This is something that could be offered to any family completing their own genogram. One couple asked to keep their daughters’ genogram, who was only age one, as a family tree to show her as she grew up. Whilst sensitivity, as with all areas of social work practice, is important when completing a genogram as there may be triggers and difficult relationships that come to light, I was often surprised to see how much some families enjoyed the process. Using systemic questioning can support understanding of the family’s views and wishes, for example a question I sometimes ask after mapping the different strengths of relationships with coloured pens is, ‘if you could change any of these relationships or lines, what would the genogram then look like?’ This may show that a child wants to address the strained relationship they have with a parent, to reconnect with an absent family member, or that their family aspirations may be very different to those of the local authority. The use of group hypothesising in this way can help a family and practitioner to re-frame concerns and support a more open working relationship (Gaughan and Kalniak, 2011). The visual aid of the genogram would help us to reflect on alternative narratives, different perspectives and missing information that had not been considered. As a unit we would use this to then hypothesise about what may be happening, generating systemic questions to ask the worker or family members that may help bring positive change to the family system. However, workers must consider the importance of seeking to understand beyond biological family members and the role of family friends and peer relationships, particularly where concerns are present regarding exploitation and extra-familial harm ( Firmin, 2019).Ī few years into my practice I got a role as a consultant social worker, reclaiming the social work model, first used in Hackney and having weekly unit supervisions, in which we would draw a genogram to explore the strengths and difficulties for each family. This can be particularly helpful for safety planning using the family network, including Family Group Conferences or exploring Life Long Links. (2012) indicated that whilst not used in a high number of cases, those workers who co-created a handwritten genogram with a family (in contrast to the worker completing the system genogram) would include more extensive wider family members. I would take either a big sheet of paper or lots of pieces I could later join together, some coloured pens and draw a genogram and key, focused on the unique dynamics of the family.Ī study by Laird et al.

I quickly fell in love with the concept – more than just asking and drawing who was in the family, but exploring the relationships, family scripts and social GGRRAAACCEEESSS within the family network. Prior to this, I had used the genogram/family tree function on the local authorities recording system, but other than using and adding to this to understand who (to our knowledge) was in the biological family, I had not used it as a tool for direct or relational work with families.Ī genogram is a visual tool that shows a family tree and is used to give a pictorial representation of a family system.

The specific tool of the creative genogram enabled us not only to provide a clear directive tool for family social workers but also to demonstrate the ways that social art corresponds to and can enhance the aims of family social workers in more detail.Author: Hannah Scott When I was two years into my social work practice, I was introduced to the cultural genogram through systemic training. A theoretical understanding of social versus psychological art is outlined. Ways to overcome these challenges and to utilize the benefits were discussed.

Challenges were the unfamiliarity of art language and fear of being “diagnosed” through art. The findings point to the usefulness of including creative genograms in family social work contexts to intensify information, engagement, and stimulation and to re-perceive calcified problems through new visual terms. This participatory research gathers the self-defined, phenomenological experience of family social workers who experienced creative genograms firstly on themselves and then administered it with their clients: Examples are analyzed within the text. Creative genograms enable families to phenomenologically self-define recurring themes and issues, thus combining both historical, but also, experiential data on the same page. Genograms are widely used in family therapy as a way of visually mapping out systems and recurring family patterns. Research on Social Work Practice, Ahead of Print.

Genograms in social work