The Effects of Poverty on Children's Socioemotional Development - Case Study Example

Case Study for an Imaginary Family Carrie—4 years old; diagnosed learning disabled; Mike and Alice’s daughter Mike —38 years old; lower socio economic class; divorced; currently married to Alice; Jessica is his daughter from a previous marriage Alice —41 years old; alcoholic; lower socio economic class; divorced; currently married to Mike Jessica —15 years old; daughter of Mike and his ex wife Tina Maria The family is Vietnamese/Chinese Mike immigrated 10 years ago; his father is Fu Zhou Chinese The case is about what alcoholism does to a lower to lower middle class Perth family, even to those within it who do not have a drinking problem and who are innocent. They get their lives ruined. Mike and his wife Alice have a relationship that works on a surface level but underneath it is rotten, because Alice is an alcoholic. She has serious problems that are only worsening, and Mike is never home anyway so there are no checks on her behaviors. As a result, Jess, the older child from the other marriage, and Carrie, the young four year old, suffer. The family relationships and dynamics are very important to the movie, so it is appropriate that it be viewed through a structural family therapy perspective. This was a case that was very much about suffering and innocents having to suffer from alcoholism, and it showed how the family was falling apart because of it. This alcoholism of Alice’s will not help them lessen conflict as a result of positive communication rather than division among the interests of the couple and the issues of their children. It is not only Mike and Alice, but others involved in the process, especially Carrie because she is at such a young stage of development. And since structural family therapy focuses on the family and not just the couple, I would want to include Jess and Carrie in any sort of plan for this treatment, even if the parameters dictate that I am only to focus on Mike and Alice. It is important sometimes to be able to negotiate so that there isn’t any disagreement about how to solve problems by looking at the whole family unit, rather than just the couple to reach a resolution. This case is not a superficial concern, but rather delves deeply into the foundational strategies for combating entropy in both a societal and individual context, by combating alcoholism on a case basis. A relationship must be placed in the context of the community and society within which it functions, both of which define parameters for function and dysfunction, success and failure, that can be inversely applied to the microcosmic family system. Therefore, different relationships have different societal contexts and different structural paradigms which affect them in terms of function and dysfunction. The structural family therapy method remains malleable in the face of these cultural and societal distinctions, so that different people are seen in terms of different functional paradigms. There are different systems that are affected, especially in regards to Carrie’s school and her behavioral problems. Jess does not exhibit school problems, and scored As and Bs on her last report card. Therefore, Carrie is the focus of the systems theory presentation. Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological System’s Theory Many factors can be involved on a levels analysis, such as macrocosmic factors of unemployment, geographic isolation, and the physical environment, which can all affect the ways in which families manage immediate health concerns. Research on Bronfenbrenner shows how the theorist works in the milieu of the modern society. Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model separates influence into stages and can be used to describe children, as well as other life stages of development. Basically, what this theorist did was to organize stages into systems of influence, including the microsystem (the child’s school or family), the mesosystem (different microsystems interacting with each other), the exosystem (external environments), and other systems as well, including the macrosystem. “He referred to the most recent conceptualization of his model as a "bioecological paradigm" which rests on two main assumptions that can be investigated within a process--person-context--time model. First, human development occurs through "processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions” (Eamon, 2001). These systems can be seen as children develop through elementary and middle school, and move from stages of late adolescence into early adulthood, going on to professional education. This theory is a very useful measure from a biological perspective. microsystem (the child’s school or family) Carrie has been diagnosed in school of academic and behavioral problems, and teachers faced a lot of issues with confidentiality and culture. Some cultures have families in which it is expected that the teacher share everything with the parents, even if it invades the confidentiality of the child. Confidentiality is an important aspect of any professional relationship, but parents from some cultures don’t seem to understand this. It is intricately involved with issues of trust between the student and teacher. Carrie shows no trust toward her teachers. Ethics in student-teacher relationships take the relationship formed in practice into consideration in terms of collective as well as personal responsibility factors. “Swanson also lists guidelines for assessing whether professionals act in ethically responsible ways. The first is personal and professional honesty… a final guideline is whether they can justify an action as ‘the best judgment of what should be done based upon the current state of the profession’” (Structural, 2008). Cultural sensitivity is also an important aspect of any client-professional relationship. the mesosystem (different microsystems interacting with each other) The school at which Carrie attended had a diverse and multi-lingual student body as well as other teachers. I felt that she fit into the cultural mix at the school, and I didn’t have many problems when it came to diversity, because my parents brought me up to respect and treat other people equally. However, at times, there could be cultural communication problems, particularly when the parents were in a culture that was very strict about monitoring student performance, but I couldn’t talk to the parents directly, because I did not speak their language. However, the school has three interpreters who speak Spanish, Hindi, and Vietnamese, so this problem was easily resolved by having the interpreter there. This family speaks Vietnamese at home and English when outside of the home. the exosystem (external environments) Carrie should not be tracked because of her parents’ alcoholism. Tracking is useful to some, but this should not be taken to mean that teaching methods should be likewise set in stone- different students learn in different ways, and even teaching a classroom of mainstream students requires the teacher to reserve a certain degree of adaptability in presenting the material effectively. So one student placed in a situation may react quite differently than other student who would find it more or less useful than this first student. Students should also be free to apply the material learned in class using effective methods of their own during their own time; effective teaching both sets and follows the standard, and different students learn at different rates according to ability and ranking. macrosystem (the larger socio-cultural context). Projects like these can help communities keep together while fostering positive ideals like combating poverty and providing services for the advancement and development of community youth. This would help youths to reach and exceed their potential as positive, contributory members of their community before they get caught up in the vicious cycle. This would serve to reduce patterns of gender, language and socio economic discrimination that affect many students in a cycle of negativity by providing positive working solutions in a real-world context. The population in oppressed areas is often compromised by poverty, poor wages, and poor living conditions, and youth, educational, and economic programs can be affected. This family is from a lower class section of Perth, economically. “The effectiveness of proximal processes is determined by the biopsychological characteristics of the individual, the immediate and distant environments in which the proximal processes occur, and the developmental outcome being examined” (Tissington, 2008)  4-Community Resources to help such situations  There are many facilities in Perth which can be divided into private facilities and public facilities, which treat alcoholism. There are resources for these families through international groups as well, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and other 12-step programs. Fees are high in some Perth resort-style rehabilitation centers; other meetings are free, but there is no live-in option. I would say that the resources in Perth are adequate, because of the mix of public and private options. However, workers may need to think more of maintaining safe families. Therefore workers need to think, “Starting from the premise that maintaining healthy and safe families cannot and should not be the responsibility of any one societal sector can transform care for the welfare of children into a collective effort of families, community organizations, and government services” (Ashiabi and O’Neal, 2007). The worker can thus focus on the parenting as well as the child in terms of child treatment. This is an application of knowledge to the parent or set of parents as well as the professional in the helping relationship considering issues of child abuse and neglect, and other issues that are internal to the family system in these cases. The worker is going to be working with families which function in systems. The individual working with clients in this field will also need to encounter the community system. The whole community also needs to be considered, not just the individual child or mother, or elder facing down elderly abuse. Specifics such as these, many argue, are best dealt with on the community, territorial and local level, since the federal level is only capable of providing vague and non-federalized parameters within which other organizations can take place for this system. The worker also needs to be familiar with the government system of operation and various programs that have been set forth federally. “Nobody knows what causes alcoholism. People with parents who have alcoholism have a greater chance of getting the disease. Alcoholism may be related to the things we learn when we are growing up” (Alcoholism, 2005). Barriers to treatment for alcoholism may be socio economic in nature, due to unequal access to treatment programs among the under-class and the impoverished. One way of addressing the issue practically would be to focus on the cycle of poverty that afflicts so many families in inner-city areas and Aborigine families, and make substantive changes through youth counseling development and other leadership programs. The professional or worker could dynamically impact the future of such programs through advocacy, and in doing so would be confronting the reality of the situation or core problem behind which other associated problems are located. From this perspective, the main point of advocacy would be to bring idea that makes a difference from the theoretical to the practical, or to make true the promise of universality suggested by the goal of providing quality services to all, instead of some. People may also have their own internal reasons for resisting treatment if they have a drinking problem. They may be in denial that they even have a problem in the first place. In terms of how people become addicted to alcohol, there is a process in which the individual starts drinking and becomes acclimated to it, before they feel as if, physically or psychologically, they do more than just crave it; they need it. Some drugs only have a psychological addiction, while others like alcohol have a very real physical addiction. The individual first enjoys the substance, and then begins to feed a physical and psychological craving for it that they are unable to control. In essence, they are out of control at this point. This feeling of lack of control being attractive to the person may be a sign of mental illness being associated with alcohol abuse. More and more in treatment circles, professionals are paying more attention to ways not just to treat the addiction, but also the ways to treat the mental problems that might lie underneath the surface, in the brain. “Alcoholism is a disease that affects the part of the brain that controls your feelings, the way you make decisions, and the way you act. People with alcoholism cannot control how much they drink” (Alcoholism, 2005).  5-Role as a healthcare proffessional Overall, to effectively prevent and treat alcohol abuse, one has to be aware of the causes. And there are many causes of alcohol abuse and addiction. These causes tend to differ with the individual. Healthcare workers must keep systemic awareness to help the children of alcoholics. “Children live in an interactive flow with their microsystem, which includes family, school, peers, and neighborhood. Interchanges between the child and his or her microsystem are affected by the interrelationships” (Abrams and Theberge, 2005). While some individuals are at higher risks for dependence on alcohol and other substances because of their environment, researchers have found strong links between genetics and substance abuse. For example one source notes that “sons of alcoholics tend to be twice as likely to become alcoholics themselves, and if two people are twins and one of them is an alcoholic, there is a 60% chance that the other twin will also be an alcoholic” (Addictive, 2004). But still it is also argued that most people whose parents are alcoholic don’t actually move on to become alcoholics themselves, but rather are as the phrase goes driven to drink, by external stressors in their environment. A lot depends on where a theorist puts the locus of control, in terms of internal and external impetus. This tends to swing with the times, as internal tends to be more favorable now. External to the family, there exist economic issues of poverty. And along with poverty comes the issue of homelessness or the issue of individuals who have been driven from the normal codes of society in terms of dwelling, and are reliant on shelter systems. Poverty is often chronic and can contribute to distress in other forms such as economic and material hardship, poor parenting, lack of resources, and other factors explored by the authors, but I also would have liked to have seen more about accessibility to healthcare and its impact, as well as the impact of low educational levels. When the problems of poverty are combined with the problems of urbanization and the lack of available services in many cases, such as affordable housing initiatives and care and support systems implemented. “A limitation is that studies that have used material hardship measures have generally focused on only one type of hardship; however, examining multiple dimensions of hardship allows us to understand how each form may be associated with income poverty and child health” (Ashiabi and O’Neal, 2007), I would argue that the multiple dimensions of hardship that the authors have chosen are just the tip of the iceberg. Some authors have hypothesized that the cycle of alcohol abuse “is the expression of internal operational models of attachment, composed of a set of conscious and unconscious rules, needed in the organization of relevant information for attachment. To modulate the use of this information, the operational models govern emotions, attention, memory, cognitive processes and, ultimately, behavior” (Nichols, 2007). There are many advantages to the situation. “During these times, my family and school Microsystems were interacting The macrosystem – this layer may be considered the outermost layer in the child’s environment. While not being a specific framework, this layer is comprised of cultural values, customs, and laws” (Schriver, 2004). I want to say that the culture I was taught and my beliefs were more intimately formed by my family and friends, but in reality, the macrosystem may have had a more lasting impact. I think that in this society, we really want to see ourselves as individuals, rather than people who are communally influenced by our shared culture. 6- Conclusion Families are affected by alcoholism on macro and micro levels. “Family structure, the organized pattern in which family members interact, is a determination concept, but it doesn’t prescribe or legislate behavior; it describes sequences that are predictable. As family transactions are repeated they foster expectations that establish enduring patterns” (Structural, 244)This involves access and knowledge of its history that is mixed with issues of poverty and social and economic status systems. There are various theoretical and practical measures that the constituency can develop to solve this problem domestically, ranging from class-struggle theory to the more practical application of healthcare advocacy and systemic delivery of access from private and public entities. This constituency can be developed on a targeted and specific level by expanding the definition of the problem to focus on the people who are living in homeless area and impoverished situations, and can examine development based on accessibility, the cycle of poverty, and attention to the local level in examining the problems on a policy level as well. As far as recommendations of future research, Perth as a city needs to make sure that its count of homeless people is accurate, because there are often hidden populations which do not appeal to census. Furthermore, people who are the children of alcoholics may be more likely to be alcoholics themselves. There are various arguments about the reasons for this: some are genetic, others are behavioral. It all goes back to the macro level argument about nature vs. nurture, and how alcoholism, or addictive behavior, may be a disease passed down through the generations. “Proximal processes occur between a parent and child and within peer, school, learning, and recreational activities; they are the mechanisms by which genetic potential for effective psychological functioning is realized” (Eamon, 2001). REFERENCE Abrams, K and S Theberge (2005). Children and adolescents who are depressed: an ecological approach Professional School Counseling. Ashiabi, G and K O’Neal (2007). Children’s health status. California State University East Bay. Eamon, M (2001). The Effects of Poverty on Childrens Socioemotional Development: An Ecological Systems Analysis. Social Work. Entine, John (2002). Ethics and Accountability. Corporate Governance. Nichols, M (2007). The Essentials of Family Therapy. New York: Pearson. Schriver, T (2004). Human Behavior in the Social Environment. New York: Pearson. Tissington, L (2008). A Bronfenbrenner ecological analysis. Journal of Instructional Development. Alcoholism (2005). American Family Physician Addictive personality (2004). Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Diagnostic criteria for DSM-IV (1995). New York: American Psychiatric Association. Structural family therapy basics (2008). Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. Read More