Legal Report On Community Health Centre †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Legal Report On Community Health Centre. Answer: Record Of Contact I am a Social Worker working with the Jonestown Community Health Centre for the last three years. I have had numerous occasions of interacting with the local people who were a friendly lot and often volunteered to help the staff at the Community Health Centre. I knew Mrs. Venus Williams, mother of Dean Williams, the young 19 year old boy who suffered brain damage in a car accident. Mrs. Williams often devoted time at the centre and cared about those children and elderly parents who came to the centre for counselling (Morley, Ablett Macfarlane, 2014). Background Dean is a first-year college student and was suffering from a brain injury inflicted during a car accident some 6 months ago. On that particular night, Dean and some of his classmates were partying at a classmate's house. He left the party at about 1:00 a.m. and while driving missed a curve and his car overturned after hitting the verge. Although Dean's parents were aware that their son used to drink occasionally, they never suspected that he had a problem (Swain Rice (ed), 2009). His father often warned him about the dangers of driving after drinking. Mr. Frank Williams, Dean's father is a corporate attorney and Dean always expressed a desire of following his fathers footsteps. Dean's mother, being a house wife, mostly spent her time caring for her husband and son and devoted all her spare time to the volunteer work for helping the abused and neglected children of the local community (Swain Rice (ed), 2009). Finances Dean's parents are in a position to afford his treatment, but Dean is uncooperative and seldom complies with the treatment regimen. His mother accompanies him to the Centre where he comes twice a week for counselling but all the time and money seems to be going waste as Dean is often uncooperative and remains allusive to the treatment. Physical Because of his damage to the brain, Deans impulse control is affected and this has decreased his short-term memory and concentration ability making him irritated at times. He is not able to come to terms with this change in his abilities and this has changed his behavior (Swain Rice (ed), 2009). He is now difficult with his parents and friends and reacts indifferently with them now. Dean's emotional outbursts are unpredictable. He laughs out loud at times and at the next moment he starts crying. It has become difficult for him to sustain his attention on his surroundings (Maidment Bay, 2012). The weakness of his right side muscles has limited his ability of participating in the athletic activities he previously enjoyed. He has become restless and becomes agitated sometimes, and this frustration is because of the organic aspect of the injuries which he has sustained (Maidment Bay, 2012). Psychological Dean is currently on an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes he speaks that he understands his future plans have to be changed but at some moments he is unable to accept the limitations (Muller, 2014). He still wants things should be the way they were. His mental deficiencies are making it impossible for him to resume a successful college degree. In frustration, he even resents the constant supervision which his parents give and feels resented that he is being treated like a baby. Dean feels frustrated because of his disability in remembering, in expressing himself and concentrating on anything (Muller, 2014). Drugs and Alcohol Most of his old colleagues have resumed their college and because of this he has started hanging out with another younger group and has taken to drinking heavily again. This has made Dean's rehabilitation a more arduous task, especially for his parents (Wilson Powell, 2012). Prior to this accident, Dean was a gregarious young man. In high school, Dean was popular as a good student and used to play in the football team. He also loved skiing and skin diving and was expert at riding dirt bikes. Deans parents were stunned when they learned that he along with some of his colleagues used to get drunk nearly every weekend (Gal Weiss-Gal (ed), 2013). This information was shared by another social worker who was running a family counseling session with one of Deans friend along with a rehabilitation team and who had recently attended a seminar on alcohol and other drug problems. Dean's parents found it hard to believe, but after talking with some of his colleagues, they learned that this ind eed was the truth (Swain Rice (ed), 2009). Offences To understand the background of Deans addiction to alcohol, I contacted my long term associate Mark Jones of the Probation and Parole Services in Jonestown. After going through the records of offences, especially of drunken driving, we found that Dean had been detained for drunken driving four times and on each occasion the level of alcohol in his blood was found to be above the permissible levels (Gal Weiss-Gal (ed), 2013). Fortunately for Dean and unfortunately for his parents, the matter was not brought to their notice as every time Dean was let-off with warning or being kept in detention at the station till be became sober and apologised for his behaviour (Wilson Powell, 2012). I said unfortunate for his parents because the police officers who detained Dean seemed to believe him, as they knew him to be a well behaved and intelligent boy and they also knew his parents were helping others and were socially well known in the community (Wilson Powell, 2012). I confronted Dean with this information and after a little hesitation he acknowledged the facts. He also confided that he was ashamed of his addiction and wanted to get over with it. Although not satisfied with his admissions, me and Mark thought it would be appropriate to take his father into confidence and make him aware of the facts. We did not want to repeat the same mistake which many of the officers had made when they caught Dean in drunk driving situations (Morley, Ablett Macfarlane, 2014). Mr. Williams, being an experienced and learned attorney, absorbed the facts quietly and thanked us for sharing the facts. He understood the legal consequences and asked for our opinion. My opinion was to give Dean a last chance to build his future and provide him an opportunity to resume his studies and become a successful attorney like his father (Muller, 2014). Mark also agreed, but being a responsible officer, was not in a position to drop the charges of alcohol and drug abuse. Mr. Williams agreed with him and thanking me for the support, agreed that let the case go to the court and with the admission of guilt maybe Dean would emerge as a stronger person and overcome his limitations (Wilson Powell, 2012). This seemed to be a very honest and truthful suggestion and when I conveyed this decision to Dean, he was filled with gratitude towards his father and promised to rehabilitate himself and prove worthy of our confidence reposed in his abilities (Muller, 2014). Reflections Dean's mother spent most of her time in caring for him and participating in helping him in the rehabilitation process. His father also starting spending less hours at his work so as to make up for the time he would spend fishing, hunting and playing golf with his son. Though most of his friends were unsupportive in the beginning, they started calling on him more often and started coming around to visit him at his home. Dean has been keeping his promise of staying away from alcohol and is continuously taking his rehabilitation classes more seriously (Wilson Powell, 2012). I sincerely hope that Deans career takes him to higher status in the society and the information about his previous offences is taken in the right perspective by the court. Society does come across youth such as Dean, but they do deserve a second chance in life (Swain Rice (ed), 2009). References Gal, J. and Weiss-Gal, I. (ed). (2013). Social Workers Affecting Social Policy: An International Perspective on Policy Practice. Policy Press, Bristol. Maidment, J. and Bay, U. (2012). Social Work in Rural Australia: Enabling practice. Allen Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW. Morley, C., Ablett, P. and Macfarlane, S. (2014). Engaging with Social Work. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, VIC. Muller, L. (2014). A Theory for Indigenous Australian Health and Human Service Work: Connecting Indigenous knowledge and practice. Allen Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW. Swain, P.A. and Rice, S. (ed). (2009). In the Shadow of the Law: The Legal Context of Social Work Practice. Federation Press, Annandale, NSW. Wilson, C. and Powell, M. (2012). A Guide to Interviewing Children: Essential Skills for Counsellors, Police Lawyers and Social Workers. Routledge, Oxon.