Assignment #1: Article Critique

SWOK 503-Fall 2014

Assignment #1: Article Critique

At some point in everybody’s life they will have been in direct conflict or indirect conflict. These conflicts are sometimes unavoidable and can cause can stress to one or more people involved. In the article written by Michael Ungar “Families as navigators and negotiators: Facilitating culturally and contextually specific expressions of resilience” (2010) he states that these stresses of everyday life can affect or children in a positive or negative way. Depending on presence or absence of a caretaker (a parent or guardian), a child can develop remarkable resilience in dealing with difficult environments or situations.

Ungar advocated that the social ecological model of resilience and systemic marginalization could create conflict in an individual’s life. He believed that by protecting our children from negative experiences and governing their social interactions a child could build healthy coping mechanisms for stress. With the guidance of a responsible caretaker or adult a child should be active in the community. Having this link to the community will teach children what their community’s informal laws of acceptable behavior. Having the appropriate principles as the surrounding community will allow the child to acclimate to realistic cognitive skills and any other emotional, social or physical stresses placed on the child. The handling of these stress and conflict will make the child develop a sense of self-identify overall wellbeing (Ungar, 2010).

The message in the article aimed to educate professionals in the mental health field that “no person or family is damaged but challenged” (Ungar, 2010) and with the appropriate navigator these challenges will can be resolved with consent support and guidance. Having the ability to guide a client an effective social worker needs to be able to remove themselves from any preconceived notions. What we may see as normal may seem unusual to...