Almedina Palalic

Grace Boussard
Jennifer Luu
Olga Eames

Practice and Treatment Approaches

 Agency/Case Management
1. Practice Approaches:
1. Family-centered case planning and management: This form of case
management engages family members throughout the whole process
of their case. It gives them the chance to request certain services and
decide what is best for their family. In this way, families can choose
the best path to prevent their family from being involved in child
welfare and protective services any longer. This form of case
management gives families the power to change their outcomes to
truly benefit their well-being.
2. Shared Family Care Plans:
This is the out-of-home care that helps the parent and the children
at the same time. “Possible types of shared family care are 1- drug
treatment programs for mothers with their children, 2- drug
treatment programs for adults, 3- residential programs for pregnant
and parenting teens, 4-residential programs for children, which also
offer live-in treatment programs for the parents, and 5-foster family
homes for both the parent (s) and the children” (p. 275). The
benefit of the family shared plans is that there is support 24-hours
instead of just a few hours a week.

3. CASA Volunteers:
Court-appointed special advocates (CASA) volunteers can aid in
the case management process as they can take some of the work off
of the caseworker. CASA has highly trained volunteers whose
whole job is to advocate for the child. They meet with the child to
get a holistic view of the situation and appear in court to advocate
for the child and their best interests. Programs like CASA are
beneficial because they offer the opportunity for the case manager
to work with the family to advocate for their needs, but the CASA
volunteer is focused solely on the child (UtahCASA).
 Clinical Treatment Facilities (Therapy and Counseling)
1. Treatment Approaches
1. Desensitization can be used with individuals who have experienced
trauma. It allows for individuals to process the trauma and analyze the
information, so they do not continue to store this negative view or get
triggered by anything that pertains to it. It allows individuals to be
able to respond a different way and hopefully a more positive outlook
to the trauma.
2. Family counseling and community education efforts can propose a safe
environment that allows the client and their family to discuss problems within the
home and address problems before they escalate. Family counseling can break the
cycle of abuse from a parental figure that may have encountered abuse in their
childhood. “Family systems treatments target the psychodynamic interplay in
relationships in families. Intensive home-based services and family preservation
services directly correspond to ecological, developmental theories of
maltreatment and provide services directed at the overall needs of abusive
families” (“Understanding Child Abuse”, pg. 258).

3. Empathy-based therapy is a concept that is encouraged in many European

countries. Essentially, it concentrates on the idea of rehabilitating the abuser and
the child into a healthier dynamic instead of removing the child from the situation
without closure or content. This is a multifaceted approach and can have
comprehensive benefits for the child and the abuser. We “need someone to
recognize our feelings and help us understand the root of our anxiety, loss, and
grief. We do not need to be told what to do and how to do it. Instead we need
someone to help us understand ourselves in order to be able to overcome our
destructive tendencies and to make our own decisions, whatever the problem is”
(Marnefff, 1996, pg. 381). This encourages rehabilitation for the child and
abusive family member and can result in a positive relationship that may be
rekindled. This will protect the child from having to get in harm's way, and from
entering the foster care system. This should only be used in cases that have not
resulted in severe abuse and only if the child’s safety and wellbeing are not at
risk. This should only be conducted by a professional behaviorist.
 References

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (n.d.). Family-Centered Case Planning and Case

Management. Retrieved from

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/famcentered/caseworkpractice/caseplanningmgmt/

Marneffe, C. (1996). Child abuse treatment: A fallow land. Child Abuse &

Neglect, 20(5), 379-384.

National Research Council, Social Sciences and Education, Commission on

Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, & Panel on Research. (1993, January 1).

Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect. Retrieved from

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/2117/understanding-child-abuse-and-neglect.

Utah CASA. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.utahcasa.org/