Empowerment of social workers who work with siblings of autistic children

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to explore the difficulties and limitations preventing social workers from empowering siblings of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children. Specific attention was given to social workers in the London Borough of Greenwich, United Kingdom and siblings who were in their middle childhood phase of development. Qualitative, applied research of an explorative and descriptive nature was followed. For the purpose of this study, the researcher conducted unstructured in-depth interviews with social workers and the siblings. Six social workers and four siblings were interviewed for this research study. Themes and categories were developed out of data from the unstructured interviews to which the researcher compared and verified it with already existing literature. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations were made from this research study.