Reference no: EM133518336

Assignment: Stressors, Life Stages, Risk and Resiliency

Directions

Often MSW students view social and developmental theory as abstract, but it is fundamentally important that all social workers maintain a strong theoretical foundation in their practice. This assignment asks students to connect with theories and psychosocial issues that impact individuals at some point during life stages and phases of development. This final product for this assignment can be either a paper or a recorded presentation. We will vote on this during our first week of class.

This assignment will provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of how issues of risk and resiliency impact people as well as the systems and the environment they interact with. In turn, it will provide the student with the opportunity to see how strengths as well as barriers are multifaceted and are influenced by both natural and nurturing factors. Finally, students will demonstrate critical awareness of the themes in people's lives that make them particularly vulnerable to risk and, conversely, the biopsychosocial supports that enable individuals to successfully navigate personal or societal challenges.

Students are expected to integrate theoretical approaches learned in this course from a lifespan perspective to a character of their chose. The character can be fictional from a movie or novel. Alternatively, the character can derived from an autobiography or memoir. Students should choose a character on which they are able to acquire substantial information about the character's development and life course. Students must identify the source(s) from which they are this deriving in-depth autobiographical information about the character.

The paper should include the following:

Question A. A brief summary of the character and the source material for said character.

Question B. An assessment of the resources, strengths and/or competencies that is evident in the main character's situation.

Question C. Describe a psychosocial difficulty that the main character has experienced at some point during their development (e.g., diagnosis with a learning disability, experience of physical abuse, separation from caregiver, onset of mental illness, migration, and immigration are some examples for your consideration). Explore the impact of that event on the development at two different life stages.

Question D. Next, offer a brief description of the difficulty, using at least 4-7 scholarly sources to summarize what is generally known about the difficulty and its impact. Include any relevant sociocultural factors associated with the onset or maintenance of the difficulty.

Question E. Describe normative development (physical, cognitive, moral, emotional, social) during the period in which the psychosocial event occurred. Course content must be integrated and referenced here.

Question F. Discuss how development was interrupted or altered by the experience of the psychosocial difficulty for the individual. Be sure to this discussion is connected to the theories from our course material. Application and integration of two theoretical perspectives from our course that could be applied to this memoir/character should be included in this section. Be sure to support your choice of perspectives with evidence from the book through quotes/citations.

Question G. Go on to evaluate issues of risk and resiliency that have impacted the main character. Was there anything that made the main character particularly vulnerable to risk? Where their other protective factors that made them more resilient? Discuss these risk and protective factors in terms of how each would fit in the bio-psycho-social-spiritual perspective e.g. biological risk and protective factors, social risk and protective factors, spiritual risk and protective factors.

Question H. Based upon what you have learned in this course, share your hypothesis as to why this person has or has not been demonstrated resiliency from a human behavior in the social environment perspective. Support your hypothesis with course content.

Question I. Close with a summary of what you have learned through this assignment and how you might apply this to the practice of social work.

Question J. The analysis should be 6-18 pages long and demonstrate APA formatting in the paper, citations, and reference page.

For the Stressors, Life Stages, Risk and Resiliency assignment, I will be writing about Keah Brown in "The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me. I have a 4 years old daughter that was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I am hoping to learn a few things that would help me teach her to embrace who she is and love herself unconditionally despite whatever she experiences in the external world.