Case Study 1:
The Numbi Family
The case
Agnes and Joseph have lived in the UK for four years and they are refugees. They have two daughters, who are now eight and three years old. Marthe, the eldest daughter, enjoys school, she has good attendance and her parents always go to parent consultation evenings.
When Francine - who is just three - starts preschool, her teachers notice that she is not meeting some of her developmental milestones, especially in relation to her speech.
When Joseph collects the girls from school, the teachers speak to him about Francine, and he thanks them for telling him. The school then sends a letter home, explaining that they are going to refer Francine to a Speech and Language Therapist for an assessment. They follow this up with a telephone call, but Agnes answers and tells them that Francine is okay.
In the coming weeks, Francine stops attending pre-school and the family do not respond when the Speech and Language Therapy Team write to her with an initial appointment.
Additional information
The Awan family have moved to the UK from The Democratic Republic of the Congo
Joseph: 34 year old man.
Agnes: 29 years old woman.
Marthe: 10 year old girl.
Francine: 3 year old girl.
Both Agnes and Joseph speak very good English, as does Marthe.
Additional quotations from people
Preschool teachers: “Francine's speech development if delayed, and since we brought this up with the family, they seem to have withdrawn. We haven't seen her in pre-school for a few weeks now. We don't know why. It is worrying though. It'll just add to the problem if she's not interacting with other children and professionals. It's a bit frustrating for us as the parents just don't seem to get how important it is for Francine to get some specialist help".
Agnes: "I'm not worried about Francine. Marthe is fine so Francine will catch up. All children are different”.
Joseph: "The school is very good. We don't need anyone else meeting with Francine. There is nothing wrong with how she speaks. She's just shy".
Reflecting on 'working with people from different national and cultural backgrounds': Using the case study
N.B: Case studies can be used by an individual, or to facilitate a group exercise for a team of practitioners.
Read the case study and write down:
How you would come into contact with the family, or members of the family, in your professional role.
Your immediate thoughts about the family's response to issues raised by the pre-school staff.
Your initial thoughts on how you might try and engage with this family.
Then consider:
If there is anything about the family’s national and cultural background that might have influenced their responses?
If and how your initial thoughts about the family’s response to issues raised were influenced by your own cultural and national background?
Reconsider how you might approach the situation with your responses to questions 1 & 2 in mind.
Links to other themes
The focus of this exercise is to explore how a person's national and cultural background can impact on practitioners, and the families they support, having a shared understanding of services available and why they are provided.
Each case study is also likely to prompt reflections related to the other themes considered on this website. The themes that may be of particular use for this case study are: