Kinder Emergency Shelter in Texas - Case Study Example

Introduction Social justice is difficult to embrace as it requires more complex forms of structures that promote the power, class or statuses of people as they relate to one another in any place including the communities they come from or the organization they are working for. It encompasses many issues that affect children and families such as child abuse, discrimination and crime in the society. Many organizations in the world have come up with remedies to tackle issues of social justice in the society. In this paper therefore, I paid a visit to the Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES) in Texas. This agency is located northwest of the city and serves both the local population and any other visitor to the state who may be a victim of racial discrimination, domestic violence and child abuse. It however does not deal with rehabilitation of drug addicts as there are nearby organizations that specialize in that. I met with the executive director Mr. Ernest and the programs coordinator Ms. Alice. The officials of the agency were more than wiling to help me compile this report and therefore all gratitude goes to them. Apart from what they told me, I also obtained sources form the website and victims who have been assisted in this centre. Description of the agency Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES) is an agency under the Texas Children’s Protection Department that provides 24 hour services to victims of domestic violence and discrimination. It is located in the Texas County. It has other branches in New York and Kentucky which serve the nearby populations. The centre has employed more 35 employees to work in different capacities and majorities of other people who assist the organization are volunteers and interns from institutions nearby. The agency mainly depends on donor funding which come from the Catholic Church and the local authority which chip in something from their budget. There are also individuals who support the centre from their own pockets and income especially the local leaders and academicians. Overview of this agency Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES) is an agency that ensures that children between the ages of 8 and 17 years are separated from threatening situations in the homes. “Our goal is to meet the need as a result of child abuse cases, discrimination and victims of domestic violence in Texas by placing those affected and infected into loving, stable and Christian environments in order to encourage them to become upright citizens and agents of change in the region” said the center’s programs coordinator (An interview with Ms Alice and Mr. Ernest of Kinder Emergency Shelter, conducted on 6th Sep, 2007, Harris County, Texas.). Its mission is; Provide direct services to victims not covered by other programs Provide services to parents such as guardianship services Give support services designed to enhance efficiency in the county Advocate for children’s rights It ensures that the children are given temporary shelter before the families are counseled and immediate solution provided to the crisis. The agency aims at preventing children who are at risk from dropping out of school, entering into delinquent behavior e.g. alcohol abuse or crime, becoming victims of child abuse or even running away form their homes. KES assists family members and parents to solve problems which in one way or another can lead to neglect or abuse of children. This agency produces temporary out of home care services so that the agency can develop a permanency plan among the parties involved to come to an agreement before the children are released to the society. Under such cases there various solutions to be administered among the communities to enable those found guilty to become more productive members of the society. First of all the parents of the offender should be able to help their children by showing their faith in the Christianity democracies and principles which include; fairness, equality, justice, and compassion that are said to be the most important ingredients in the welfare of the society. The parents should also strengthen the social bonds that include love, and forgiveness thus this will enable the parents to make religion an important part of life of the child and the family at large. This action will enable the person not to allow the criminal characteristics delinquency in his livelihood. The governments also have big roles to play in helping this person therefore, it should come up with institutions that will help fight delinquency, these institutions will help the offenders by training or re-training them so that they may be able to discover and solve their problems in their daily life. Therefore the government should employ specialists who are supposed to build trust and friendship with the affected people. How the centre integrates with the community This centre engages he services of the youth and volunteers from different churches and the educational institutions to reach out to the society and identify cases that require assistance. The centre also employs the services of the police and professional counselors to assist in referring those cases which they can handle. It also organizes community training sessions and fundraising activities for the victims who are direly in need. (An interview with Ms Alice and Mr. Ernest of Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES), conducted on 6th Sep, 2007, Harris County, Texas.). People involved There are a number of people who are involved in the process of tackling the issues of racial discrimination and child abuse in the society in this centre. The main ones are religious organizations such as the Catholic Church in Texas, the Redeemed church etc. Other groups of people who are involved in ensuring that services are offered include the local authorities in the county, the police department, schools, other charity organizations and the employees of this non-governmental organization. The main issues that are specifically addressed by the different groups include; crime, domestic violence, discrimination in schools and rehabilitation of alcohol addicts and abusers. Justification of how these programs can be successful The society and the government institutions are trying to carry out these practices by providing various services to members of the society and especially the youths. This is done by providing drug abuse education, counseling, parenting and youth mentoring education in which various government incentives end up training parents on the advantages of supervising their children and providing guidance to them. The parents are also sensitized on how to identify the risks and threats that their children are likely to face, through this, parents are therefore ready to intervene when the identify the signals of trouble in their children and incase of anything they are taken to the juvenile justice system. In the juvenile system there exist two main form of juvenile deterrence these are the incarceration and rehabilitation. (An interview with Ms Alice and Mr. Ernest of Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES), conducted on 6th Sep, 2007, Harris County, Texas.). Literature review on child abuse and racial discrimination Racial discrimination The term racial discrimination creates a distinction between groups of people with another. This is normally based on the skin color, facial features and the hair texture. It normally vary depending on the culture, and social economic factors that lead on the decision by teachers and students in choosing who is to succeed and who is to fail in the school performance of the students. We find that this discrimination in schools has led to unequal disciplining system among other factors in schools. Teachers are said to be practicing discipline on students depending on the race, gender and socio-economic factors, though many people including teachers argue that the discipline and policy practices in schools are balanced and objective. There are still main causes that lead to an increase in the number of students of color being sent out of school. (Wink, 2005) Cultural insensitivity and misunderstanding has been said to be the major factor leading to crisis in discipline systems both in students and the teaching member and in which it has been predicted that this case will lead to the distinction racial and ethnic groups among students. Due to the growing urban population in cities, many suburban schools are growing thus increasing the racial and language differences. Contrary, the numbers of teachers decrease due to color and social differences in which we find many school administrators employing teachers depending on the number of the color students. This has probably led to a cultural variance through which a number of teachers lack knowledge with the cultural values, and belief systems of the students. Therefore, due to lack of the teachers’ familiarity with the students’ cultural perspectives, the teacher is not able to understand the behavior of a particular student. (Darnell, James, and Downey, 2002) Another cause of racial discrimination is socio-economic factors which are normally experienced in many schools creating differences among the members in the learning institution. For example, a situation where we find a teacher living in a middle social class that has a uniform way of living and a lower income student is living in an economically troubled society. This difference between the teacher and the student is said to complicate the relationship between the two groups. Lack of Academic and Social Support This is normally linked with the case of the students resistance whereby research finds that most students claim to be disruptive because they do not receive adequate support in doing their school assignments or in developing skills in their self management which leads to a low academic competence whereby most students are held back leading to lower achievement. It is said that racial discrimination in schools has a diversified effects on the students which normally differ with the presence of many factors including those of self attitudes and the cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. These factors target the performance of the students whereby a negative impact is brought, i.e. when a school administration fails to address the needs of its students. This may be done when the school administers are formulating their curriculum that include the exclusion of minority cultures and languages which proves to lack relevance to the students. This in turn make students to loose interest whereby they fail to attend school and some of them dropping out of schools due to the boredom caused by the school curricula. Such a cause may also lead to a low literacy rate among the members of the society. Why families abuse their children Poverty is one thing that causes child abuse. This is so because when families are poor, they become psychologically affected and therefore, they pass this to their children in frustration. The other effect of discrimination is the diminishing in employment prosperities of the children due to low educational levels. There exists a high unemployment rates since most of the children were discouraged from attending school due to reasons beyond their means in the past. For this case they did not acquire enough knowledge and skills that would be required to be applied in a working environment rather than at school, thus creating a sub-class of society members thus increasing the number of people in this community who are unemployed Family expenditure on child care services Families re finding it hard to squeeze their little income for quality child care services for their children. This is because the sector has been sidelined for sometime now. The reasons are that; There has been little or no increase in federal funding for the last five years Some states have been reducing income tax credits for almost the same period of time The number of children receiving childcare services have significantly reduced for the last three years With reduced incentives and financial commitment from the federal state, some states are beginning to cut their budgetary allocations to the sector Children’s Defiance This is the resistance of a student/children over their teacher’s/parent’s authorities. This kind of behavior is normally characterized by not following the teacher’s directions and also talking back. This has been said to usually come up as a result of racism thus creating a negative impact teaching and learning. This resistance is another factor that is claimed to be an effect of the inequity cases in schools and homes under which children react in a particular ways such as breaking of school rules, disobeying parents, disrupting class sessions and their denial in learning. Many researchers conclude that this resistant is a factor leading to the existing discipline crisis. These behaviors results in the irritation and annoyance of the teacher who sometimes lack skills of resolving his students’ resistance especially where there is a racial contribution to the situation. (Darnell, James, and Downey, 2002) Assimilation policies This normally occurs in children due to the assimilation policies that are imposed in schools which are normally meant to break the conversion of culture and language from an older generation to a younger generation. This leads to the alienating of the native children from their society older to younger stimulating the identity crisis within their societies. This alienation can lead social isolation that might also lead to depression through stress anger and fatigue which normally happen to detract the student from performing in schools. (Wink, 2005) This case of discrimination has been shown to have taken a large proportion of the minority members of the society who are classified as underclass, though there are conditions that have been developed to reduce this issue of race, one of it is the positive action developed by schools and other institutions in which we find various people who are engaged in fighting for equality and just in the society, this has led to the fading of the demand for socialism, this has brought the socio-economic class differences to a lower level therefore the need for an economic equality has resulted into more demands of justice opposing the equality in terms of race and sex including the socio-economic classes. Lack of proper child care centers There is increased debate on child care provision effects and the impacts of child care facilities on children’s social integration, morality, self discipline and education. It is argued that childcare is a matter of choice and people voluntarily take their children to theses facilities. A recent study in Texas concluded that child care centers run by the community or by private individuals provided better services compared to those run by corporate partnerships. The reason for this disparity can be traced to the financial problems experienced by persons in the business. This can be largely attributed to high taxes, poor credit offers by the governments and lack of proper legislation to govern the sector strictly. The impacts are known to be worse in situations where there is little monitoring of how legislation is adopted in the counties and districts (Delpit, 2006) The organization’s effectiveness This agency has been able to handle issues of child abuse and child discrimination in schools. Its records indicate that it has been able to receive more than 550 cases last year alone and that the trend continues to rise if the necessary remedies are not applied. Of the 550 cases reported, a large majority of this was child abuse cases and it occurred from the middle and low income families. According to the poverty institute for Texas, the number of children seeking child protection services in region is increasing year by year. This means that the, region needs more and more child protection organizations and the few who offer the service are burdened. With an initiative dubbed ‘let us protect the minority’, the women in this state are finding it easier to handle cases of child abuse with each other before they are brought to this organization. The state has also assisted this particular organization by providing funds for the organization. (Darnell, James, and Downey, 2002) How this project will affect me as a teacher There is an indelible imprint in today’s society whereby social injustices are not usually visible due to the fact that they are not only complex but also multiple in nature. To make them visible, it requires social actors and leaders like me who will have some sense of responsibility with others and towards each other. To face this challenge, strategic investigations should be developed and improved to develop leaders and provide them with resources, knowledge and skills which will in turn equip leaders with desire and ability to take actions that will initiate change and improve social justice in the society. By examining the paradigm which have in the past dominated the teaching social justice, such as child discrimination and child abuse, I will be benefiting as teacher in helping not only my own children but also the students I teach in class. (Wink, 2005) When applying self-efficacy and researching a project such this one I have done in this agency, teachers like me will be able to understand the requirements of the students and the societal needs in terms of protection of children. In this strategy, more of the teachers would keep records of what is happening in the society at the moment and relate them to what is in the course contents. In this strategy, the leaders will be able to connect real life situations and the learning process. These techniques and strategies may serve as a means of modifying the way skills and teaching practices are applied. This self-efficacy is the belief in one’s ability to perform a certain task with regard to executing specified behaviors successfully. The strategy therefore eludes any form of mismanagement and therefore it will be possible to have the right leaders in future. Conclusion Kinder Emergency Shelter (KES) is one of the many non-governmental organizations that help in rectifying social justice misuse in Texas. It has been able to assist millions of families recover and educate their children in the best way possible. This is an example of an organization which should be emulated and supported financially and morally. Since this organization intends to extend its services to other needy areas such as Illinois, Oregon and Minnesota where cases of child abuse and racial discrimination has been reported to be highest it might need more support as people may not be aware of the funding procedures of the Agency.. As they say, there are many things we can build together; build rockets, rescue flood victims, compete in sports but the most important thing is that we protect the children. References Alice G. & Ernest, P; (2007): An interview with Ms Alice and Mr. Ernest of Kinder Emergency Shelter, conducted on 6th Sep, 2007, Harris County, Texas. Darnell, A., James, W. and Downey, D. B. (2002): Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance: - American Sociological Review 63: 536-553. Delpit, L. (2006): Other people’s children; cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press Leah, V., & Judy, H. (2004): Identifying race and transforming whiteness in the classroom. New York: Peter Lang Wink, J (2005): Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world. Boston: Person education Inc. Read More