Drawing them can take some practising and may feel daunting in front of a watching family member, so I find it a valuable exercise to give students and newly qualified workers a safe place to practice drawing and asking relevant questions, as well as a way to support them in exploring their own experiences and how this could influence their practice. After exploring this with her and ensuring there were no safeguarding concerns present or in the family history, he was removed from the genograms within the reports but this explained within the child’s file.Ī genogram is one of the first things on my to do list, be that a new Special Guardianship Order (SGO) assessment or supporting a student on placement by asking them to draw their own genogram as a tool for developing reflective practitioners. Alternatively another mother I worked with felt strongly that her former stepfather should not be included on her own child’s genogram (which had been automatically added by the recording system) because she did not consider that he played any role in her daughter’s life. 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. Author: Hannah Scott When I was two years into my social work practice, I was introduced to the cultural genogram through systemic training.

Genogram social work examples