Social School Intervention

I’ve been seeing a 4th grade student who was having problems at the beginning of the school year because he was new to the United States and couldn’t speak any English. He was unable to communicate with his teachers or his peers in class. At times this left him feeling very frustrated. When conflict occurred in the yard during recess and he was unable to resolve it using verbal skills he resorted to biting and hitting. Several interventions were implemented. One intervention consisted of identifying and reinforcing positive school behaviors with the student. The intervention was also discussed with his family and they also agreed to reinforce the same messages at home. The theory that this was based on was the behaviorist psychologist
It was hoped that if he found a friend who he could speak to in his language that that might lessen his frustration and modify his behavior. The theory behind the intervention comes from the ecological perspective which theorizes that to understand the behavior of an individual one must examine their environment too. According to this theory, social work practice should not only be focused on the individual, rather it should include all interrelated systems that affect an individual’s development. In this case it was hoped changing the environment of the student would help facilitate an improvement in their
Mount Diablo USD runs the HOPE (Homeless Outreach Program for Education) program which is a specific program for our families in transition. The idea behind the Wish program was that families in the community, who have the resources, will buy a holiday gift for a child/children in a transitional family to brighten up their Holiday season. My role was to contact several transitional families and get the details of the gifts the child/children wanted and to submit all the paperwork to the HOPE office. I can relate this work to one of the principles of social work which is “respecting the inherent dignity and worth of the person” and a phrase within that value which states to “treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion”. I also believe the whole ethos of the Holiday Wish program is generally in harmony with the mission of Social Work which to is to “enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in