Assignment: Conflict Theory and the Social Worker-Client Relationship

A common difficulty for social workers is developing a positive social worker-client relationship. Clients are often at a vulnerable place in their lives—and this affects engagement with the social worker. For example, a parent who faces the removal of their child from their home might come into the relationship with the social worker with feelings of anger, hostility, and/or resentment. The social worker then might use terms like resistant and reluctant to describe their client. Conflict theory can help explain the social worker-client relationship in just such a scenario.

For this Assignment, imagine that you are the director of a social work agency. To better understand engagement in a child welfare context, you initiate a study on both social workers’ and clients’ views about engagement. To interpret the findings, you use conflict theory to frame the understanding of the social worker-client relationship.

To prepare:

Review the following article listed in the Learning Resources:

Altman, J. C. (2008). Engaging families in child welfare services: Worker versus client perspectives. Child Welfare, 87(3), 41–61. Retrieved from https://www.cwla.org/child-welfare-journal/

Submit a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:

• Summarize conflict theory in 3–4 sentences.
• Interpret the research article findings about communication using conflict theory.
  • In other words, how might a client’s desire be understood within the context of conflict theory?
• Interpret the research article findings about the relationship between social workers and parents within the context of conflict theory.
  • For example, what might be a barrier to social workers being empathic and supportive from the perspective of conflict theory?
• Explain how you would reframe the term compliance or resistance using conflict theory.
• In reviewing the research article findings, analyze the goals and values of each party (i.e., the social worker and the parent) as they enter into the relationship.
• Using conflict theory to inform social work practice interventions on either the micro, meso, and/or macro levels, describe two recommendations to improve the social worker-client relationship within the context of child welfare.

References

Altman, J. C. (2008). Engaging families in child welfare services: Worker versus client perspectives. Child Welfare, 87(3), 41–61. Retrieved from https://www.cwla.org/child-welfare-journal/

Robbins, S. P., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. R. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3, ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Wright, E. (2013). Psychoanalytic Criticism (1st ed.). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315016054

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