Concepts on Supporting Family Potential in Times of Difficulty

Michaela Vaško

Abstract:
OBJECTIVES: This text discusses concepts of supporting the potential of family in times of difficulty as presented in recent literature. THEORETICAL BASE: Humanistic approaches in social work assume that people have the capacity for growth and change; as such families also have the capacity, skills and strengths. The potential of families can be viewed from several perspectives, such as undeveloped (latent) ability or skill, thus the possibility of development and growth is biologically given to all families in distress and may lead to the growth of greater excellence and independence. That points to something which exists in the family, but is not being used. Furthermore, the potential may be the opportunity to do something and can be the probability for some changes. METHODS: The inductive understanding method (qualitative) was used, which means searching and understanding texts that deal with the support of families in difficulty. The authors’ texts were sorted deductively. OUTCOMES: The potential of families can be supported from three basic perspectives: working in the natural family environment; the strength model or different forms of family therapy. SOCIAL WORK IMPLICATIONS: The conclusions of this work can be used in the practice of social work with families.

Keywords:
potential, family in difficulty, supporting, conception, social-activation service for families with children