Crisis intervention

Introduction

Crisis intervention is referred to the techniques used for offering short-term and immediate assistance to the individual who is facing an event that is emotionally, mentally and physically challenging them to experience behaviour problem or distress. There are various reasons which lead to raise such crisis like death of person, deterioration of health of person, financial issues and others. In this assignment, the crisis invention model is to be used regarding the way life of Shibli and Mohammed can be managed to help them experience improved living and health condition.

The Robert’s Seven Stage Crisis Intervention model is seen to have identified critical steps which are when followed by the service users is able to direct them towards the road of stabilisation of crisis and later resolution and mastery over the crisis (Yeager and Roberts, 2015). The stages are mentioned below and they are seen to be important, sequential and in some cases can be overlapped to fulfil the process of crisis intervention.

1. Plan

In the first stage of Crisis Intervention Model, assessment of the crisis is conducted for identifying the risks and planning is done to respond to crisis (Yeager and Roberts, 2015). As per the scenario, it is seen that Mohammed’s health condition after receiving a stroke which led him to become paralysed on the right side is acting as a potential risk to create crisis. This is because he was the sole earning member of the family and his paralysis has rendered him jobless making him as well as his wife Shibli to face financial crisis as they are depending their expenses on money received from the small mortgage of their house. Further, his health has made Mohammed become emotionally unstable which has raised risk of abusing his wife Shibli and since their son does not live with them thus there is no one to protect Shibli from the abuse making it another risk to be faced in this crisis situation. The inability to visit the mosque has raised the crisis of social exclusion to be experienced by Shibli and Mohammed as they are not able to connect with their friends and relativities to ask for help as usually done before. It is seen that Mohammed has stopped talking with Shibli which has raised the crisis for both of them to get into isolation. The illness has acted as a crisis situation for Mohammed to face risk of thinking to end his life as expressed to the son as well as made it an issue for Shibli to get abused that is traumatising her life. In respect to the situation, the plan to respond is to resolve financial crisis of the family by offering job to Shibli, make Mohammed and Shibli socially to connect with friends and make proper care arrangement for both as the prior activities.

2. Establish rapport

In order to fulfil the response plan, I need to develop rapport with Mohammed and Shibli so that they accept the services arranged by me to manage their immediate crisis situations. However, cultural barriers may arise while building rapport with them as I belong from the Western culture whereas Mohammed and Shibli belong from the Muslim culture. As mentioned by Kruger et al. (2017), cultural differences are the different beliefs, languages, practices, expression and others considered unique for the members of specific ethnic group or community. It leads individuals belonging from different communities to face issues with interaction and developing relationship as their thinking is different from others. In the UK, the Muslims are considered lower ethnic group who often face abuse and harm from the people belonging to the Western culture (webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk, 2018). Thus, while building rapport with them I may face cultural barriers where they being from the Muslim culture would think I would not respect them and my intention to help them is faked and my actual intention is to harm them by abusing them in the society. As argued by van Rosse et al. (2016), language barriers lead individuals unable to interact and share information. Since Mohammed is unable to speak proper English due to his health condition and Shibli being able to speak in Bengali, thus I would face language barriers in developing rapport with them. This is because I have no knowledge of Bengali and speak proper English which may not be understood by them, in turn, posing hindrance to develop relationship as conversation is one of the key to build rapport with others.

3. Identify dimension

In the third stage, I need to identify key dimensions to work with the family members to make sense of the situation (Yeager and Roberts, 2015). The family members act as support for the individuals to help them protect themselves and fulfil personal needs and demands (Colapinto, 2015). In this scenario, the key family member of Mohammed and Shibli at the present is their only son. In order to make sense of the situation, regarding the reason behind Mohammed’s death wish being only expressed to his son I am going to establish effective verbal communication with him. I am going to ask their son Sami to visit whenever he comes to meet his parents to develop better understand regarding the situation. I am also going to interact with him through email and personal visit to understand his perception and thoughts about his parents' situation to make sense about the way he can be of assistance to resolve the crisis.

4. Explore feelings

The feelings of the key family members related to the patient are able to be changed if they are informed regarding the way their contribution is going to help in the situation (Bell and Adams, 2016). Thus, I am going to manage the feelings of Mohammed and Shibli’s son Sami to make him more participative in supporting his parents and make him understand his importance of living with them by highlighting key worst condition his mother and father are facing due his living at distance. Further, through verbal conversation, I am going to highlighting the way social exclusion of his parents is affecting them to make Sami feel to think of executing activities in socialising his parents. I would also show with evidence the extent of helpless his mother is due to his father’s condition to make him feel urge to live with them for protecting his mother. I would also talk with the family friends of Mohammed and Shibli to make them feel to personally visit them by informing in details the crisis and risk at the present being faced by the family and its consequences that would happen if they do not assist them. I also need to make Shibli understand her need to work and would make work arrangements for her so that to some extent she can earn to manage their financial crisis. I would also actively listen to Mohammed regarding his reasons for not joining the day care centre. Later through verbal communication, I would make him understand the importance of joining the local day centre. Moreover, to resolve his fear of getting discriminated of belonging from the ethnic community in the day care centre I am going to show him evidence from the day care centre how they have previously effectively treated other people from the minority ethnic background.

5. Generate alternatives

In order to resolve the cultural barriers to be faced while communicating with Mohammed and Shibli, I may delegate other social worker who belongs from the similar ethnic group to manage the crisis and explain strategies to be adopted by them. As commented by Hole et al. (2015), communication between culturally similar people in social care makes the service users to easily accept the strategies mentioned by them and act accordingly. This is because they think the social care workers since belong from the similar cultural background would inform them strategies that are in their best interest in comparison to others who have dubious intention of harming them. Moreover, I could alternatively recruit their son along with their family members to help Shibli to effectively care for Mohammed to avoid his admission in the day care centre. In order to resolve the language barrier, I may take assistance from an interpreter so that effective rapport can be built with Mohammed and Shibil to understand their needs. Moreover, I would speak politely and maintain respectful and positive body language along with keeping in mind the things not allowed in their culture while interacting with them to ensure the cultural differences do not pose difficulty in building rapport.

6. Develop action plan

In this phase, an action plan is to be developed which is going to resolve the crisis situation and offer empowerment to Mohammed and Shibli.

7. Follow up

In the follow-up period, Mohammed would be supported to try interacting with their friends through email and messages to remain socialised. Further, Shibli is to be supported to learn driving so that she can drive Mohammed’s taxi to earn for them on a regular basis without depending on anyone to support them financially. Shibli would also be supported be make compulsory weekly visit to the mosque to remain socialised.

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that financial and health crisis has led Mohammed and Shibli to face various risks for leading their lives. Thus, Robert’s Crisis Intervention model is used to identify way in which the crisis can be resolved. The model informed that arranging job for Shibli, offering continuous care to Mohammed and arranging their socialisation could help to resolve the risk faced by them due to their current crisis in life.

References

• Bell, L.A. and Adams, M., 2016. Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In Teaching for diversity and social justice (pp. 21-44). Routledge.
• Colapinto, J., 2015. Structural family therapy. In Handbook of family therapy (pp. 134-147). Routledge.
• Hole, R.D., Evans, M., Berg, L.D., Bottorff, J.L., Dingwall, C., Alexis, C., Nyberg, J. and Smith, M.L., 2015. Visibility and voice: Aboriginal people experience culturally safe and unsafe health care. Qualitative health research, 25(12), pp.1662-1674.
• Kruger, T.M., Gilland, S., Frank, J.B., Murphy, B.C., English, C., Meade, J., Morrow, K. and Rush, E., 2017. Cross-cultural comparison of long-term care in the United States and Finland: Research done through a short-term study-abroad experience. Gerontology & geriatrics education, 38(1), pp.104-118.
• van Rosse, F., de Bruijne, M., Suurmond, J., Essink-Bot, M.L. and Wagner, C., 2016. Language barriers and patient safety risks in hospital care. A mixed methods study. International journal of nursing studies, 54, pp.45-53.
• webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk 2018, Understanding Muslim Ethnic Communities, Available at: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120920001411/http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1203896.pdf [Accessed on: 09 February 2019]
• Yeager, K. and Roberts, A. eds., 2015. Crisis intervention handbook: Assessment, treatment, and research. Oxford University Press.