North Carolina A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Wolf Family Case Assessment & Treatment Plan

By

Tequan Powell

July 22, 2019

Academic Integrity Pledge: “I have abided by the Academic Integrity Policy on this assignment.”

Name: Tequan Powell Date: 07/22/2019

Wolf’s Family Assessment and Treatment Plan

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Background:

The Wolf family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Wolf, their thirteen year old daughter

Madelyn and their nine year old daughter Mary, and the maternal grandmother. Mr. Wolf

suffered a moderately severe divorce conflict with his ex-wife Mrs. Wolf for the past five years.

The marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Wolf ended abruptly. Mrs. Wolf remained entangled in

conflict with her first husband and have had two more relationships shortly after her and Mr.

Wolf divorce. The daughter Madelyn comes from an upper-middle class family, who ethnicity is

Italian-American and the family has a Catholic background. Madelyn who have been living with

her mother Mrs. Wolf for the past five years after her parents’ divorce. While living with her

mother, Madelyn attends a private school, where she experienced a great deal of success.

Madelyn was a cheerleader and basketball player.

Presenting problems- Due to Madelyn’s disillusionment, Madelyn only wanted one of

her parents to attend her games and conferences. Recently, Madelyn just moved in with her

father Mr. Wolf. Mr. Wolf would like for Madelyn to see a clinical social worker. He also

wanted Madelyn to be open with the clinical social worker as well be sure that Madelyn was

making the right decision to come and live with him. Madelyn’s behavior has been influenced by

unstable environment in her mother's house. While at her mother’s house she had no supervision

with her homework because the mother slept most of the time due to her strained relationship

and excessive amount of pill intake, however; when she moved in with her father, Madelyn

grades seems to improve. She said that constant put downs about her father by her mother

bothered her and those words were very hurtful. This made Madelyn feel very guilty and she felt

responsible for her mother’s well-being.

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Mary, the younger sister was cared for in the home by the maternal grandmother. As a

social worker, I recorded that Mary behavior seems not to be influenced by her social

environment. The grandma treats Mary like a baby. The maternal grandmother seems to be in

good health. Mary is shy and withdrawn and doing poorly in school but has a few friends. Mary

blames herself for her behavior. She does this because of the internalized issues from her

parents’ divorce. Madelyn loves her mother but she fears for her safety because of the excessive

indulgence of medication. This leaves Madelyn feeling helpless and making her want live with

her father in order for her to maintain a normal life. Parents live in separate cities. Mrs. Wolf felt

the resentment for Madelyn as a transfer of environment that she saw as a transfer of loyalty.

Mrs. Wolf are putting the children second and mother is neglecting her children, having

uncommitted relationships with several of guys. The boyfriend of Mrs. Wolf are causing drama

and internal pain between Madelyn and her mother’s relationship. Another example of this

internal pain is Mary started hearing negative statements about her father by her mother and her

Mrs. Wolf boyfriends. Nancy is Mr. Wolf’s girlfriend, who caught Madelyn shoplifting. The

shoplifting behavior came from Nancy when Madelyn saw her put a pack of gum in her bag.

This is seen through observational behavior was known as social learning theory.

Assessment-

Mr. Wolf is concerned about his daughter Madelyn who is demonstrating bad

behavior. Mary academics has not been great in school however; that comes from her mother and

father’s divorce. The model and assessment tool I would be using to work with the Wolf Family

would be The Self-Report Family Inventory (SFI). This standardized measuring tool will help

me explore the dyadic family relationships and help me find solutions to help this family

function in a good manner. I would also like to remove any repeated patterns of behavior from
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Mrs. Wolf and Madelyn. This model will allow me as a social worker to assess the relationship

between the families. I would first like to see what the relationship is like between Mrs. Wolf

and her boyfriend. I would like to dig deeper and see if there is any external factors that is

influencing the mother’s behavior. During this assessment process, I want to know are there

additional factors that contribute to this Mrs. Wolf distress. I also need to find out what type of

illness is Mrs. Wolf facing. In regards to the mother being sick. This will help me look at the

family functioning and help target the specific problems in the family. For this case, the mother

Mrs. Wolf seems to be the problem. This model will also help me work with Mrs. Wolf through

individualized therapy to see what personal issues and stress she has going on. It appears to be no

communication between the Wolf family. I would like to know does the father have any dealings

with Mrs. Wolf mother about Mary or does she know that Mary is showing unsatisfactory in her

academics. Also, it seems to be the strained relationship between Mrs. Wolf and her boyfriend is

causing the mother to indulge in excessive sleeping and causing detachment between the mother

and her two daughters.

I would demonstrate respect for the clients as possessing their strengths and potential

resources and as a social worker I would accomplish this through active listening by listening to

the family survival strategies. During the assessment process I will also engage and help the

clients recognize their strengths by writing their strengths down on paper and providing them

with some musical therapy and art therapy. More evidence of musical and group therapy will

help the family come to a mutual agreement so they can become a happy family.

Interventions-

As a social worker, I would use the Structural Family Therapy. This therapy will

achieve the goal of improving the Wolf’s family communication and interactions among family
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members, as well as highlight the appropriate boundaries to make the family a healthier

structure. Each family intervention will meet for one hour and for eight weeks. During the

intervention, I can identify one of Mr. Wolf’s strengths by reaching out to me as a clinical social

worker to help Madelyn work through family issues and help her cope with the neglect that she

feels from her mother. In the beginning treatment, I would set ground rules, then explain what

the agency is about, and give them the agency mission statement. Next, I would go over the rule

of confidentiality. Then ask what are the factors of distress in their lives, what type of treatment

would you feel would be best for you?

Another family therapy I would use to assess the Wolf family is the Solution-Focused

Family Therapy. This therapy will help Mr. and Mrs. Wolf define their relationship in terms of

the difficulties and tensions that are present. When leading this intervention, I would use a not-

knowing approach which will allow me to identify some solutions for the divorced couple to co-

parent. It will also help Mr. and Mrs.Wolf and the family to identify and implement solutions

and focus on positivity. Helping them recognize the presence of exceptions and enabling them to

identify steps that will help them solve their problems in an effective manner which is important

for the family. Specifically, this will help the family establish a healthy well-being for the

daughters. In my intervention sessions I would use art therapy to help the family have faith so

that they can define the appropriate goals and have the skills in order for them to work toward a

goal. In this intervention, my miracle question would be if you wake up the next day and realize

that all of your problems are solved. How would you know? How would you notice it? I would

also use a solution focus scale by asking the family members to indicate or write down on a scale

one 1 to 10 how serious do they view their problem. This scale will help the family find hope in

their situation.
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Treatment Plan Validation-

To validate the treatment plan, I utilized the resiliency based approach book. This

reference tool help me select the most useful measurement tool and intervention model to work

through a strengths based approach to assist the Wolf family. Another reference that I used to

measure the validity of my intervention treatment was the Family Assessment Device. This

model is based on the McMaster Model of Family functioning, which conceptualizes the

approach to best assess the family so that their communication and interaction will improve. This

model will also explore the six dimensions of family functioning to best assess the parents, and

the two daughters, as well as Mrs.Wolf boyfriend.

Another treatment plan that I am using during my intervention, is the Solution-focused

Therapy. This therapy will hope to encourage change between the family members and help

them come to a goal. As the counselor I will measure the validity by using a solution focus scale

by having the family writing down on a scale 1 to 10 how serious do they view their problem.

Then, to see if my solution technique was effective, I would have the family come back and

share with me changes have they seen and was this exercise helpful. If not, I would ask them

what do you think the problem is now?

Evaluation of Treatment-

To evaluate my treatment plan for the Family Assessment Device I will use a response

format, that will utilize a Likert scale with answer choices ranging from 1 to 4 indicating a more

problematic functioning by narrowing the responses down to strongly agree, agree, disagree, or

strongly disagree. Now to show concurrent validity, I will compare the responses with Family

Unit Inventory to see what differences and similarities that the family portray. This will also help

me as the counselor to see how well the family is communicating with each other by seeing if it
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affective responses or no responses at all. This will also help the family see what areas they need

improvement in.

To evaluate the treatment plan for the Solution-Focused family therapy. This therapy will

describe the importance of validating hurtful and painful aspects of the family member’s

feelings. A way to evaluate this treatment plan, I would use a rating scale that would be

questions from the perspective of the client, in this case questions from the family and perhaps

questions from the individualized person which would be Mrs.Wolf in this case. In this

intervention with mrs. Wolf this will allow time for the therapist to recognize with the client of

her many losses and used this to introduce a solution-focused question, “When I look over your

list that you gave me in the last therapy session, I cannot imagine what you’ve been through. I

would ask Mrs.Wolf what do you do to help you get through each day. Also, in this evaluation, I

will focus on the techniques and exercises that I used in my interventions such as play and art

therapy to see if the family members were more likely to attribute this to their relationship with

each other. This fits well with the evaluation regarding the effectiveness of the treatment and will

encourage the Wolf family to return back to family counseling.

References

Hook, M. V. (2019). Social work practice with families: A resiliency-based approach. New

York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Thomas, F. N. (n.d.). Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy With

Families, 53-84. doi:10.4324/9781351011778-3

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