Protocol for
services for the client (Barker
Case Management
of Child Victims of Abuse,
Neglect, and Exploitation
The Protocol highlights the
roles and responsibilities of
government agencies and
their partners, from reporting
or referral of a child abuse
case until its termination,
ensuring that child victims are
dealt with in a most child-
sensitive and appropriate
manner.
Child victims are those who
are:
ABUSED – physical, sexual,
emotional, and psychological
abuse;
NEGLECTED – abandoned and
those deliberately
unattended by their parent/s
or guardians;
EXPLOITED – commercial
sexual exploitation
(prostitution and
pornography), economic
exploitation (child labor),
trafficked children and other
exploitative situations.
CASE MANAGEMENT
Case management is a
procedure to plan, seek, and
monitor services from
different social agencies and
staff on behalf of a client.
Usually, one agency takes
primary responsibility for the
client and assigns a case
manager who coordinates
services, advocates for the
client, sometimes controls
resources and purchases
all times and in all stages,
2003).
The following approaches are
hereby adopted in the
management of cases of child
abuse, neglect, and
exploitation:
• Holistic care - to ensure full
or optimum development of
the child: physical, social,
emotional, cognitive, and
spiritual development;
• Rights-based and life-cycle
approach - to ensure that the
rights of the child are upheld
throughout the different
stages of the child’s growth
and development. Ensure the
participation of the child in all
processes;
• Family and community-
based approaches -
recognize that families and
communities are the first line
of response in dealing with
problems of children thus
interventions should
strengthen the capabilities of
families and communities to
care for them;
• Gender-sensitive approach
– the ability to recognize that
girls and women’s
perceptions, experiences and
interests may be different
from those of boys and men,
arising from an
understanding of their
different social position and
gender roles. The provision of
gender-sensitive services to
abused children necessarily
includes rights-based
approach, i.e. responding
to victims’ peculiar needs at
affording them respect, and
promoting dignity as their
inherent right; and
•Multi-disciplinary approach
- recognizes that children,
particularly those in need of
special protection, need
access to an array of services
due to the multi-faceted
nature of their needs. Many
agencies and professionals
need to work together with
mutual responsibilities and
joint accountability for
managing different aspects of
helping a child within the
context of the family,
community, and society.
The management of child
abuse cases is multi-sectoral
(national and local
government agencies, non-
government and faith-based
organizations, civic and
private sectors) and multi-
disciplinary (police,
prosecutor, judge, lawyer,
social worker, medical
doctor, psychiatrist,
psychologist, barangay
officials among others)
working together as a team to
provide appropriate
protection, legal and social
services to the child victims of
abuse, neglect, and
exploitation.
Due to devolution of social
services and accessibility to
the community, the local
government unit’s social
worker (referred to as local
social welfare and
development office or
LSWDO social worker) is
often the case manager. As
case manager, the social
worker coordinates the
provision of needed services
in cooperation with partner
agencies.
CASEWORK PROCESS
1. STUDY
- In the study phase, the client
is engaged in presenting the
problem.
- The key is engagement.
- Client makes the important
decision of whether to enter
treatment.
- Emphasis on the interaction
is on the here-and-now and
on the problem not as might
be perceived by the worker,
but as experienced at the
moment by the client.
- Data gathering and history
taking concentrate on
relevance.
- Contacts during the initial
phase may be among the
most dynamic of the entire
process.
- Client is likely to feel most
helpless and vulnerable and
most available to the helping
process.
- Sympathetic listening,
demonstration of
acceptance, reassurance,
demonstration of confidence
in ability, and judicious
stroking are powerful tools of
the social worker and can be
highly therapeutic.
2. ASSESSMENT
- Provides a differential
approach to treatment based
on individual differences and
needs.
- An individual’s strengths
need to be identified and
utilized as part of the change
process.
- Assessment is fluid and
dynamic.
- Assessment begins with a
statement of the problem by
the client.
- Results in an understanding
of the problem.
- It includes initial
impressions that are
confirmed, modified, or
rejected in the light of
additional information.
- It includes judgment about
the strength and limitations
of the individual in coping
with the situation.
- Treatment planning and
treatment itself are guided by
assessment.
- There is mutual agreement
of the worker and the client in
assessment.
- Goals must be congruent
with the client’s needs and
the availability of services.
- These goals are respected,
supported and reinforced.
3. INTERVENTION
- Intervention or treatment
begins with the first contact.
- The study process is
treatment when it helps the
client to clarify the problem
and to make changes from
this understanding.
- The relationship is the
mainspring of social work
intervention.
- Warmth, caring, and
congruence have been
identified as essential
qualities.
- Skills include interviewing,
recording, letter writing,
referrals to other agencies
and services, and helping the
client to use personal and
other resources.
- Efforts support and
strengthen the client’s ego
through emotional catharsis,
reassurance, clarification of
the problem, and
sympathetic listening.
Intervention (basic
principles):
-Right to determine own
course of action within the
limits of their capacity to
make sound choices.
- Acceptance of client as is,
implying acceptance in their
capacity to change.
- Relate to strengths rather
than pathology.
- Seeks to understand the
person and to help plan for
constructive change.
- Knowledge about the
client’s family and its
situation is used responsibly.
- Professional responsibility
for the welfare of the total
family.
- Responsible not only to the
client but to oneself, the
agency, the community, and
the profession.
- Innovations of professional
activities must be consistent
with casework goals.
4. TERMINATION
- The ending or limiting of a
process that was commenced
when the agency agreed to
enter into the interventive
process aimed at delivering a
service to a client with a
problem.
- A time when the client can
look back with satisfaction on
what has been accomplished.
- Signals that the worker has
confidence in the client’s
ability to learn to cope with
situations and grow.
CASE EXAMPLE
Presenting problem:
Alexis is a 29-year-old female
with a history of depression;
presents to the Swre agency
with passive suicidal
ideations. Put-off her anti-
depressant for 1 year.
Stressors include recent
separation, economic
stressors, death of her father,
reentering the workforce, co-
parenting her 4-year-old son
diagnosed with autism.
Engagement
- Use verbal and non-verbal
communication to make
Alexis comfortable (i.e. nods,
smiles, hand gestures, eye
contact)
- Introduce myself describing
purpose and role.
- General Questions: What
brought you to the agency
today?
Assessment
-Gathering information about
Alexis’ reasons for visiting the
Swre agency, current mental
status, identified
stressors/problems
- Gather information about
Alexis’ environment.
Planning
-Create treatment plan with
Alexis
Identify strengths:
-Alexis has obtained a job that
offers benefits/room to move
up in the company.
- Alexis has a supportive
mother/sister.
- Alexis wants to alleviate the
depression to improve her
quality of life.
- Alexis has fairly good
relationship with her x-
spouse.
Develop goals:
-Make a referral to a
psychiatrist for a medical
evaluation.
- Locate a grief support
group/support group for
parents with children with
developmental disabilities.
- Locate tangible resources
(food pantries, clothing,
apply for housing/childcare
subsidies)
Establish a contract
Implementation
Social Worker:
-Investigates the best
community resources to help
Alexis’ specific needs and
refers Alexis to these
agencies.
- Contacts psychiatrist and
updates him on Alex’s
situation.
Alexis:
-Makes an appointment with
psychiatrist and starts
medications.
- Attends a grief support
group.
- Uses referrals given to get
food and clothing.
Evaluation
-SWr and Alexis meet to
discuss progress Alexis
reports her depression; is
now a 2 on a scale of 1-10.
Before coming to the agency
Alexis reported her
depression as an 8.
- Alexis does not have
thoughts of suicide and feels
hopeful.
- Alexis has utilized the
resources.
Termination
-Goals have been met. Alexis
will continue to see the
psychiatrist for quarterly
medical evaluations and
continue with support groups
and tangible resources if
necessary.
CASEWORK
APPROACHES
in the PHILIPPINES
CASEWORK APPROACHES:
1. FUNCTIONAL
APPROACH
- It is a social casework
method for engaging the
client through a one-to-
one relationship in the use
of a social service toward
his own and the general
social welfare.
- This approach was
conceptualized by Ruth E.
Smalley (1967).
- The focus of the
intervention is the delivery
of service(s) to the client
(common approach used in
the Philippines).
2. PROBLEM-SOLVING
APPROACH
-It assumes that the
person’s problem-solving
capabilities or resources
have been broken down or
been impaired or are
maladaptive.
- The focus of treatment is
in helping the person go
through the scientific
problem-solving process so
that he will act and resolve
his problem with only
minimum help.
- The experience of
problem-solving may be so
significant that the client
imbibes and transfers the
learning to other problems
he may encounter in the
future even when the
worker is no longer there.
- Identified with the work
of Helen Perlman at the
Chicago school in l957.
- The purposes of the
process are to free the
client for investment in
tasks related to the
solution of the problem,
involve the client’s ego in
work designated to deal
with the problem, and to
mobilize inner and outer
forces in the service of
satisfactory role
performance.
3. PSYCHOSOCIAL
APPROACH
- Also known as “diagnostic
approach.”
-One of the first models
employed developed by
Gordon Hamilton and her
associates from the
Columbia School of Social
Work.
- According to Gordon
Hamilton, treatment here
is focused on the individual
and his functionality.
- Cause and effect
relationships are identified
between the individual and
environment.
- Ego psychology and the
behavioral sciences
provide important
underpinning for practice
- Model has a Freudian
theory base.
- It is concerned with inner
realities of the person, his
emotional, mental and
social processes, and the
social context in which he
lives.
- Used with clients affected
by traumatic incidents.
4. TASK-CENTERED
APPROACH
- Treatment concentrates
on helping individual
clients to achieve specific
or limited goals of their
own choice within brief
and bounded periods of
service.
- Developed at the
University of Chicago in the
l970’s.
- Designed to solve specific
psychosocial problems of
individuals or families in a
short-term, time-limited
form of practice.
- Caseworker and client
reach an explicit
agreement on the
particular problems to be
worked on and also the
probable duration of
treatment.
Task-centered or short-
term approach:
-It is similar to crisis
intervention but it focuses
on a task to be achieved by
the client.
- It may focus on a specific
behavior or social
environment that needs to
be changed.
5. CRISIS INTERVENTION
- It is the application of the
casework approach which
tries to actively influence
the psychosocial
functioning of a person
during a period of
disequilibrium.
Crisis-intervention
Approach
Crisis - is an upset in a
steady state (state of
disequilibrium) that gives
an obstacle in the
fulfillment of important life
goals (Caplan 1964)
Effects of Crisis - It is
stressful and disruptive
and can affect biological,
psychological and social
functioning and can
produce disturbed
emotions, impair motor
functioning and negatively
impact ongoing behavior.
Examples of Crisis
Situations
- Natural disasters
- Death of a loved one
- Disabling or life-
threatening illness or injury
- Cultural dislocation
- Rape
- Premature births
- Adolescent out-of-
wedlock pregnancy
- Child-abuse
- Battered women
- Domestic violence
Reaction to Crisis
-Initial rise in tension
accompanied by shock or
sometimes denial of the
provoking event.
- Reaction to the crisis
situation (confusion,
overwhelmed, helpless,
angry, depressed).
- Coping and degree of
responsiveness (either
positive or negative)
Crisis intervention
Its goals are:
A.) to reduce the
immediate harmful effects
of the stressful events.
B.) to help mobilize the
latent capacities and
capabilities of the person
directly affected so that he
can cope more effectively
with the effects of the
crisis.
6. FAMILY-CENTERED
APPROACH
-The family is the unit of
interest.
- In the Phil., casework is
family-centered/oriented.
- It means that human
beings can be understood
and helped best in the
context of family.