Introduction
A family treatment plan is a road map that a family and the affected patient must follow towards recovery. The treatment plan should begin after a family assessment has been conducted and completed. There must be immediate needs that should get addressed regarding the patients. A family treatment plan involves interventions by the medical teams and therapeutic plans. The treatment keeps changing with every intervention. A family treatment plan gets built around the patient’s problems that get brought into treatment. Such treatment plans have been used for outpatient and inpatient treatments. Family treatment plans need to get developed on the core strength of the family and the solutions in form of treatment to medical problems that the family faces( Frea & Moes, 2010). Efficient treatment plans use challenges that are placed externally to stimulate growth and treatment in the family. The social support on the other hand acts a source of resilience. Family treatment plans ensure positive expectations that guide the family in making good health decisions. A family treatment plan lists the family’s treatment goals, priority being the main health issue. The treatment goals get set in a language that the whole family understands.
Discussion
The family that I chose to work on was from my neighborhood. This family was an interesting one because it was an extended family and it proved a chance to learn new knowledge and skills. The extended family consisted of Mr. Hamptons who was 38 years and was married to his wife Mrs. Hamptons for nine years who was 34 years. They have two children, a three year old girl called Ashley and a 5 month son named Brandon. They live with mr Hamptons 70 year old father Jack and 65 year old mother Mary. The family treatment plan was to get done by drawing a genogram.
Friends and relatives often drop at the Hamptons house to help her with her daughter and she appreciates their effort. This family has sought treatment for Ashleys autism condition that nobody was able to handle and was very overwhelming to the whole family. She required so much attention and the mother felt all she did all day long was take care of Ashley. She only cooperates sometimes with her mother and the rest of the family members are treated with a lot of temper tantrums (Frea & Moes, 2010). The Hamptons family structure is not bad because they have communications styles that are frequent and effective. Mr. Hamptons ensures that he calls his wife more than twice a day to check on his family and when they have problems they ensure they solve them without involving friends and relatives. Mr. Hamptons however has the upper hand in making most the decisions in his household. They love to spend time together as a family even though it is not easy because Ashley is not cooperative most the times. Ashley’s condition disturbs the peace in this family because she always gets whatever she wants as long it will not physically hurt her. Autism is already hard to deal with and when she throws a tantrum her parents have no choice but to give in and even after giving in peace is not guaranteed. Due to Ashley condition, the family is not able to enjoy family time because when she has a breakdown everything else comes to a halt and she takes all the attention. Mr. Hampton goes to work very tired due to having slept so little when Ashley will not sleep and he has to help his wife who has another young child that needs equal attention. This family does not give Brandon the attention he requires and the consequences can get devastating. I would relable Ashley autistic condition as ‘making Ashley better’ so that the family can get willing to obtain information on how to handle Ashley. The treatment plan would involve the whole family so that they can get educated on how to communicate with Ashley when she needs something and hence reduce the stress and strain in the house.
The family’s strength and challenges
The family’s strength lies in their closeness that ensures they have effective communication that minimizes conflict through misunderstanding. Both of these parents tend to agree almost on everything. Also the coordination between roles among the couple is good. Most importantly the access to community resources and, also they have the support of extended family members and their friends (Dattilio & Jongsma, 2010). The challenges that this family is facing is Ashley autism condition, also Mr. Hampton is worried that he works long hours and barely gets to spend time with his son as he should. Also Mrs. Hampton’s diabetic and high blood pressure condition has caused a challenge to the well being of the family. Mrs. Hamptons is rarely outdoors because of Ashley special needs and also she suffers fatigue due to medication prescribed to her because she often forgets to take the medicine on time due to her demanding family lifestyle.
Therapeutic goals
In a day Mr. Hamptons father smokes about two cigarettes in a day, at his age he already has lung cancer and hence this is additional strain on his health that he does not to be engaging in. Besides smoking in this household is not conducive for anyone and especially Ashley whose irritability is triggered by such small things (Dattilio & Jongsma, 2010). Even though he insisted that he only smoked outside, plans were made to help him quit smoking. Mrs. Hamptons had already discovered that he smokes and tried to warn him to stop however since he did not , Mr. Hamptons had to intervene because Mrs. Hamptons was getting increasingly irritated and causing a strain in her already stressful life. Mr. Hamptons coughs uncontrollably due to aggravated smoking and causes a scare in the family. She feels that he does not respect her when she tells him anything and she has left decisions concerning her father in law to get made by her husband. Mrs. Hampton spends a lot of time with Ashley and she only does chores when Ashley decides to sleep. Even so, with proper management of her health condition she can develop maturely with time. the Hamptons are too protective of this young girl.
The Hamptons sense of belonging ensures that they spend time together as a couple and they created a very strong spousal bond and also sometimes they give each other space to explore their interest individually, they are very flexible in schedules and in the structure of their family when it comes to decision making. This kind of bond will help them work together to cope with Ashley’s condition because room for misunderstanding is minimal (Dattilio & Jongsma, 2010). The family has shown flexibility even on the part of the grandparents and this has led to a much happier environment for all family members. This flexibility translates when the treatment begins because they will commit to helping Ashley. They try their best to recognize each other needs and put them into consideration. There is mutual respect between Mr. Hampton’s mother and Mrs. Hamptons and this relationship has helped to sharing of household ideas without conflict and she helps with taking care of the family too. Due to effective communication the Hamptons do not hold grudge and conflicts get resolved instantly the moment they appear. To the society the Hamptons show a very high sense of responsibility. Training or teaching Ashley to play with her little brother is something that needs to get worked on because she does not like it very much that his mother carry’s him around and not her, she wants her mother to drop Brandon and carry her instead. Even though it will take time she can learn slowly. The Hamptons need to ensure that Brandon’s clubbed feet gets some therapy as soon as they pool their finances together so that he does become severely deformed and depend so heavily on physical assistance from his family.
Family functions
This family has division of roles that is very unique. Mr. Hamptons tasked with taking tasks outside the house while Mrs. Hamptons is tasked with taking of the children and the grandfather as well as inside tasks. Mrs. Hamptons is happy with the kind of assistance that her husband offers even inside the house and they rarely conflict on chores. The friends and family in their neighborhood also helps them to take care of the chores when they drop by to check on their welfare.
Techniques to deal with Ashley’s condition
The second technique is speech therapy. It is important for the Hamptons to understand that Ashley’s speech will not develop normally and she might speak late. However, knowing her expressions when she is referring to something is important and this gets to reduce her frustrations. I would teach them on non verbal communication which includes signs and gestures. Ashley could benefit from augmentative and alternative communication which includes picture exchange as a form of communication (Frost & Bondy, 2008). Ashley will build a vocabulary using speech therapy and will consistently express her desires, feelings and observations using pictures. On this task I would first engage Mrs. Hamptons because she spends most of the time with Ashley and hence would mostly understand Ashley more. At the beginning Ashley will also be in the room and get taught how to express herself (Warren, 2002). The Hamptons will require gathering of photos from magazines, newspapers and books or buying exchange communication system for Ashley. Ashley’s speech should improve everyday as she continues to grow. The family will only get to learn Ashley’s developing language by spending time with her.
The third technique I would use is physical therapy. Autism alters the fine motor skills that human beings should have. Autism has caused Ashley to have a low coordination of her limbs and this prevents her from participating in physical activities such as running round the house and physical therapy will also help Ashley with her social skills (Warren, 2002). I would educate the family to work on Ashley’s motor skills by playing with her, engaging her in sitting , standing and rolling. As Ashley grows I can often visit her home and help her with more advanced physical activities that include throwing, jumping, running and skipping. Also I would put Ashley in a play group with autistic children and with those without autism and assign her father to take her on an arranged schedule when he has time because he is more flexible (Christensen & Powell, 2009). Since these cost are covered by their private health insurance the family will benefit more in helping Ashley because they will also get to-do exercise. during his walking sessions Ashley’s grandfather can take her with him even if it is just for a short time. I would recommend walking exercise for the whole family so that Ashley can find it fun. Other techniques would be engaging Ashley in music to help her with speech and increase her ability to put words together (Warren, 2002). Also interacting Ashley with animals such as dogs could provide Ashley with a soothing sensory stimulation which would help her to be trained about behavior communication. I would recommend that the Hamptons allow Ashley to play with the neighbor’s dog that is well trained because purchasing one would increase household tasks.
Therapeutic relationship
I would expect the Hamptons family to comply with the treatment plan and should make up for missed appointments when they fail to show up. It is important to have a working relationship with the Hamptons to ensure that the treatment plan is a success. I would expect the family to involve and engage each other more until sessions for the family treatment plans are exhausted. I expect the grandparents even if in fragile condition to participate fully because they are an important part of this family.
Conclusion
It is important to gather information before making reputable informed decisions because little scientific research has been conducted on most therapies complementing the traditional therapies. The therapies need to get judged on the basis of person by person (Warren, 2002).
In the process of implementing these techniques the family may fail to show up for many sessions which could interfere with the treatment plans and also Ashley could show no improvement due to inconsistent appointments. The grandparents may offer little assistance that is required to help Ashley and hence Mrs. Hamptons may get overwhelmed with all the new responsibilities that she has to take care of. I would try tackling these issues by offering to provide private sessions at their home for an extra fee. This way I would be able to oversee the new diet that the family is supposed to have and see if they have gathered all the materials that Ashley needs to become more independent. I would also do a thorough assessment on Ashley to know how well she is responding to these techniques and see if there need to be changes in the family treatment plan. I would also require the Hamptons to make a chart on Ashley’s physical activities and speech activities so that we can rate her improvement. The Hamptons family was an interesting case and I enjoyed working with them. Their experience was certainly not to get forgotten because I managed to create a good rapport with them and such an experience exposes the students to holistic family and societal care. The genogram shows a repetive history of diabetes and high blood pressure due to weight issues.
References
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Frost, L., & Bondy, A. (2008). Picture Exchange Communication System. Topics in Language
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