Genograms, Family Systems & Poverty

• A genogram is a family tree that shows relationships and reveals hidden family patterns.
• Genograms illustrate patterns in parenting, conflict, relationships, migration, divorce, poverty, and resilience.
• Murray Bowen developed the genogram.
• Multigenerational patterns and influences are crucial for understanding how families function

Genogram Symbols:

• Circle: Represents women
• Square: Represents males
• Square in circle: Represents a transgender male
• Circle in square: Represents a transgender woman
• Index person: The client

Protective Factors:

• Conditions that strengthen individuals.
• Help individuals to face challenges.
• Enhanced by focusing on family strengths and resilience-building.

Examples of Protective Factors:

• Strong family bonds
• Supportive relationships
• Resilience and coping skills such as role flexibility, routines, and cultural mentors
• Community and institutional support like access to education, cultural programs, and health services
• Positive personal traits such as self-esteem, emotional regulation, and problem-solving skills.
• Professionals can enhance protective factors by focusing on family strengths, aiding in resilience-building, and redefining risks as manageable needs

Family Structures and Diversity:

• Same-sex families: Face discrimination but provide loving and healthy environments for children who are well-adjusted.
• Military families: Develop resilience due to relocations and separations but may experience stress and isolation.
• Single-parent families: Rely on resilience and community support but struggle with financial and emotional stress.
• Immigrant families: Bring cultural pride and high aspirations but may face intergenerational conflict and cultural adaptation challenges.
• Supporting families involves recognizing their diversity, focusing on their strengths, and empowering them to navigate their needs effectively.

Family Systems Theories:

• These view the family as an interconnected and interdependent unit where each member's behavior, emotions, and actions influence the entire system.
• Individual issues within a family often reflect broader relational or systemic dynamics.
• Families function as emotional units, where an issue affecting one member impacts the entire family (Systems Thinking).
• Families maintain homeostasis (stability) and establish explicit or implicit rules that guide roles, behaviors, and relationships (Interconnected Patterns).
• Emotional dynamics, such as unresolved problems, can be transmitted across generations via family members' interactions (Transmission of Issues).
• Family functioning depends on the quality of attachment, communication, and shared experiences (Influence of Relationships).
• Therapeutic approaches often assess family interactions to understand issues and explore adaptive strategies for family growth and resilience.

5 Life Stages of Families:

• Independence: Young adults leave home, framing their own identity.
• Coupling or marriage
• Parenting: Infancy through adolescence
• Launching adult children: Children leave home (empty nesters)
• Retirement/Senior

Family Systems Theory:

• Families work to maintain balance (called homeostasis) in their relationships and patterns
• If a child skips school regularly, the theory would look at family patterns, such as parental conflict or lack of communication.

Ecological Systems:

• Micro: Subculture within a group (family, friends, church).
• Mezzo: Interaction, links, and relationship between 2+ microsystems.
• Macro: Belief that a large number of people adopt, affecting a group's thinking and reflected in policy and laws.
• Exosystem: Indirect environments that influence families.
• Chronosystem: Dimension of time and its effect on a family or individual.

Families in Poverty:

• Poverty deeply impacts all aspects of family life, affecting individuals emotionally, socially, and the ability to prosper
• Lack of social support increases stress and instability.
• Homelessness deprives children of stable, nurturing homes and affects attachment formation.
• Feelings like powerlessness, shame, and hopelessness are common.
• Consequences include separation or divorce. Affected children in Poverty are more susceptible to:
• Malnutrition, underweight, and vulnerability to health issues (Physical Health).
• School absences, poor achievements, cognitive issues, and susceptibility to bullying (Education).
• Feelings of deprivation, stigma, and discrimination affecting self-esteem and growth (Emotional and Social Impact).
• Children often take on adult responsibilities early, leading to stress and behavioral problems (Responsibilities and Home Life).
• Negative childhood or adolescent experiences, such as victimization, can have lasting consequences on adulthood health and behavior (Lifelong Effects).

Poverty:

• Lack of income is a standard feature of most definitions
• Not only a deprivation of economic and material resources but a violation of human dignity.

Violence in the Home:

• Ask who else is aware of the abuse.
• Name the abuse, and type of abuse.
• Who is present during the abuse, such as kids?
• When did it start? How often?
• Capture feelings about the impact on your parenting role.
• Address family dynamics and potential changes due to abuse.
• Record feelings and coping mechanisms
• Gather thinking, feelings, and behaviors.

Characteristics of Violence:

• Power and use of control are key
• Difficulty regulating emotions
• Abusive behaviors blamed on external factors

Types of Abuse:

• Physical Abuse: Force to cause physical harm.
• Verbal Abuse: Name-calling, demeaning criticisms related to power, intimidation, and dominance.
• Psychological Abuse: Geared to one's vulnerabilities, underestimated and underreported.

Possible Causes of Violence:

• Ecological system theory suggests abuse may be normalized in some areas.
• Power and control
• Strong emotions issues with emotional regulation
• Feeling inferiority
• Substance abuse
• Past experiences of or witnessing abuse within the family
• Societal support that allows it to happen
• Mental disorder or distress
• Inequality between men and women

Impact of Abuse:

• Fear and guilt
• Internalized blame
• Denial and minimization
• Sense of powerlessness
• Isolation
• PTSD

Child Abuse and Neglect:

• Use drawings to help children explain their feelings.
• New Divorce Act to determine which of the children will be safe during separation and divorce.
• All forms of abuse count under the new divorce act.

Resources for children custody:

• Flic (family law information center)
• Ocol (office of children lawyers)

For a child, ask the questions:

• Listen
• Reassure the child
• Say "I will try to help"
• Check for the child's immediate safety
• Close the discussion
• Report the abuse
• Document -what you saw or heard

Safety Protocol:

• Arrange a safety plan.
• Tell people you trust to act in an emergency.
• Plan an emergency destination.
• Memorize emergency numbers.
• Erase numbers from call display.
• Learn about emergency protection orders.
• Pack a small emergency bag.
• Report harassment or stalking to police
• Tell children what to do in an emergency
• Assess for immediate danger.
• Document and treat physical injuries.
• Determine client resources/access.
• Provide emergency housing.
• Refer: Family Law Information Centre (legal aid).
• Establish ongoing contact or referral.
• Empower clients to report abuse.
• Report elder abuse.

Exam Review:

• What is the propose of a genogram- the dynamics of the inetergenratiol patterns of behaviours
• Sense of identity, med history, family relationship, how the age is arrange, mental health/ illness,
• How to construct a genogram
• What the symbols mean the double is the person who thos genogram is constructive for.
• Adding genogram to case notes to capture everything. If you wanted to intervene.
• The protective factors should be shown on the geno gram

Families diversity (Each family is not the same)

• Strengths no difference outcomes and opposite sex, challenges- discrimnation
• Military Families Strengths- Challenages extending sepraction, employment, PTSD, depration, struggles the
• Single Parent Strengths- Challanges Poverty, stress, and loneliness

Immigrant Famillies:

• Strengths Challenges Social isolation, raceims, readjusting, unemployment, etc
• Look for language barriers, past tramas

Respected to familles- the theories:

• Family System Theories - Emotional unit, one behaviours affrecting the family
• Family Devolpment Theories- As individual go throught stages of development, the family can to. “Ones role in the family can change over time.”

5 life Stages Families go Through:

• Independance
• Coupling or marriages
• Parenting: infancy through adolescents
• Lunching adult children
• -Economic Perspective
• -Socail cultures- understanding the cultures
• -Ecological system theories- understanding, Miro, marco and menzo.
• -Familles in proveryu

Explore genograms, their purpose in mapping family relationships, and the types of information they reveal beyond health. Understand family systems theories and the impact of the chronosystem. Examine the emotional impacts of poverty and the effects of homelessness on families.