christmas Eve of December 2009. The

caseworker did work with the family unit which consisted of Yolanda, her sister and her mother. He did

most work with Yolanda who was the most responsive to therapy. In June, Yolanda parted with IFSS to

seek indivual therapy at a clinic, and was attending a suicide survivor meeting once weekly. She called

IFSS in October of 2010 because she was experiencing suicide ideation and was frightened for herself

and her children. She had stopped going to therapy because she could not drive there are had to account

on others. She described symptoms of having a panic attack, and she and the caseworker agreed to intiate

some in home therapy to talk about her problems. The caseworker and I went together to her home and

spent and hour and a half discussing her problems and addressing her need for treatment. The caseworker

decided with Yolanda and I that I could take over her case and work with her on an individual basis.

2. Client System:

Yolanda was in need of services for herself which is not usually the protocol under the agency auspices.

There are few if any open cases where the identified patient is deceased. The death of the patient usually

means services at IFSS are no longer needed. Intrapersonal work is very short-term and done insofar as

members of the family unit need a paradigm shift in order to adjust to role changes as a function of crisis.

3. Background:

Agency Structure as it impacts the client:

As discussed earlier, IFSS is flexible due to it’s small size. In Yolanda’s case, the nature of IFSS was a

great benefit. Yolanda’s case falls into a grey area of service which is not addressed by the systems in

place. IFSS was able to pick up that gap because there aren’t rigid rules about closing cases, or eligibility.

Even though the family member is deceased, Yolanda’s personal crisis is a function of the mental illness

Ricardo suffered. This ability to adapt to the current circumstances of Yolanda exemplifies the nature of

IFSS as an adaptive organization. Netting et al. wrote that macro-level social work is necessary to be

truly working toward the values of the profession. In order to work toward that end, the Director has

experience in understanding the problem, population, and arena of her work. Essentially, the problem is

caretaker stress in families with a mentally ill family member. A subset of this population are single

mothers who are caretaking for a mentally ill family member. Though Yolanda’s family member is not

alive, she is still dealing with the enormous consequences his sickness invoked. She is physically

disabled, and needs support to keep herself and her current family emotionally and physically healthy.

The Director is aware that IFSS is funded so patients and there family members do not face crises that

would bring them in contact with the state services. Her expertise and long history of working in the

mental health community gives her a fearless approach to adapting to change and conflict. Morpho-genic

is defined by Netting et al.(2004) as “structure changing” (p.14). In this case, IFSS as an organization

made a change in the face of conflict. Though Yolanda’s case was not clearly within the boundaries of

IFSS clients, she is benefitting from having personalized in-home therapy, which is in keeping with the

social work ethic of helping individuals and communities (NASW, )

An understanding of the funding source of IFSS was also an important component to developing a case

theory surign assessment with her.

Assessment

Data Analysis and Hypothesis Formation

Since Yolanda’s case was opened because she was at risk, the time contingent factor of our work shaped

my approach to her assessment. I know that Yolanda can only receive services in regards to releiveing

her family of the stress that created her anxiety attack. For this reason, I initially turned to my supervisor

for crisis oriented approaches. My supervisor at MHA works as a manager at the referral helpline for

state resources, where I also work as an intern. She gave me verbal accounts of work with suicide

survivors and resources to give Yolanda. The work of Kathleen Ell on Crisis Theory (1996) helped me

understand that Yolanda’s panic attack was a “state of crisis” (p.168) which was precipitated by Ricardo’s

death and augmented by the economic and physical burden of being thrust into single motherhood.

Lawrence Schulman wrote that tuning into a clients’ need is pivotal in assessment. Specifically, to the

population, the specific population, and the stage the individual is in their problem solving. The first two

parts I had personal experience on and several readings on Peurto Rican culture and intergenerational

differences within the culture. Yolanda is a single mother which was precipitated by a crisis. I am in a

smiliar situation which helps me understand the specifics socioeconomic and emotional stressors that

come with an abrupt role change from a partnered parent to a single one. What I needed to further assess

was her family system and the reference she had for the crisis and the outcomes (Ell,1996).

Ell writing on crisis theory and Charles Cowger’s framework for assessing clients directed me to explore

Yolanda’s family structure in terms of their response to the crisis and the support they give her, as well as

her own reference to Ricardo’s death, and the strengths and weaknesses of her environment and personal

coping skills at the moment. At the end of my second meeting, I had spoken with Yolanda for over three

hours in two sessions. I learned that her perspective on Ricardo’s death was not an emotional longing for

him. He had been abusive to her, and had isolated her from all friends over the past eight years. Her

mother and sister blamed her for his death, and tended to side against her in a punitive fashion. They

were particularly focused on undermining her skills as a mother. Yolanda was frustrated the most by

having to rely on them fro transportation because she is legally blind. Out of lonliness and need for

support, she was ina current relationship with a boyfriend, David, who was speaking to her about suicide

ideation and was a former close friend of Ricardo’s. This latter fact gave her a great deal of

discomcomfort. She expressed that she wanted to be a woman and felt like she was falling into the same

habits she always had. She also explained that she was acting out more against her mother than in the

past, which were feuling resentments further.

By the end of this meeting, I had a sense of urgency for her and her children. I was concerned about her

boyfriend’s thoughts as well as the abuse taking place between Yolanda and her mother, in front of the

children. I the former caseworker his opinion, who intervened with her in regards to David’s ideations.

The caseworker also told me that Yolanda’s mother is, in his opinion, a “borderline”, and he found her to

be unreceptive and detrimental to work with. Yolanda’s interpersonal relationships and history with

interpersonal functioning was impacting her current life in the most detrimental way. Having studied ego

psychology in two classes at New York University, I was familiar with the theoretical basis on attachment

theory as a function of ego psychology. Yolanda exhibits hallmark traits of being insecurely attached to

her mother but has learned security which is evidenced by a sense of empowerment and confidence she

has a lot of the time. This together with evidence on her impulsivity, judgements, ego-adaptive and

defensive skills and mechanisms all suggested a healthy ego. However her commuinication about her

mother and Ricardo showed a deficit in object constancy. She “split” the good parts in people from the

bad. They were all good or all bad. I noticed her friends where also expressed in bi-polar terms. Her

therapist at the outpatient facility also was all good before she as all bad and Yolanda stopped seeing her.

. The ego function “object relations” referrs to the Margaret Mahler’s (XXX) work on separation

individuation, In Mahler’s work, the term “object” refers to an infant’s perception of themselves

andothers. Mahler’s described a chronoligcal set of developmental scheivements which, if successful,

end in the infant “working toward object constancy”. Object constancy referes to an indivual having the

capacity to maintain both the good and bad qualitites of a person as intrinsic and coexisting aspects of

others as well as themselves.

Yolanda’s language reflected perceptions of herself and others as having two parts that were not

combined in her perception. For example, She was internalizing the blame of Ricardo’s death. She could

not believe he was mentally ill, as it was more habitual and comfortable for her to be the scapegoat for

any problems in her family. She regarded Ricardo as having been a “good” father, and she questioned her

feelings of wanting to leave him, which she believes led to his suicide. At the saem time, she has a

fervent need to express and justify her feelings by relating stories of his verbal and physical abuse in a

defensive manner, in order to emancipate herself from this guilt.

All these issues culminated in a very complex state of relationships with herself and others. The stress of

her guilt had culminated in a flood of anxiety as she transition from the fight or flight stage of crisr

response to the resistance phase, in which she is coping with the aftermath (Seyle, 1956 as cited in Ell,

1996). During the fight or flight stage she had decided to go back to school and become the perfect

housekeeper. She was struggling to achieve the values her mothers held in regards to education and class

mobility. She was also trnafering her mothers values in respect to cooking and cleaning. She gave

herself no time for rest which forced her into emotional exhaustion.

It was a great strength of Yolanda’s to recognize she was in trouble. She took action by dropping her

class and calling the caseworker at IFSS. This level of self reflection was the pivotal strength that gave

me confidence in her ability to create change. This is defined by Cynthia Bisman as a state of relationship

bonding that must occur in order to create a goal with the client in a helping relationship. It also sets the

stage for intervention with the client. Without establishing this bond, Bisman posits, the treatment will

fail.

Interpersonal Relationships

Having studied ego pscyhology in two human behavior classes at New York University, my training has

predisposed me to assessing indivuals on their ego strengths and deficits. The work of Eda G. Goldstein

on Ego Psychlogy and Social Work Practice (1995) has proven to be an enormous resource in

understanding ego strengths as tools of assessment. The ego psychlogical framework is specifically

appealing in the case of Yolanda becasue of her maladaptive interpersonal relations.

My original research focused on crisis intervention within the framework of surviving a family member’s

suicide. However, in our second meeting on November 2nd, it was clear that Ricardo’s death was not the

source of Yolanda’s anxiety. It was her role change in becoming a single mother (Hepworth et al., 2002)

without any support. ALthough Ricardo was abusive to her Yolanda was exhibitting symtpoms of

“splitting” the “good” part of him from the “bad” part(Goldstein, 1995). This occurs in indivduals with

an impairment in the ego function “object relations” (Goldstein, 1995). Yolanda was also expressing

feelings of guilt and shame surrounding his death, which told me she was internalizing his blaming her

for his death. The internalization was juxtaopposed with the need to express the amount of abuse he

instilled and need for vaildation from me, and thereby emancipation of his suicide.

All of these factors contributed to my increasing belief in the hypothesis that Yolanda’s presenting

problem was a function of maladaptive coping skills in regards to her interpersonal relations

Problem for Work

Yolanda’s object constancy was getting in the way of her social functioning. Her family had no

boundaries at all, which predisposed Yolanda for accepting inappropriate emotional and physical abuse

from her mother. In turn, Yolanda acted out in ways that fueled resentments. At the same time, Yolanda

was very lonely. She was forming an insecure attachment (Goldstein, 1995) with another boyfriend

becasue her eyesight kept her from being able to drive. Yolanda was falling into her old habits with

Ricardo with this new boyfriend, who was speaking to her about suicide ideation and was a former close

friend of Ricardos. This latter fact made Yolanda’s interpersonal relationships a priority. Since

Yolanda’s object relations was a deficit, intrapersonal work on setting boundaries and finding community

resources for transportation was in order. Any intervention that did not consider her problems with her

mother would not be doing Yolanda justice, and wouldn’t be impacting Yolanda in a lasting way.

Pivotal Strength

Yolanda’s intrapersonal strength is her ability to be self-reflective. Although her actions show impulse

control and judgment deficiencies, she was cognizant of the stress coming from these acts and wanted to

change them in order to “be a woman”. She was the one who described to me that her actions with her

mother were childish and she wished she didn’t let her mother “get to her so much”. She also shared that

she was afraid she was creating another Ricardo situation with David (her current boyfriend). When her

mother was in Peurto Rico, Yolanda had the persective to note that hat her mother “is not all bad, she just

has issues”. This showed me her capabilites to have object constancy where in tact, and her splitting was

state if regression due to environmental stressors where the environment was her interpersonal

relationships.

Although ego centered work is not typically used in a short-term period of therapy, I was confident that

Yolanda would be able to focus on some cognitive behavioral changes. Yolanda also showed evidence of

her love in learning new words for thoughts and had a drive to change her behaviors in associated with

her feelings. This motivational factor increased my confidence of empowering Yolanda with ego-

supportive interventions (Goldstein, 1995).

Contracting and Intervention

Setting Goals

In order to guide us through the facilitation of meeting Yolanda’s desire to “become a woman” and “stop

letting her mother get to me”. I decided to take a task oriented approach. Yolanda’s goals were more

long term for our contract of working together, they included buying a car and getting her driver’s

liscence. She aslso wanted to move away from her mother. While these goals were feasible for the long

term, they exceeded the time limitation for our wqork together. Considereing the guidance on setting

goals in the literature (Hepworth et al, 2002), feasibility is an important to give clients realistic goals that

can be accomplished within the time frame of the helping relationship. Yolanda had already gone to

fincial consultant and achieved creating a payment plan for her car, as well as maintaining glasses she

needed to get a liscence to drive with her eyesight disability. Considereing her mastery competency

(Goldstein, 1995) on these tasks, I decided to focus on quantifying her interactions with her mother, in

order for her to mobilize her as a support with less conflict in their interactions. Until she is more

independent, she will have to remain in her home and needs the support of her family for transporatation

and getting the children to their separate schools. Therefore, I needed to guide Yolanda toward this end,

while also empowering her with the confidence to set boundaries with her family

According to Hepworth, Rooney and Larson (2002) there are two categories of goals: global and implicit.

In Table 12-1 (p. 331) Hepworth et al. list a number of global goals and explicit tasks which serve as a

guideline for differentiating between these two categories. In order to empower Yolanda with relevant

goals, I needed to communicate how the tasks I was about to suggest to her how they could help her to

“keep her mother from getting to her”. I had already discussed with her that her longer term goals were

excellent, but that our time together would preceed these events ie. Getting a car and moving to another

location. She understood that. In the meantime, I wanted to ensure that I was there to help her now, and

that I decided that a diary of her thoughts and the interactions she had with her between sessions could

help us track “what works” with her mom and what makes things worse.

Cynthia Bisman (2007) defines the use of communication for the social worker as “a purposeful set of

activities focused on altering the problem situation presented by the client” (p. 192). In order to focus a

client, Bisman (2007) posits, one uses methods to facilitate the purpose of the conversation. These

methods are defined as exploring, reflecting, validatiting, and confrotnitng.

I decided before Yolanda’s third session in November that positioning in the kitchen was important, in

order to focus Yolanda and introduce the task of keeping a diary on her interactions with her mom. This

would also facilitate communication without distractions from her daughter who was in the home during

our session. The following dialogue took place on our third session together. The use of communication

methods I used during this interaction will follow

Yolanda: I have so much to tell you- I just got back from the hospital and everything with Natalie’s ears are fine. The doctors said that her speech delay is in the “global realm” and that I should be in touch with early intervention, which I already am… so basically I’m doing everything right!

Alexis: I remember meeting the speech therapist here. I’m so glad you got good news … were you worryed about natalie a lot?

Yolanda: Yeah, my mother always makes me feel bad about what I’m doing. But she’s in Puerto Rico until next week! So David just brought me back from the hospital… oh and I want to tell you about him… but first my best friend is coming for Christmas!

Alexis: Wow- That’s a lot – you’ve got a lot going on today… let’s go into the kitchen and sit down so we can focus on what we want to cover today.

Although Yolanda was very disorganized in her thoughts, I was able to slow her down by using two

methods of communication: validation and exploration. Yolanda listened to me share in her feelings of

excitement and validate that I had seen that she was using a therapist for her daughter. In expressing this

memory, I was telling Yolanda I had faith in her, and at the same time establishing Yolanda’s faith in me

as a professional. This is the process that Cynthia Bisman desribes as “belief bonding” (2007).

Once we were in the kitchen Yolanda was ready to talk about her friend coming, which I was glad about,

hearing. I had planned to brainstorm that session on a plan that would help her and her children get

through Christmas Eve, which is the anniversary of Ricardo’s death. When I heard that she had taken

care of that herself, I was more convinced that her mother was the core problem for our work. The

following describes our exchange once we moved into the kitchen and sat at her table.

Yolanda: Okay, so yeah, my friend is coming for christmas

Alexis: I’m really glad you have a plan for christmas. That was one of the goals I wanted to go over today. remember we talked about coming up with goals together?1

Yolanda: Yes… and I was thinking that I am feeling so much better this week.

Alexis: Well, you said that you’re mom was in Peurto Rico before, do you think that her being away helps you feel better?2

Yolanda: It does! I never thought about it like that

Alexis: Do you think it would make sense for us to work on how to feel better when your mom is around?

Yolanda: Yeah- I feel so much better without her here. I moved once, around the block but she was still all over me with the kids, and telling me what i’m doing wrong.

When I heard Yolanda say she felt better, I had the opportunity to test my hypothesis by exploring the

issue with her. Had she not said yes, I would have continued to the issue guided by the notion of

“mutually selecting and defining goals”. Since her thought are usually racing, I took the opportunity to

slow her down by using closed ended question to transition to the introduction of the task I had chosen to

introduce.

The following excerpt shows how I introduced the diary I brought to meet the explicit goal of quantifying

her interactions with her mother.

Alexis: I know that you are thinking about ecentually moving when you get your car. I want to do what I can to help you now since you wont have your car until August. I am very impressed that you worked out a financial plan getting your car, and I’m sure you will on your own one day-(interrupted)

Yolanda: Yeah- Like my brothe did-he went to Claifornia! He’s coming fro Christmas too, by the way, but he’s not staying with her… he made me laugh.

*1Alexis: Maybe your brother can help you set up some boundaries with your mom.

Yolanda: What do you mean?

Alexis: Well you said to me last week than she comes over here and says things to you about your children, which makes you mad, right? 4

Yolanda: yes..

*2.Alexis: Boundaries just mean ways that we can find that will help both of you stay more separate from each other even though you live in the same house. ( I drew a diagram of circles, enmeshed, and mutually exclusive)5

*3.So in order to that, I though we could track your interactions with your mom through using a diary like your daughter used in therapy. If I can help you with your relationship with her, would it make you happier?

Yolanda: Yes—that’s why I’m always running to David, and I want to talk to you about him later. But I was thinking my mom’s not all bad, she just has issues.

*4.Alexis: That’s really insightful for you to see. tell me more about how that feels… to realize that.

Yolanda: It feels good, like she’s not as big to me, like I feel bad for her almost.

*5Alexis: That’s awesome. you say you want to be a woman… it’s totally a “woman” thing tobe able to see your mom as human even though she hurts you sometimes. Right now, you have some distance from her while she’s in Puerto Rico.. It will be harder when she comes back and picks on you. So if you write your feeling down now, you can read it later on when you are having a harder time, and remember that were able to say that you to me while she was away. I think you are right. Your mom has been through a lot and wants you to have the best. She just is very hard on herself, and it comes out in the wrong way. It’s not fair to you, I know how that feels.my parents seem to want me to be the parent they wished they were… but since you have to deal with it while you wait for your car and your liscence, let’s focus on keeping you safe and happy If you keep a diary of all the ways you two interact that you find important, we can also see if there are any patterns we can look what cools her down- what works with her… and also what doesn’t. Also, you can figure out exactly what makes you flip out. What words are most painful to you… what do you think?

*6.Yolanda: I like that… okay- I’m going to write down what I said cause you’re right. She’ll piss me off the second she walk into the house.(laughing)... also can you explain that picture again? What was that word? Borders?

1)

2)

3)

Nature

We expressed the intent to work together on making Yolanda “feel better” when her mother is around.

This was a verbally expressed goal. I also referenced in the above dialogue how Yolanda’s personal goal

was to take care of her baby.

1.

Rationalle

The reason I decided to work on this specific aspect of Yolanda’s problem, is because it seems the most

debilitating to her ego functioning. It is also something that she can incorporate in her relationship with

others.

Quality

The goal will be measurable through the diary she keeps. I will do mnore research on goal maintenance

using a diary method so the different ideas she expresses can be partialized. In having Yolanda write

down the incidences of thoughts and interactions with her mother, they will become quanitfyable. I am

hoping that we can look measure the interactions in terms of both quantity and quality. The decrease in

incidences, and the less stress associated with them are both inherent parts of the goal in the long term.

The short term goal will likely consist more of boundary maintanence and cognitive therapy intervention

which can help Yolanda prepare for interactions with her mother, with a set of responses that have

worked in the past.

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National Association of Social Work (NASW) Code of Ethics (2000). (pp. 1-23). [In-Class Handout] Bisman. Chapters 6 and 7: “Communication: The methods and skills,” pp. 177-208, and “Practitioner

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Netting, F. E., Kettner, P. M., & McMurtry, S. L. (2004). Social work macro practice. (3rd ed.). New York: Longman.

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