Spring 2026 SOWK 487w Week 03 - Enhancing Relationships and Working with Families

Spring 2026 SOWK 487w Week 03 - Enhancing Relationships and Working with Families

title: Spring 2026 SOWK 487w Week 03 - Enhancing Relationships and Working with Families date: 2026-02-04 12:58:27 location: Heritage University tags:

• Heritage University
• BASW Program
• SOWK 487w presentation_video: > “” description: >

In week three, we continue to learn about working with families. We move beyond assessment and understanding to how we can work with families and some skills for enhancing relationships. Students will read chapter 15 of Hepworth et al. (2023). Next, we will dive into family engagement and first- and second-order strategies for families.

The agenda will be as follows:

• Review the family system framework
• Discuss family engagement
• Practice with starting services
• Implementing first/second order strategies

Learning Objectives include:

• Demonstrate the ability to apply the family systems framework to assess key dynamics in family functioning.
• Distinguish between first-order and second-order interventions and identify appropriate applications for each.
• Reflect on their own family experiences and beliefs to better understand their professional approach to working with families.

Week 03 Plan: Continuing to Learn About Families

Agenda

• Review family system framework
• Discuss family engagement
• Practice with starting services
• Implementing first/second order strategies

Learning Objectives

• Demonstrate the ability to apply the family systems framework to assess key dynamics in family functioning.
• Distinguish between first-order and second-order interventions and identify appropriate applications for each.
• Reflect on their own family experiences and beliefs to better understand their professional approach to working with families.

Family Systems Framework: Assessment Dimensions Case Situations

[Whole Class Activity] Use situations from the guidebook for discussion and role play. There are a couple of each to share with different groups. Four (maybe two) groups.

Each group has two situations. Don’t jump ahead. Start with just the first situation.

• First Situation: Talk with your group about what type of information you would want to request or what questions you would ask
• Second Situation: Choose group members to act out the different family roles

The areas generally assessed:

• Homeostasis
• Boundaries and Boundary Maintenance
• Family Decision Making, Hierarchy, and Power
• Family Roles
• Communication Patterns in Families
• Family Life Cycle
• Family Rules
• Social Environment
• Family Adaptive Capacity (Stressors and Strengths)

Family Engagement: Considerations we Need to Make as we Engage with families

Hepworth et al. (2023) describe many areas we need to consider when engaging with families. These include:

• Joining: Process in which a family therapist establishes working relationships with each member of the family as well as with the family as a whole
• Cultural perspectives on engagement: Consider culture and the impact of culture. (question, the book talked about not minimizing basic human rights. What are examples of that we wouldn’t minimize)
• Differences in communication styles: Consider low versus high context communication Low Context: The emphasis on verbal messages and orientation toward the individual characteristic of low-context cultures such as the United States) High Context: High-context cultures rely on nonverbal expressions, group identity, longer explanations of context, and a higher reliance on a history of interactions between the participants. In high-context communication, the social worker would have to explain the background and the reason for the social worker-client interaction in greater detail due to a lack of history of interaction between the social worker and the client system.
• Hierarchical considerations in communication: Consider norms, power… etc.
• Authority of the social worker: Be cautious about the power that we have
• Preventing alliances: Don’t get too much on one side vs. the other.
• Dynamics of minority status and culture in experience: Utilizing cultural humility and anti-oppressive practice strategies that recognize oppressive forces in a family’s life are effective strategies when building trust with families who have experienced discrimination and unjust treatment by mainstream systems

The Initial Session: Process of Engagement

I want to have us explore the steps that happen during an initial session and the process we go through to engage with a family. The steps include.

[Whole Class Activity] Go through all of the steps, talking through each of them one by one.

• Establish a personal relationship with individual and group
• Clarify expectations and explore reservations about the session
• Clarify roles and the nature of the helping process
• Clarify choices about participation in the helping process
• Elicit family’s perceptions of the problem
• Identify the wants and needs of family members
• Define the problem as a family problem
• Emphasize individual and family strengths
• Establish individual and family goals

[Small Group Activity] After reviewing each step, break into groups. The following are example scenarios:

• In a client’s home
• In an emergency room in a hospital
• Parent-child situation in which the child is the identified client
• With a minority family where extended kin are present
• LGBTQ family
• Elderly minority grandmother caring for her grandchildren
• Parent-child conflict with teenage children
• Immigrant family with school-aged children, where the parents speak their native language
• A child or children have been placed outside of the home

[Small Group Activity] After we have discussed an example or two, we moved on to trying to role-play a scenario.

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

First and Second Order Strategies (1 of 3) Overview

We often pick from or consider two broad categories of strategies for what we will do with a family…

• first-order strategies attempt to solve problems within the current family structure
• second-order strategies attempt to foster changes to the family structure itself.

The primary distinction between first- and second-order change strategies is that first-order strategies resolve a presenting problem without regard to modifying family system structure. In contrast, second-order changes involve modifying family system structures as the primary vehicle for problem-solving. In other words, first-order strategies attempt to solve problems within the current family structure, and second-order strategies attempt to foster changes to the family structure itself.

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

First and Second Order Strategies (2 of 3) First Order Examples

Some of the ways that we might address change within the system is through…

• Problem-solving approaches: Think of a task-centered model or ideas on how to problem-solve
• Skills training: Parenting program, communication, etc.
• Contingency contracting: quid pro quo planning (e.g., if you stop doing this, I’ll stop doing the other thing)

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

First and Second Order Strategies (2 of 3) Second Order Examples

The following are the second-order strategies described:

• Modifying misconceptions and cognitive distortions: basic ideas of CBT
• Modifying communication patterns (promote positive interactions and relationships)
• Assessing positive and negative feedback
• Teaching positive feedback
• Modifying family rules
• Modifying family alignments and hierarchy (think about enactment - a technique used to observe interactions between group members by having them reenact an event during a session)
• Structural mapping (family boundaries—who talks to whom, in what ways—and to highlight and modify interactions and transactional patterns.)
• Family sculpting (I read about this in the Body Keeps the Score – In family sculpting, family members are instructed to physically arrange other family members in a way that portrays their perceptions of members as well as their place in the family system)
• Joined families (developing strategies decision making)
• One-the-spot interventions (coaching)
• Focus on the process rather than the content (flipping the script to how we manage conflict versus the specifics of this conflict)
• Give feedback that is descriptive and neutral rather than general or evaluative
• Balance interventions to divide responsibility (not taking sides)
• Redirect hostile, blaming messages (coaching in the moment)
• Assisting families to disengage from conflict (think about time with the problem)

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

15 Fair Fighting Rules

I want to give you an example of using second order strategies and a handout I have used many times when I have been working with families who have conflict.

Connected strategies include modifying family rules and strategies for changing behaviors

[Whole Class Activity] Discuss how this is something I frequently used it was to talk about it point by point.

[Whole Class Activity] Demonstrate with volunteers going through the form for a couple of minutes.

• Make 17 copies of 15 Fair Fighting Rules @tags(Heritage University, Planning) @due(2026-02-04) week-03-handout-fifteen-fair-fighting-rules.pdf

Validating vs. Invalidating Statements

The following is a good list of validating vs. invalidating statements.

[Small Group Activity] Give class some time to review the material. What are some different ways that somebody could use this with a family?

• Make 17 copies of Validating vs. Invalidating Statements @tags(Heritage University, Planning) @due(2026-02-04) week-03-handout-invalidating-vs-invaliding-statements.pdf

Time-Outs

This is another form that I thought I’d share with you. It’s a pretty simple concept. Sometimes it can be really beneficial for our clients if we can make things simple and clearly defined.

While, I don’t have other examples for you, similar style handouts could be made and used…

• Using I-Messages
• Eriksons stages of development
• …etc

[Whole Class Activity] What are some other examples you could imagine developing.

• Make 18 copies of Time-Outs @tags(Heritage University, Planning) @due(2025-02-05) week-03-handout-time-outs.pdf

Problem Solving Strategies

Applying things such as the task-centered model and solution-focused brief therapy can help translate problem-solving approaches into working with families. It will be about helping bring clarity and insight to the family about what to do.

• Consideration 1: Engage simultaneously with both family members. Ensure you get their perspectives on the goals, problem definition, exceptions, etc.
• Consideration 2: Recognize that sometimes the focus will move to a second-order strategy and that strategies that focus on changing family structures might exist.
• Consideration 3: Take time to understand power and hierarchy and that whatever ideas are developed can’t be undermined through the noncooperation of another member
• Consideration 4: Understand the social relationships in the process.

(Hepworth et al., 2023)

Problem Solving with an Adolescent Mother and her Foster Parent

I want to have us watch an example of problem solving in a video. It is based on textbook and you can find them talk about it on 351 in your Hepworth et al. (2023).

[Whole Class Activity] Have students watch the video. It is about 30 minutes in length. Encourage them to:

You will see a number of second-order strategies and engagement strategies. Look at the list of secondary order strategies in your book and take notes about when you see something to share back in class.

What Does Your Family Look Like

[Small Group Activity] Working with Partners Discuss the following

• Identify some examples of verbal or nonverbal metacommunication that you have used.
• Describe how an unspoken rule in your family governs the behavior of family members.
• List three societal beliefs and reflect upon how these beliefs may affect the families that you work with.

(Hepworth et al., 2023)