Bioecological Theory and the Family and Community

¶ … Bioecological Theory and the Family and Community Resource Conceptual Framework)

The Case History

"Kerry" has twin girls who are now 4 years old. She had been living with her defacto "Dean" for the past 6 years. She is a qualified beautician and has previously run a small business from home before the birth of the twins. She undertook schooling until year 12 (equal to USA high school diploma) at a public school, is one of two children herself and has supportive parents in a middle income suburb. She left her defacto 10 months ago after two years of domestic violence brought on by the use intravenous "speed." She has an AVO (Aggravated Violence Order) on "Dean" for 12 months. During the previous two years "Kerry" was subjected to physical and psychological trauma, the twins witnessed this abuse. "Dean" is on a fly in fly out basis working in the mines with a roster of 2 weeks on 1 week off, with an income of over $2,000.00 per week. During his week off "Dean" would arrive home and commence drug usage. "Kerry" was not allowed to have friends or clients contact her throughout the last 6 months of their relationship and "Dean" would not allow her to buy groceries without him as he spent most of his wage for his drug use. On our first contact with "Kerry" the twins were withdrawn and would not allow "Kerry" to leave the room without them. They would only eat certain food and then only if they had sauce on the table. They would not interact with other children at preprimary school.

Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory

According to Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory, there are five environmental systems that an individual interacts with:

Microsystems -- these are the institutions and groups that most directly impact the child's development and include family, school, community, and peers

Mesosystem - this refers to the relations between the different Microsystems, for instance the relation between th parents and the teachers / school; or between the parents and the church, and so forth. These contexts too effect the child.

Exosystem - an external system of another may impact one of the ecosystems (or microsystems) of the child. For instance, the mother's work may impact the child's family life, or a teacher's challenging domestic situation may influence her teaching hence impacting child.

Macrosystem -- this is the wider culture in which the child lives. These include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity . The larger cultural context shares a common identity and shapes thoughts, behavior, feelings of the child. The macrosystem also changes gradually and subtly over time due to its own often indiscernible influences. (Kail, & Cavanaugh, 2010).

Chronosystem: The external sociohistorical and personal events that happen to the child that impact him. For instance, divorce may negatively impact the child, particularly during the first year. As regards, sociohistorical changes, females have never had it better than now with the increase of tolerance and gender equality

The ecosystem, in short, forms the person's own biology. For instance, a child developing in a ghetto or closed fundamentalist community may grow up more stunted than someone maturing in a more open way of life. The inner-city child often faces more hardship and challenges that impact him than the affluent child does. These include factors such as crime, poverty, drug environment. On the other hand, however, the sheltered child is less likely to have the extended and nurturing family support (Santrock, 2007; Vander Zanden, et al., 2007).

There are many different theories to child and human development. Bronfenbrenner's approach is unique in that it proffers an environmental description and explanation.

Assessment of the case study using Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory

Kerry's microsystem is upper middle class with middle class status living in middle class suburbs (and all the culture that that implies), with middle class job, middle class income bracket, and supportive parents.

Her children had the Microsystems of the middle class bracket but also had the Microsystem of an unstable family where they experienced both divorce of their father and trauma -- witnessing their father abuse the mother. They also witnessed the use of drugs in their life (by their father at least; possibly by both their parents) as well as the infrequent presence of an unstable father. Although their Microsystem was middle class, they also experienced the privaitosn of having little money since most was used on drugs.

As regards the other microsystem of friends, they seemed to have had a small support group, particularly since their father prohibited clients and friends from coming to the house during his last half year with them.

Their mcirossytem of school too seems to have been giving them problems since they insufficiency associated with their peers. This, however, is due to the influence of the mesosytem, namely their traumatic treatment at home likely influenced the way they acted with their peers. This in turn, had a reactionary effect where their peers may likely have avoided them.

The twins were impacted by their exosystem -- namely by variables happening outside of their control, such as their father's work in the mines that may have led to his infrequent presence at home, his abusive behavior, and his taking drugs. Their mother's upbringing, too, and her marriage to the man affected her parental skills and the way that she dealt with the abuse. This, in turn, had an indirect effect on the twins. We see how everything is related.

Then we have the macrosystem which is their middle class, American identity that places a certain set of expectations on the twins. Kerry, felt these expectations in her own case, perhaps effecting the way that she dealt with the abuse. She may have considered, perhaps, that part of her job was to remain with the children, or protect her husband and so forth. These cultural norms may have influenced the way that she dealt with the abuse and her marriage. This, in turn, worked as exosytem where the twins were impacted.

Finally, you have the chornosystem which is both the sociohisotrical events -- Kerry, for instance, dealing with the abuse in a certain manner due to her socio-historical conditioning, and, as regards, the twins, their own experiences of the abuse and divorce (amongst other aspects).

What is so fascinating here is the inextricable intertwine of systems. Each hooks onto and is linked with the other and the impact on the twins' development is part of a holistic whole. Interventions as we see later is easier in this system, in a way, than in many others, for all we need is one or two major changes and these have a rebound effect, simultaneously effecting all other systems. On the other hand, since the whole is so inextricably linked, these factors for change need to be chosen wisely and carefully s well s constantly monitored so that they have the desired impact.

Community resource conceptual framework

There are two constructs nnetworks -- These are the set of relationships, personal interactions, and connections among participants who have personal reasons to connect. It is like a set of nodes and links through whom information, values, and influences flow.

nCommunities - this is the all encompassing hub which is a shared identity and the tacit intention to steward a domain of knowledge and way of living.

Both aspects are intertwined since the networks exist in the community and transmit or challenge communal values as well as ensure that the hubs and nodes accord with it and intimidate them if they don't. All of this is subtly reinforced.

Both network and community also operate via narratives. These may be narrative of their past history, such as events that happened to them -- generally things that they did they see in a positive light, whereas unfortunate events where things that happened to them (not their fault). Narratives are also accounts that happen to them in the present, such as their aspirations, their personal story of their uniqueness, and their descriptives of themselves. (Wenger, et al. 2011)

When connecting the community resource conceptual framework to the twins case, we may come up with the situation of the wider community with its subtle narratives and encumbrances of the way a person has to live in the middle class society. Perhaps, in this case, the way that Kerry had to deal with the abuse; perhaps to that the twins had few friends because of their situation; perhaps too the situation of drug abuse and the way "Dean" acted as a result of the stress of his environment. These subtle messages and norms are all narratives of the community.

The second category that the twins experienced is that of the networks which consisted of their parents, peers, teachers, school, church (if they had), social worker / therapists, and other organizations prominent in their lives. These interconnections that affected each other had their own particular narratives of objectives, tasks, and meaning and the twins had to navigate these too.

In this case, therefore, the counselor who attempts to help the twins will consider both Bronfenbrenner's bioecological approach of the different systems, as well as the community resource conceptual framework where community and networks conjoin to operate within a stricture of narratives that impact the twins' lives. Both theories area actually integrated in that the community is the larger macrosystem and the network is the micorsystem. The two together act as one holistic whole with aspects of macrosystem rubbing off on microsystem with exosystemitic effects. Outside this whole hub are the socio-historical events and/or experiential incidents that impact the twins due, again,, to the internal behavior that occurs as a result of the narratives of the larger community and internal network.

A plan for an intervention (with measurable, behavioral objectives; focusing on the process of the intervention)

2.Possible one-on-one interventions may include the following nIntroduction of cognitive behavioral therapy where the twins are shown how to deal with and manage their thoughts as well as how to be responsible for their own behavior in dealing with their challenging situation. This is particularly helpful with the twins' self-imposed isolation nEclectic Rogerain counseling where counselor practices empathy, non-judgmental tolerance towards client, active listening, and encouraging client to formulate their own solutions

nInsight into the conduct and feelings of the twins' mother as well as specific suggestion for how to deal with the mother's problematic behavior. This is particularly important since all hubs intertwine nInsight into the behavior of Dean and strategies that may be effective in dealing with the father's abusive behavior and/or keeping away from father.

nparenting strategies for Kerry as well as individual counseling for Kerry

nSocial relationship skills that twins can use to make friends and break out of their isolation. (Felson, 1983)

Predictably, any one of these actions will have a rebounding effect where positive influence will be witnessed in various other elements of the twins' life.

The brunt of this stage is to formulate specific tasks / projects that will be directed to dealing with the problems.

The twins' progress will be tested in order to assess whether change / improvement has been noted. This may be done with the involvement of the twins' family, their school, and/or other people involved in the twins' life aside from the counselor's own observations of the twins' behavior. Other means of assessment that may be used may involve the twins and Kerry keeping a journal or some other appraisal techniques such as a daily chart as well as weekly reporting frequency and intensity of their behavior such as isolation.

The earlier phase of pilot testing leads onto continuous evaluation of client progress and determination of whether or not to modify the twins' program and, if so, in which ways. The SSE/s as well as feedback from people who are most involved with the twins' life (such as parents, family, school etc.), and the twins' progress notes themselves would serve as reports for whether or not to proceed. The counselor need not always wait for these intervals of evaluation and feedback, rather plan can be modified as she sees fit if necessity would call for it (for instance if the twins' behavior improves or worsens).

A chart can be kept to assist with tracking frequency and severity of behavior and to assess whether improvement has, indeed, been noted.

Finally, the twins' plan and practitioner's notes of progress are made available to other's involved with the twins' life such as his family, school, medical practitioners so that they too can employ it to their advantage aside form providing their own feedback and evaluation of how plan can be modified / improved and their personal observations of the twins' progress.

5.3. A description of a realistic intervention;

We can employ an exploratory empirical-based model that is based on Caspi (2008) and is divided into five phases: problem analysis and project planning, information gathering and synthesis, design, early development and pilot testing, evaluation and advanced development, and dissemination.

The first phase would be an exploration of all the different factors that impact the twins and a through exploration of the impacts of their Microsystems, as well as the characteristic of their macrosystem and exosystems that impact the Microsystems.

Phase two would be design where Investigation are made into which factors may be most symptomatic of the twins' situation and the counselor can design an intervention that includes treatment of aspects of the Microsystems that impact the twins. As mentioned before, since the whole is intertwined, major changes in one or two systems alone will have a significant impact on the whole. In this way, for instance, if the twins' social skills are improved through some behaviorist therapy, the wins may feel more confidant with themselves launching more effective results in other realms of their lives.

In another way, the school can be brought in to help the twins. With the narrative of this network ( likely the narrative of school symbolizing nurturance of kids) being enlisted, the environment of this Microsystems will become more healthy for the twins and it will have a resounding effect on their own Microsystems.

The other counseling strategies, mentioned in Section Three (above) can be used too.

Phase three involves Early Development and Pilot Testing where the twins' progress will be tested in order to assess whether change / improvement has been noted. This may be done with the involvement of the twins' family, his school, and/or other people involved in the twins' life aside form the counselor's own observations of the twins' behavior.

Phase Four - The earlier phase of pilot testing leads onto continuous evaluation of client progress and determination of whether or not to modify the twins' program and, if so, in which ways, whilst in Phase 5. Dissemination -- th twins' plan and practitioner's notes of progress are made available to other's involved with the twins' life such as his family, school, medical practitioners so that they too can employ it to their advantage aside form providing their own feedback and evaluation of how plan can be modified / improved and their personal observations of the twins' progress.

An evaluation (using an evaluation framework identified in the Unit materials - Wass "Promoting Health: A Primary Health Care Approach" (2000, pp. 119-134) or Health Communication Unit. (2002). Evaluating Health Promotion Programs. Toronto: Centre for Health Promotion, )