Attachment Theory in Social Work Practice: Exploring The Potential

Introduction

To further illustrate how the attachment theory can be utilized in social work practice, in the essay it will be featured with a case study as a practice example. Pseudo-names will be applied to the individuals of the case study in accordance with the HCPC regulation to respect and protect the confidentiality of the service users.

Attachment theory in social work

Mariatu is a single mother aged 35 from an African in heritage. She lives with her son Lamin aged 8 in a one-bedroom flat in south London. Lamin attends a local primary in their area. Jonny, Mariatu’s husband abandoned his family five years ago and she has not heard from him ever since. Within the last 2 years, Mariatu has been made unemployed due to an incident of verbal aggression to a customer at her workplace. She has also been involved in criminal activities to help fund her alcohol and drug addictions. Lamin has been involved in a number of physical fights with his classmates. Teachers have described Lamin’s behavior as walking towards his classmate with a smile and later hit them. When Mariatu in under the influence of drugs and alcohol, she sometimes hits her child. Non-accidental bruises have been identified on Lamin’s hand and on several occasions teachers have reported on her son attending school without the correct stationery. The family was referred by Lamin’s school due to concerns of general neglect on the child’s health including, the presence of non-accidental bruises on his hand.

It is evident that the fundamental goal of the social worker is to address the issues of child abuse and neglect. This could be achieved by the social worker, investigating multiple agencies record to verify whether Mariatu and her son are known to local authorities. From the findings, the social worker could make a judgment on whether Lamin is classified as a child ‘in need’ under section seventeen of the Children Act 1989. However, If Lamin is not classified as a child in ‘need’ the social worker may still need to perform an assessment on the family( Carr and Goosey, 2019)

Attachment theory might help the social worker assess, observe and plan her work with Mariatu and her child. He or she could commence by applying an attachment perspective to explore Mariatu’s early childhood experiences, which might provide an understanding for her relationship with her child. As postulated by attachment scholars, there is a direct correlation between insecure attachment patterns and the transmission of violence (Killeen and McClellan 2000). The social worker could use The Adult Attachment Interview (Bifulco et al, 2004) to assess Mariatu’s quality of close relationships and how she utilise social support services. After this, the social worker could encourage an attachment-based intervention with Mariatu and her child to promote healthy and sensitive parenting.

From an attachment perspective, Lamin’s poor behavioral control towards his classmates maybe caused by poor parenting. According to Lishman (1991) children’s attachment styles are heavily influenced by the actions of their attachment figures. Therefore, if parenting is dysfunctional or abusive, this might affect children's ability to predict parents’ behaviours, which in turn impact on how they organize their behavior. Thus, Lamin walking up to his classmate with the intent to interact but hit them instead could indicate unpredictable and inconsistent parenting. However, Killeen and McClellan (2000) noted that not all children who experience domestic violence or witness abuse mimic the footsteps of their careers.

As illustrated above, attachment theory can be a useful guide to social workers when working with dysfunctional families such as the above. This is because it provides a powerful model of understanding on the impact that poor parenting can have on children's development and their ability to form relationships with their peers and their future offspring. However, It is evident that attachment theory should never be used alone as a basis for planning when working with children and families, but as part of a holistic approach. This is because; Attachment theory does not take consider problems that arose from differences in race, social class, or gender. With reference to Mariatu’s circumstances, the urtication that lead to her being sacked could have been caused by a customer being verbally racist to Mariatu, resulting in retaliation and leading her to lose her job. Moreover, the Attachment theory fails to take into account non-European cultures (Beckett and Taylor,2016). Mariatu is from Africa in a heritage which is a collective culture, the abandonment of her husband could have caused her and her family disgrace which in turn might have contributed to an increase in alcohol and drug intake losing control, and hitting her child.

Another theory that could be used alongside attachment theory to address the above case could be the Person-centered approach. This approach seeks to understand the essential needs of Mariatu and her son and what can be done to achieve their needs. The social worker may need to explain what support and services are available for Mariatu and her son and how they can access these services. For example, therapy to address Mariatu’s drinking and Lamin’s poor behavioral control. The person-centered approach also emphasizes on self-empowerment, to achieve this, the social worker could encourage Mariatu to take the lead in solving her family’s problem. Given that, empowering clients is a core principle in social work intervention (Roger,1961).

Furthermore, the anti-oppressive practice involves making sure that all service users rights are not being breached, in that, the social worker involved in this case must prioritize the needs of Lamin but also be respectful to the family’s human rights, including the right to private and family life (Helen and Goosey,2019)

Lastly, attachment theory could be used alongside the assessment triangle utilised by social workers, to assess Lamin’s needs. This triangle outlines the importance of caregiving but also provides the social worker with an ecological approach that considers

Lamin’s developmental needs and socio-economic needs as well as it explores how factors such as culture, education, and their effects on Lamin’s development (Department of Health (2000b). Therefore, this approach could explain Mariatu’s preoccupation of her family’s finances as affecting her ability to meet Lamin’s emotional and physical needs, resulting in her son attending school without the appropriate stationery.

Conclusion

To conclude, this essay has highlighted the core principle of Bowlby’s attachment theory along with Aisworth’s findings from the strange situation tests and how this knowledge is applied to social work practice when working with children and families. Moreover, this paper has outlined the strength and weaknesses of applying an attachment perspective to dysfunctional families, similar to those featured in the case study. Although attachment theory provides social workers with empirical information on the importance of secure caregiving for a child's emotional development throughout their life course, causation must be emphasized as attachment theory should never been utilized in isolation but as part of a holistic approach when working with service users.