WORKING WITH FAMILIES

Accountability and Stewardship in Family Intervention

Having the opportunity to do clinical work with families has been the most rewarding work I have ever engaged in. It brings to view a certain feeling of respect, responsibility and admiration that I never contemplated in my earlier days of training. These perspectives have challenged me to serve my clientele with utmost care, knowing that my intervention demands accountability which does not diminish the often forgotten spiritual dimension.

In one of my reflective moments, I had a lingering urge to contemplate what the contributing factors were that have fueled my interest as a social worker engaged with families. While the musing of my thoughts reached across a wide spectrum of ideas, I could not escape wrestling with the thought that the construct of “family” is the most sacred entity of any society, and that to engage with any aspect of family, is an extraordinary privilege. In our contemporary times, several definitions of family are emerging.

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, Family is “a group of people who are related to each other, such as a mother, a father, and their children.”

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) views family in a different way. It refer to what is termed an objective definition, allowing members to define what is a family for them.

The Lexico Dictionary specifies 3 main definitions:
A group of one or more parents with children living together
All the descendants of a common ancestor and
A group of related things.

These are by no means exhausting the diversity of definitions and this in part is what is creating a challenge for family life counsellors and educators, or maybe for a larger portion of our population. Families are confounded, as to what constitutes a family.

As counsellors, the tools we usually employ in resolving psycho-emotional problems are honed out of our own views, values, beliefs and diagnosis of problems. However, if we keep confusing definitions, we will forever be confusing the tools we need to use. My point is that if we vary the definitions and descriptions of what family is, we will be ineffective in our responsibility, accountability, and stewarding of the family.

There is no question that a social evolution is taking place. It is allowing individuals to rebrand themselves in a variety of arrangements as “family” and certainly, everyone is entitled to their choice whether or not they are aware of the implications associated with
that choice.

However, as the choices are made, every effort needs to be made to consider the implications for members in the family system. For instance, one cannot escape the reality that children in our families tend to face the greatest degree of emotional consequences as they journey to adulthood and the legacy that is being created about them will be perpetuated through their lives and their children’s lives.

Jane Anderson’s abstract in her article “The Impact of Family Structure of the Health of Children” published May 2014 in the Linacre Quarterly, states:

“Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.”

In our individualistic culture it is easy to forget that in the process of dealing with our children that we are building a larger society and a future generation. Thus, when our children’s lives are laden with pain from abuse, abandonment, family breakups and emotional abuse, they go on to build unstable families.

When a family lets us in the door, be it literal of figurative, we often assume that they are accountable to us dressed up with a psychological approach or our authority to take access but these are serious blinders to genuinely facilitating the families we intend to make resilient. We fail to enter the open door to access the families, the information and assess situations from the position that we are accountable to those we seek to serve rather than to leave fear and trepidation behind. How can that bring healing and resiliency to any family?

As a counsellor, it is my belief that our lives are under the guidance of an intelligent designer. It is also my view that humanity is complex in design, not only with a physical,psychological, intellectual, and emotional design, but also with a spiritual design. Leaving out one dimension of the design does disservice to a client being served and to the one who designed us. I am therefore not only accountable to offer each client served an opportunity to include their wholistic dimensions but to their intelligent designer.

It is my understanding that there are those who feel that we are hear by some explosive endeavours of an evolutionary continuum while others hold to the reality that we are of an intelligent design and there is every evidence that indeed we are. I am not seeking to contend with anyone, but to be transparent with the kind of services that I offer and of which I wish everyone could take advantage. With this acknowledgement, I have approach families with a great sense of respect knowing that when I enter their lives, they are making a statement to me that they need help and I have a moral obligation by virtue of who they are to be honest, deferential, kind and just. When they come to me, I seek to fill their lives with meaning, and I make them aware that I am privileged to participate in their process(es) of restoration. By so doing I feel that accountability and stewardship are met.