Well, dynamic systems theory or just systems theory can be used to develop a holist approach and is then applied to the person in their environment, where many systems can then closely connect and impact one another. We need to look at how a person interacts within their environment to determine the best course of action for that person as social workers and that is the goodness of fit. When looking at the focal systems of both Stan and Tina the biggest one that stands out is there community. Village Park is both Stan’s and Tina’s suprasystems, and there subsystems are there school, the residents living and working in the community, Stan and Tina, and both of their families. When reading the case on both children the case first starts out talking about the community, where it was, where it came from, to what it is now.
Village Park affects almost everything about Stan and Tina. The schools are affected by the community because it is in a lower income urban community so the schools are less funded by the state, thus leading to a lower educational rate among students. The people living there are lower income because that is the area they can afford to live in, this can lead to higher crime rate, drugs, and gangs. Stan and Tina are living in this community and have to somehow navigate there way successfully through so they are able to reach their goals of educational success. Both Stan and Tina’s families have negative aspects about them. Stan’s biological father is a drug dealer and this could have contributed to Stan’s current life as a drug dealer, with Tina she was raised by her father and by her step-mother and never knowing your biological mother can have negative reactions on a young female that could affect her later in life. It seems like everything around these young adults are only trying to set them up for failure but these two young adults do not want to let themselves become a product of their environment.
For my next question I will be answering question number three, apply three concepts from theories of stress and coping to help explain Stan’s behavior. When looking at Stan’s environment we see many social stressors the disruption of the family unit, community poverty, and community crime. With Stan’s behavior we also see his vulnerability to stress with Stan constantly being exposed to these stressors he will become a product of his environment. Stan has dealt with many tails and tribulations in his life thus causing concern for allostatic overload with the constant stress this will cause wear and tear on the mind and bod. Stan has had to deal with a lot in his life so far, living with his girlfriend, having a baby, becoming a drug dealer, arrested for drug dealing, a key person in his cousin’s murder that was drug related, his father is also a drug dealer.
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With a world full of stress in Stan’s life he refuses to give up trying to become a better person, Stan is an amazing student and wants to better himself and his grades so that when it is time for him to graduate he wants to apply for Howard University in Washington D.C. Even though Stan knows the odds are against him Stan refuses to give up and will not let himself become a product of his environment. Stan takes the amount of stress he has to deal with and puts that energy into his school work, it is a positive way in dealing with stress and is a good coping mechanism.
For the last and final question the theory I found most helpful when examining Stan and Tina is the critical race theory and the theory I found to be the least helpful is the theories of family environment. The reason I found the critical race theory to be so helpful when looking at Stan and Tina is because of the fundamentals of the critical race theory, a few being race is a social construction, interest convergence/materialist determinism, and antiessentialism/intersectionality, Derrick Bell was the key writer of these concepts. When applied to our two subjects in the case vignette both Stan and Tina have been victims of some form of racism. Their community Village Park is a lower income area that is majority African American, the community has suffered from low attendance rates within the schools, high crime rate, violence, and dropouts. Having come from this area you already have a label on you no matter how good of a person you may be.
In Stan’s case he has done many things wrong in his life and has become a product of his environment but Stan is determined to change that by trying harder in school and wanting to go to Howard University. Tina on the other hand has always been a model citizen according to the case vignette and has been a model student ranking the top 25 in her senior class. Both Tina and Stan embrace the African American culture and community, they do not see anything wrong with African Americans behavior but they see a problem with people not acting in the best interests of themselves or the community. They both want to better themselves and want others to better themselves in the community, but because of the area and simply on how they look and dress both Stan and Tina will get judged and criticized before anyone gives them a chance.
The theory I found to be least helpful is the theories of family environment, family does have an impact on both Stan and on Tina but I believe that society has a bigger impact on their outcome. When looking at both Stan’s and Tina’s families there wasn’t much information about them for this theory to be properly applied to this case. Stan’s biological dad could have had some influence with him becoming a drug dealer but the case didn’t give us more details about that and with Tina With her father being an engineer was he the driving force on why Tina was such an amazing student, those types of details where all left out. This case vignette focused more on the environment and the community that these two kids had to navigate through then anything else.
