Helping Family Members with Maladaptive Communication 125 As we noted previously, prior to doing the role-plays, ask the family “mem- bers” to consider how they might enact their roles, given their understanding of the case and tuning in to members’ feelings. 3. If all students have direct experience working with families, assign stu- dents a critical incident to analyze their interventions in helping a family with maladaptive relationship and communication patterns. You can use students’ presentations of their practice experience to illustrate and generalize practice principles and social work methods and skills.