Animal-Based Therapy Reflection

considered to have emotional disturbances and were not in the general classroom all day. These children where in an individual school for children with bad behaviors. The research noted that many of the children were getting the benefit of the classroom, but when crisis arose they would revert back to their bad behaviors. An example of this was a boy who was doing well in the classroom with his behaviors, but when his parents were arrested on felony charges, his behavior became unstable. When the research had started, the school social workers in the schools had therapy dogs and where trained in Animal Based Therapy. When the children’s behaviors acted up, they were sent to the social workers office where the dogs would be. Just by petting the dogs and sitting with them while they were talking to the therapist, the children showed vast improvement in their behavior after the crisis and where more likely to discuss their problems openly. The dogs gave the children support and guidance, which allowed then to open up. (Geist, 2011).
Section 9

A paradigm shift that I have experienced since starting my social work education would have to be the shift from solely using strengths based and future based approaches to using more cognitive approaches.

When entering the social work field, I was not educated about every therapy technique and every social work theory. My instinct was to use a strengths based approach. I still incorporate strengths based because specializing in fields that deal with poverty, domestic violence and homelessness, some of these clients really need the boost to know that they do have the ability to help themselves. Now that I have more practice and knowledge of theories, I can do more cognitive approaches with my clients that center on

behavior.
At the beginning of this year, when meeting with clients, I was more naïve to other practice approaches. When someone came to me with a problem I would focus more on what they were doing right. If a client came to me with a parenting problem, I would most likely just emphasis on their parenting skills. Letting them know their strengths as a parents. But now, I would give them more of a cognitive approach with their child. An example, would be using Cognitive Based Family Therapy. The mother should be using reinforcements to cognitively change the child’s behavior. The use of operant conditioning behavior can change the behavior of the child. This can be done by using rewards, extra attention, etc., to change the behavior (Nichols, 2014).
Section 10
I wish that the agency would do more one on one therapy type of work with all of the clients using a trained LSW. The LSW does not do much with the women individually and case management is lacking in terms of planning out long term goals. These women need serious mental health counseling and day to day supervision. Some of them only see their case worker once a month. The girls see the house managers, but they do not have a degree or any training and I often disagree when they are trying to “counsel” the girls. If the agency could have fully trained licensed social workers talking to them once weekly, the girls would be better off. They would not only be getting case management to keep track of their progress, but they would be getting full on mental health support and complete referral to other agencies.
In the community, there needs to be better access to county housing and section 8 housing. After the women leave the shelter, they have a short time to find housing and the wait for housing in the county is astronomical and almost impossible to get on right away. If people could receive more support and housing was more organized, then there would be a less need for clients to be in the shelters.
The community also needs to have more programs that allows for women over the age of twenty two to get their GED. Many of the girls do not have a high school diploma or the equivalent, when they are pregnant and in the shelter many of them do not have work, so it would make for the most ideal time for them to be able to go back and get their GED. Usually the classes are full and there is a waiting list. Also, to get your GED through the county assistance office you have to be under the age of twenty two. Many of the women are older than the cut off age, some not even by much. After this you have to do the Marywood GED program, but it has a very large waiting list. This makes it nearly impossible for anyone to be able to advance their education. It is hard as a social worker because they has aspirations, some of them want to get their different licensures and some of them want to go to college.