Reactive attachment disorder and animal cruelty in foster children

Social Work with Families Part 1

1. What are some of the symptoms of RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) that the assessor talks about. The symptoms of RAD the assessor talks about are:

Physical and sexual abuse early in life Early attachment problems Sexual acting out Cruelty to animals Physical and sexual abuse by parents will cause a child to lose trust in people (Moffatt, 2015, January 29), making them fail to show or expect emotional support from others. The torture Amanda went through as a child will cause her not to feel remorse, guilt, or regret her actions. Such was the case when she was accused of abusing the two dogs. She was not expressing any emotions to indicate she felt bad about the acts she undertook. It was easy for the assessor to assume she was suffering from RAD. Based on her past, it is expected that she would be physically and sexually abusive later in life to animals first then to humans.
Amanda did not receive an emotional attachment from her parents, which might have caused her to lack the same capability as she grew. Failure to learn how to bond or receive an attachment from others can cause her to be withdrawn and keep to herself. However, this was never the case with Amanda. Children diagnosed with RAD tend to display inappropriate behavior towards strangers, demonstrating a lack of affection or the fear of the primary caregiver. Cruelty to animals is their way of acting out what they feel or harbor inside them based on the physical and sexual abuse they suffered (Conradi et al., 2011). Physical violence begins with animals and then progresses to humans as the child grows and becomes stronger (Moffatt, 2015, January 29). 2. Discuss the effects of the two possible outcomes if the assessor had been wrong. If the assessor had been wrong and assumed Amanda did not have anything to do with the incident, the result would have been that she would be free to continue performing her violent acts. Animals, family, and others in her environment would have been at risk since she had the potential to harm them and maintain an unsuspicious calm demeanor. The assessor was certain she could not have performed the acts from the initial assessment. However, it was likely possible the assessor could be missing something, and Amanda had learnt how to hide her acts and pretend she was not involved (Moffatt, 2015, January 29).
On the other hand, had the assessor decided she was guilty, Amanda would have been removed from the home. The result is that she would have struggled to be placed in the foster care system due to her age and actions or diagnosis. No foster parents would want to live with such a cruel child with the potential to harm animals and humans.
Amanda would not receive the support she needs once it is assumed she can perform such acts. The consequences would be that she will not receive the assistance she needs to overcome the diagnosis. She will likely be seen as a violent person, and others will tend to keep away from her, further aggravating her attachment symptoms. 3. How does this overlap with child welfare and juvenile justice? In most child welfare cases, the people in authority judge the child harshly and burden the child to prove they are not guilty. As was the case for Amanda, everyone assumed she was guilty of the acts since she had the classic symptoms of RAD. However, it was proven she did not perform the acts on further assessment. Had it not been for the patience and willingness of the assessor to pursue the issue further, chances are Amanda would have been removed from the home and placed into the foster system.
Juvenile justice fails in most cases to involve professionals who can offer a different perspective, and it is hard for the police or others investigating the issue to overlook or assume that the child could be innocent (Development Services Group, 2017). The officer from the sheriff’s department did not believe that she was innocent and never bothered to investigate if another person could perform the acts (Moffatt, 2015, January 29). Had the assessor not received the call, Amanda would have been accused, and the case closed even though there was no concrete evidence she performed the acts.
Social workers should be vigilant and ensure they are not biased when dealing with such cases (Conradi et al., 2011). The investigation revealed that Amanda had made considerable progress and managed to overcome her RAD symptoms. If she had been removed from the foster home, she would have backtracked, and her life would change for the worse. 4. Discuss particle takeaways from this case study. Do not base conclusions on assumptions or personal biases. From the start, the case seemed like a direct one, but things seemed out of place only after further assessment. As a social worker, one should ensure they perform adequate assessments of the client and eliminate any biases they harbor. The conclusions made will have a direct and lifelong impact on the client. With different sources of information, one can make an informed decision regarding the client (Moffatt, 2015, January 29).
Past actions or diagnoses should not be the basis of future diagnoses. Clients have the potential to change, and we believe that, given time, people can change. Amanda had changed since she was placed in a loving home environment. Her case file might read differently, but her actions say otherwise. Therefore, social workers should believe that clients have the potential to change and, in the future, when dealing with such a client, they should not base their diagnosis on the client’s past .
Following up with the client is vital to confirm whether the conclusion was right or wrong (Moffatt, 2015, January 29). If the assessor had been wrong and failed to follow up with the case, someone’s life could have been in jeopardy. With follow-up, one can determine if they made the right decision, and if they did not, they could rectify their conclusion to ensure they do not place others in harm’s way.

Part 2 1. Have you administered a CANS assessment? What was it like for you? I have administered the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment. The CANS assessment is a multi-purpose information tool designed to be the output of the assessment process. Administering the CANS assessment was initially challenging on the first day since I did not have practice with a genuine client. The fear of first time doing something was apparent, and I made a rookie mistake in that I rated one question wrongly. Luckily, I noticed the issue when I was counterchecking the assessment with the client and realized I had done a wrong rating and made the correction.
The CANS assessment contains various focus areas for a child/youth needs and strengths. Strengths refer to the areas the child/youth is doing well. Needs are those areas where the child/youth require serious intervention. Using the tool, I was able to get to know about the child/youth and their families to understand their needs and strengths. I determined which of the youth’s needs were most important to address during treatment. With information from the assessment tool, I could properly develop a treatment plan that addressed the youth’s strengths and needs. There was a strong engagement with the youth since I could tackle what they felt was vital and did not pay much attention to those areas they needed less assistance with, making them feel they were receiving the support they needed.
It was easy to learn and understand the CANS assessment. I also discovered it is well-liked by the recipients, providers, family members, and other service partners due to it being a collaborative tool and easily understood. The tool aims to ensure there are no duplicate assessments by different partners in the care process of the client. It also aids in decreasing unnecessary psychological testing, aids in identifying treatment needs for the client, and informs case planning decisions. Using the CANS assessment, I could easily make decisions regarding the best care plan for a client, facilitate quality improvement, drive service planning, and monitor outcomes. 2. Can you picture yourself administering the tool with a child, adolescent, or caregiver? Yes, I can. I have grown fond of the tool due to its results and how it assists in giving information to the recipient, caregiver, and myself. Communicating with a client about their needs and strengths is difficult without the assessment since there is no credible source to reference. However, when you give the results to the client, they tend to relate to them since they know deep down the results are true. The recommendations made by the assessment allow for the creation of a care plan that targets the areas the client needs. The strengths can encourage the client and boost their understanding of what they can do to feel or get better.
Before administering the assessment, it is vital to let the client know what the tool does and how the results will assist you in determining their needs and strengths. Knowing the tool will help them and yourself to develop a sound treatment plan that will ease their worries. If a caregiver accompanies the child/youth, they will be glad to know that they can benefit from the assessment since they can use the results with other care providers. Identifying the client’s needs is vital if they are going to reach their full potential. Therefore, letting them know how helpful the tool can be for the upcoming sessions will allow them to answer truthfully.
The assessment assists in fostering communication with families. The communication taking place as the assessment is being done is vital as it strengthens the relationships between the client, family, and social worker. All involved parties can agree on a rating through triangulation or average with a shared meaning. As the child shares their needs with the caregiver, they will feel more confident in communicating or expressing what they need, leading to better outcomes in the future. The child/youth will develop self-esteem as they communicate about their strengths and feel more confident when doing things associated with their strengths.

Part 3 1. The subject of the film, JD Vance, suggests that unemployment and addiction are self-inflicted and that the Appalachian culture is one of “learned helplessness” - meaning that individuals feel that they are powerless in improving their circumstances. Do you agree with this? Why or why not? What does this film depict about cycles (poverty, addiction, etc)? I agree with the statement made by the J.D. Vance because it is clear that the Appalachian culture offers individuals numerous opportunities to uplift themselves, but they lack the push or willfulness to improve their circumstances. The hillbilly culture teaches young people helplessness whenever they are pushed to rise above their unfortunate circumstances (Vance, 2020). Hillbillies have embraced victimhood, where they prefer to act out as victims instead of accepting their mistakes and making amends. Blaming everyone else and not themselves is easy than looking into one’s life and seeing how they are at fault and how they can make changes. The government is blamed for making policies that do not favor the hillbillies, resulting in them lacking the desire to change or even rise above their current poverty. The working-class hillbilly harbor resentment at the world for they believe they are better and should be given things instead of working for them. Blaming others allows one to overlook their complacency, and they never see like they need to change. Hillbillies feel they are not powerful enough to change their current situation or improve their circumstances because the world is against them, and the government has implemented policies that are not favorable to them (Vance, 2020).
The film depicts cycles as valid excuses that keep people from improving their lives. Drug abusers have taken the idea that drug addiction is a disease, making it easy to assume it is something out of their control. Therefore, they cannot resist the urge to take drugs. Without hard work, one cannot overcome their current situation, resulting in an endless cycle of poverty or addiction. Vance (2020) posits, provided one does not accept that they are responsible for their life and can make changes to improve their lives, they will forever be poor or addicted to drugs. Encouraging complacency by refusing to accept one’s situation results in blaming others or something and not seeing their inabilities. 2. JD’s mother is a powerful figure in the film. Describe her struggle with substance misuse. How did this impact JD? How did the mother’s own childhood (ex: dynamics between Mawmaw and Papaw) impact her adulthood? JD’s mother never managed to overcome the psychological experience of fighting between her parents. Her struggle with substance abuse is an ongoing thing where she is taken to rehab, comes out clean and manages to stay sober for a period before resuming her addiction. Bev could even go for a whole year without taking any substances indicating there was a possibility of her overcoming her addiction. However, there seems to be a psychological impact on her as a child that is yet to be resolved that causes her to struggle with substance abuse. Bev has used alcohol, prescription medications, and heroin in the latter days.
JD never understood how his mother could not overcome something like substance abuse even after all the assistance she has received. He saw Bev as having given up since she failed to overcome her addiction. Vance hated her mother for her substance misuse resulting in his experimentation with marijuana (Vance, 2020). However, he does not allow the experiment to ruin his life since he understands that if he follows in his mother’s footsteps, he will end up like her, and he will not manage to pull himself out of the poverty cycle.
Bev struggled to maintain relationships with his partners because he grew up in a confrontational home, and she never managed to learn how to interact without violence. The hillbilly violence culture was ingrained in her, and she tended to initiate fights in difficult times, disrupting her family. The partners could only take so much, forcing them to leave/divorce her when she addressed her emotional pain. Bev did not learn a healthy way of dealing with her emotional pain, like talking about it. Instead, she learned the best way was to initiate fights with those close to her, affecting or disrupting her life and those of her children. 3. The ability to adapt is a significant theme in Hillbilly Elegy. What are ways in which adaptability, or resilience, are present in the film (think social worker micro and mezzo levels)? Who adapted successfully, and why? Who adapted less successfully, and why? Adaptability is present in the film at both the family and community levels. At the family level, we see how Bev’s brother and sister manage to adapt to the difficult family situation and overcome the psychological torture they underwent of their mother and father fighting. They also adopted new lifestyles where they did not take the violent hillbilly nature. At the mezzo level, we can see how Vance and his sister overcame the violence and preferred to lead nonviolent lives. Arguing with others or choosing to settle scores using violence is not part of their life anymore.
Vance adapted successfully because he overcame his struggles and experimentation with marijuana to become a lawyer working outside the community in a different location. Vance learned how to talk about his emotions and managed to control his hillbilly violence tendencies though they still could crop up in his current life. Empowering himself instead of sticking with the Blanton men’s honor and loyalty was a great achievement and demonstrated his struggles to adapt to a different culture and identity (Vance, 2020). Vance also pulled himself from the blaming game of other hillbillies and instead worked hard towards his upward mobility.
Bev, Vance’s mother, adapted less successfully. Bev never managed to pull herself from the violence that engulfs the Blanton men and hillbilly culture. She never managed to express her emotions using words, which always resulted in violence. Her struggle with substance abuse is due to her failure to resolve her emotions and thoughts about right and wrong. She believes violence settles everything and wonders why others do not understand her beliefs. Even after successfully completing her nursing course and working, she still could not pull herself from the hillbilly culture of blaming others. She opted to blame her addiction and saw it as a disease, meaning she had no power over it. 4. What are the positive values of the culture depicted in Hillbilly Elegy? Loyalty towards family and community, helping one another and protecting the weak. The hillbilly culture promotes loyalty towards family and community where one should be prepared to protect their family’s honor (Vance, 2020). Loyalty to the culture means that even one is abused or beaten by a family member, they cannot report the person to the police. Their loyalty was such that even with violence, they saw family and community as higher than the law and could not dishonor their community. For this reason, Vance lied to the court when his mother was arrested for threatening him (Vance, 2020). Betraying a family member illustrates one is not committed to the community. Helping one another was evident in how people worked in the community. There was no privacy, and people would interfere with the lives of each other, trying to assist where possible. While the culture was noble in the hillbilly people, it resulted in a lack of privacy such that people knew everything about each other. Even when one did not explicitly ask for assistance, people were ready to assist them. The phrase by Mamaw that hill people stand by each other on an everyday basis indicates they are committed to each other and assist each other in many aspects. Raising children was a community effort, and children would be given stories by their uncles and aunts of the culture and workings of the community. The children will learn the culture and take it forward to their children and grandchildren through these stories.
Protecting the weak is demonstrated when Mamaw advises Vance to protect the boy who is being bullied. Mamaw condoned schoolyard fights though she pushed for loyalty and honor among the hillbilly community. However, she encouraged Vance to stand up for the poor victim and protect him against the bully. The result is that Vance punched the bully so hard he got scared he had killed him. Mamaw praised Vance for standing up for the victim and doing the right thing. However, Vance was not happy, and that was his last fight (Vance, 2020). 5. Summarize your thoughts/feelings on engaging in social work practice with the identified population or identified setting in the film. First, this is a violent community prepared to take matters into their own hands without fearing legal repercussions. Therefore, offering services to them should be done in a conducive and safe environment with protection and enough witnesses from outside the community. Group sessions will work better than individual sessions since aspects of their lives are linked to the community, impacting the individuals. Without changing the community, there is no possibility of changing the individuals. In the group sessions, I would bring those who have managed to overcome the community’s complacency to speak and offer their life stories. With such testimonies, others in the community can see the possibility of overcoming the cycle of poverty and addiction ravaging the population.
Loyalty and honor are vital elements for any community. However, there have to be limitations to how far loyalty and honor can go. Teaching the population the different areas where loyalty and honor are acceptable and where it goes beyond acceptable levels is vital to break the cycle of violence. Understanding the importance of human life and that one is legally allowed to kill another or shoot another will assist the community in breaking the violent streaks plaguing them.
The challenge a social worker will face when dealing with the population is one where there are deep-rooted cultural issues that should be modified. Culture cannot be easily changed, and there is a need to identify strategies that could effectively change the community’s culture. For example, allowing the law to take its course even when the offended person has refused to press charges will discourage others from doing the same. Children could be taught the benefit of speaking instead of violence when in school. Social workers can go to school to speak to the children on the importance of education and avoiding violence. References