Preventative Services for Vulnerable Children - Essay Example

Can the Provision of Preventative Services really make a Difference to the Lives of the most Vulnerable Children in our Society Vulnerable children Vulnerable children are those who are deprived of their primary line of protection i.e. parents. The reasons include loss of parents or guardians, loss of contact from them, children separated from parents while seeking refuge, prolonged hospitalization, conviction and placement of children in juvenile courts. Though the reasons may vary the main reason is separation from parents. Such children deprived of their primary line of protection often fall victims of violence, exploitation, etc. Separation from parents across international boundaries even results in the child's death. Those children who manage to survive fall victims to malnutrition, illness, sexual abuse etc. (UNICEF, 2008) A child in midst of HIV is vulnerable to global crisis. They lack basic nutrition, schooling, and an added burden of discrimination from the rest. Social care for the vulnerable children is a priority issue for government and local authorities. In response to such issues the UK government has launched a variety of reforms such as children act and every child matters. There are also a number of private agencies taking up similar services. Children Act 2004 This act was passes by the U.K. government to provide services for children and young people, adoption of new panels, child safety orders, and publishing material for those children involved in legal proceedings. This act ensures that every child should be given the support to lead a healthy life by providing proper medical diagnosis and treatment, to lead a threat free and safety life, to learn and understand life, to achieve through learning, make a positive contribution to the society in any form that is possible for them, to achieve economic well-being and to improve the status of the family. (Opsi, 2008) Every Child Matters: Change for Children (2003) is the programme of local and national action through which the whole system transformation of children's services described in Every Child Matters is being implemented. A range of guidance documents has been produced to assist local partners in delivering this programme, including statutory guidance under the Children Act 2004. 'The government created the Every Child Matters agenda in 2003 as a new approach which would integrate all work done with children and families on a continuum from universal services for all children to the targeted work with the most vulnerable' quote Pugh ,and Duffy (2006:188,189) To children and families this means easy access to information and advice, easy means of support and assurance of well being of children at risk. There are a number of provisions made according to the children act. This act seeks to strengthen the existing notification arrangements for private fostering, with a power to introduce a registration scheme if these notification schemes do not prove to be effective. It tries to clarify and simplify the registration of child minders and providers of day care. This act makes provision for the level of payments to be made to foster parents caring for looked after children placed with them by local authorities and to foster parents caring for children placed with them by voluntary organizations and also provides for an extension of inspection powers. This creates a new duty for local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked after children and an associated power to transmit data relating to individual children. This tends to remove now unnecessary provisions in relation to social services committees. This act allows for the payment of fees to adopt review panel members and restricts the grounds on which the battery of a child may be justified as reasonable punishment. It provides grants to be paid across the range of children, young people and family services. In addition to all the above mentioned provisions, this act also seeks to give the Children's Commissioner for Wales the power to enter premises, other than private homes, to interview children when reviewing and monitoring the functions of and arrangements made by the Assembly and other specified persons. Improving the lives of vulnerable children Child welfare services are designed to ensure the safety of children. As such, they include a broad range of activities, including supporting and preserving families, investigating reports of abuse or neglect, protecting victimized children, and assisting children temporarily or permanently removed from their parents' homes, prevention of crime thereby reducing the number of juvenile delinquents etc. Of late the service providers have recognized that the families seeking assistance face complex problems and needs. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families provides job opportunities for such families. The families face abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues which interferes with their retaining their jobs. TANF has also recognized that their clients also need financial assistance to provide better care for their children (Center for Law and Social Policy, 2005). Davies (2000:125-132) opines that the changing pattern of family, marriage, divorce etc also affects the emotional well-being of vulnerable children. Newman and Blackburn (2002) provide effective strategies such as promotion of resilience which is a key feature in helping children to cope with periods of transition. Resilience is the maintenance of competent functioning despite an interfering emotionality. A resilient child is one who exhibits positive adaptation in circumstances where one can exhibit degradation of behaviour. The promotion of resilience has a close associativity to self-esteem. In most cases self-esteem is a positive factor and is most welcomed. Key concepts to resilience are strong social support networks, presence of one supportive parent or guardian, positive school experiences and committed mentors and participation in many extra-curricular activities to improve self-esteem. By making children resilient their lives can be greatly improved. City of York Council has developed a new strategy to improve services to vulnerable children and youths in London. The aim is to provide adequate services to children and to reduce the number of children with vulnerability. Such children are identified and the preventative services are provided and progress is monitored. Every council under his scheme should maintain a directory of vulnerable children and the service being offered along with the level of intervention, (City of York Council, 2004). In April 2005, the UK government distributed nearly 4 billion through a Formula Spending Share (FSS) system for children's social services. But the effectiveness of the formula used for calculation cannot be trusted (London council, 2007). Crime Prevention The next step to improve the lives of vulnerable children is crime reduction. These include primary, secondary and tertiary interventions that support vulnerable children and their families, reduce youth offending etc. The intervention should be provided before abuse incidents occur; interventions should be of sufficient duration and reflect the characteristics and dynamics of the problems they are trying to address, the intervention should be delivered by highly trained and skilled interventionists, child welfare programs should shift from a deficit model to one of fostering parents' strengths and empowering them to take control over services, monetary support, and informational sources and support and empowerment must occur within communities rather than solely within individuals and agencies. McAuley, Pecora and Rose (2006:21-25) examine the interventions made to improve the life of vulnerable children. Primary Prevention This involves preventing circumstances that may lead to offensive practices. This is an early intervention for vulnerable children and their families, which includes home visiting, parenting support, specialized support for physically and mentally challenged children. This scheme has a profitable effect on crime prevention. Addressing the factors of family and providing appropriate remedy has social and economic benefits and at the same time it is cost effective. Secondary Prevention This involves reducing the likelihood of youth being involved and becoming persistent offenders. This includes increased capacity of care and protection, youth justice services etc. Sentencing options for juvenile delinquents is also currently being discussed. Tertiary Prevention This involves addressing favors to reduce the behavior of habitual criminal. This scheme provides social support services to individuals and their families by discussing with them the causes for criminal doings and eliminating them at an early stage. This requires an inter-agency action. Situational crime prevention involves those activities that make crime a difficult task to commit. This can successfully reduce violent activists and serious offenders. Reducing children involvement in such activities in tandem with funding and other reforms can greatly improve the lives of such orphans and vulnerable children. Dulcan and Jerry (2004:1020-1024) suggest that intervention of families plays a vital role in improving the lives of vulnerable children. Protecting children from abuses of society The plans like National Plan improve the lives of vulnerable children by safeguarding children from commercial sexual exploitation. The Regulation of Care Act 2001 will improve the quality of care across the country and these activities monitor and protect the most vulnerable group of children. This plan has three key areas of focus. Child Prostitution: To ensure that the guidance published by the Government in May 2000 on Safeguarding Children Involved in Prostitution is being properly implemented across the country. A study is currently being conducted to review how the guidance is being implemented and to assess its impact. Promoting guidance on the safe use of the internet to parents, schools and children: Recent Government action in this area includes the creation of a Task Force on child protection on the Internet. Representatives from across the field and will be working to make the UK the safest place in the world for children to use the Internet. The Task Force has reported progress so far to the Home Secretary on the following proposals - Internet chat safety measures for service providers, awareness training for child protection officers and a public awareness campaign to deliver clear safety messages to Internet users. International issues The importance of international co-operation in combating the commercial sexual exploitation of children is recognized. Closer links are being established internationally to learn and understand share training, good practice and the exchange of information on sexual crimes against children. There is also a need for close co-operation with relevant non government organizations and international organizations to research the scale, frequency and nature of the sexual exploitation of children. The UK Working Group on orphans and vulnerable children ensures that special assistance is provided for children affected by HIV and AIDS. This involves providing medical assistance for the prevention and treatment of HIV infected children, provision of free health services for such children, provision of support for simple diagnosis, assurance of human rights for all vulnerable children, provision of education for such children, improvisation of children's morale, assurance of safety form other syndromes etc. These practices tend to improve the health status of vulnerable children and protect them against societal abuses. Health care and Social Care Aubrey and Dahl (2005) state that the effective practices for engaging with vulnerable children can be addressed through reviewing the effectiveness of strategies of interviewing vulnerable children. Focus groups and interviews state that children hold many valid views related to their roles and relationship to the service providers and others. Jagger (2007) suggests many child therapy services to improve the morale of vulnerable children. Play therapy skills have an important role in evaluating child therapy practice. The challenge is to find out the correct method that would reflect the child's view. Health visiting service is unique among nursing professionals and is influenced by social, economical and philosophical factors. 'Health visiting service offers preventive health care to individuals, vulnerable children and their families in groups and seeks to influence health agendas' quotes Polnay (2002:205-211). The ultimate aim of health visiting is the attainment of 4 principles which include the search for health needs, the stimulation of awareness of health needs, influence on policies affecting health and facilitation of health enhancing services at individual, family and community levels. Educating vulnerable children Statistics shows that nearly 50,000 children are currently being looked after in London. Children looked after by local authorities perform poorly in school and are at a great risk of dropping out. Cox, (1999:65-67) examines the characteristics of such children being looked after and educated by the local authorities. Kendall, Nancy, O'Gara and Chloe (2007) suggest that the growing number of vulnerable children poses a threat to the achievement of Education For All (EFA). Recommendations assign key roles to schools to meet the needs of vulnerable children. These children also suffer from discrimination due to their economic and medical background. To help ensure that orphans and vulnerable children receive education, programmes should promote regular school attendance, with particular attention given to girls' education and the constraints that prevent them from attending school. Schools should be strengthened to serve as community resources and information centres. Psychosocial care and counseling can be incorporated community and school-based efforts to provide emotional support to vulnerable children and adolescents. There is a particularly important need to strengthen life skills-based education - not only to reduce vulnerability to HIV infection, but also including life skills related to living with HIV affected families, including caring for sick family members and sibling care. The government of UK has established the team for vulnerable children and young people who raise the standard of the vulnerable group of children and youth and improve their educational outcome. This group of people works with people in care, social workers, offer advice and training to people involved in educating vulnerable children in cares. The main areas of focus include improved attendance, reduced expulsions, Tracking progress and acknowledging improvements. The support also gives short term case work to secondary age children. The work includes establishing a supportive relationship with the young people and key adults and holding one-to-one small group sessions based on a child-centered and solution based approach. The UK education system is classified into various types based on the group of vulnerable children they work with. One group under an officer responsible for Education support for children in cares, works with schools, social cares etc ad monitor and collect data relating to education of vulnerable children and offer advice and training to those directly involved in educating such children. An inclusion officer is responsible for Education support for Gypsy, Roma and Travelers. He collects the attendance percentage of all Gypsy and traveler pupils and he also develops good relationship with children and families. Education support for pregnant teenagers is headed by a teenage pregnancy inclusion officer who works with school age mothers and mothers to be. The main aim is to increase their attendance as long as possible before and after child birth. Education support for refugees and asylum seekers works with schools having the largest number of refugee children. Support is provided for children in classrooms, at homework and other revision clubs. Education support for young carers works under a support officer who works to reduce exclusions from schools and promote inclusion, attendance and emotional well-being. (Southampton, 2008) Difference in the lives of vulnerable children The above mentioned services along with the other welfare services such as increased services, proper pediatric care and support, social welfare assistance and other rehabilitation schemes have greatly improved the lives of many vulnerable children and orphans. Minority children and adolescents saw improvements on many measures. For example black children and adolescents had a good access to preventive services after such reforms were administered. Corkers, Scott (2006) suggest that the relationship between practice and research and policy in improving the morale and emotional well-being of vulnerable children is a complex issue. Such children are vulnerable as regard to physical and mental health conditions. Efforts should be made by researchers and practitioners to identify and fill the gap in our knowledge about the emotional well-being of vulnerable children so that a proper step can be taken in the positive direction. Statistics shows that the preventive services have greatly modified the number of children living below poverty, living with disabilities etc. This has brought a great difference to the lives of such children. The percentage of children living without homes has greatly been modified has also resulted in decreasing the percentage of state population living below the poverty line. Children are being provided their education and the percent of high school graduation has greatly improved. Use of nursing homes and similar institutions has been declined by 12% while community placements have increased by 37%. Many families have been transformed from the state of long term public dependence to a state of self sufficiency. The percentage of children placed in foster care has greatly declined while the percentage of students with extended family member s has greatly increased. Outcomes Many reforms are targeted towards mentoring children aged 5-11 years based on individual needs. It works with children who may be vulnerable in the future towards anti social activities, crime involvement, violence etc. Such children have behavioral difficulties, inability to concentrate on their school work and difficulties in making friends. Such reforms have shown great improvement in the life and behavior of vulnerable children. Parents and mentors have seen an improvement in anger management, frustration management and self control. The children are also being able to manage criticism. Some children were even aware of the changes in their behavior and the fact that they are able to control their anger seems as a positive stimulant. There has also been a considerable improvement in children's relationships with their fellow members, teaches and elders. There has been 45% improvement in sharing and turn taking which is the basis of a social life. Another secondary benefit that is very closely related to improvement in behavior is the development of social skills. Confidence is the one attribute that parents, children and mentors all believed had increased in the children during the course of the mentoring. Parents have noted that their children are kinder, particularly towards their siblings. Children are able to listen and they are more nice and kind after mentoring. After such reforms were administered academic attainment has also been increased. Parents have noted that their children like school. Reading skills have improved greatly and children have developed interest towards learning. There has been a great improvement in concentration, literacy, and numeric and a reduction of school exclusions (national schools, 2005). The other benefits include improved outcomes for children and young people. This has far reaching impacts in the lives of vulnerable children. The financial efficiency of such families and children has greatly been improved. Education results in better utilization of staff. The children are protected form the abuses of society and other factors of risk. Above all, these changes tend to improve the morale of vulnerable children. Conclusion The success of vulnerable children lies in the hands of those who realize that the arts such as dance, music and other visual arts hold a key to their vulnerability Assurance of access to quality health care for vulnerable children is very important. Health is a key factor in determining and enhancing their learning ability. Service providers must invest in a steady and continuous stream of funding for publicly financed health care for low-income children and parents, as well as other services that connect these children with health care services. The provision of preventive services to vulnerable children has seen improvement in their lives. Protection and medical care improves the health condition. Funding improves the economic background of such children while mentoring and education can improve the morale of such children. It is the duty of the government to monitor al these services and ensure that they are delivered at proper outlets. Also through parental guidance and support from school authorities, the lives of vulnerable children can greatly be improved and this world can be made into a much happier place to live in. References Carol Aubrey and Sarah Dahl (2005), 'Children's Voices: The Views of Vulnerable Children on Their Service Providers and the Relevance of Services They Receive', British journal of social work, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 21-39, viewed 16 Mar 2008. Theodore Cox, (1999) Combating Educational Disadvantage: Meeting the Needs of Vulnerable children, Routledge, London. Leon Polnay (2002) Community Paediatrics , Elsevier Health Sciences, Amsterdam. Gillian Pugh, Bernadette Duffy(2006), Contemporary Issues in the Early Years, Sage, India Jane Aldgate (2007), Enhancing Social Work Management, Jessica Kingsley, United States. Colette McAuley, Peter J. Pecora, Wendy Rose (2006) Enhancing the Well-being of Children and Families through Effective Interventions, Jessica Kingsley, United States. Jessica Jagger (2007), 'Evaluating Clinical Practice: Using Play-based Techniques to Elicit Children's Views of Therapy', Clinical child psychology and psychiatry, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 437-450, viewed 17 Mar 2007. (1995) Every Child Matters Available: http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/B434EAE08179B3F6C1ABC1CB0BB62.pdf Last accessed: 13 Mar 2008. Christine Cocker, Sara Scott (2006), 'Improving the mental and emotional well-being of looked after children: connecting research, policy and practice', The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, vol. 126, no. 1, pp. 18-23, viewed 17 Mar 2008. (February 2003) London Council Available: http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/upload/public/attachments/1139/3_VulnChildren.pdf Last accessed: 13 Mar 2008. (October 2004) National Children's Homes Available: http://www.nch.org.uk/aboutus/index.phpi=551 last accessed: 10 Mar 2008. (2005) National schools Available: http://www.nationalschool.gov.uk/news_events/psrc2007/downloads/casestudies/chance_uk.pdf Last Accessed: 15 Mar 2008 (October 2006) Office of Public Sector Information Available:http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2004/en/ukpgaen_20040031_en1 last accessed: 12 Mar 2008. (1998) Scotland National Party Available: http://www.snp.org/press-releases/2007/improving-services-for-vulnerable-children last accessed: 13 Mar2008. (2008) Available: http://www.southampton.gov.uk/childrenandlearning/cslpro/educationpro/edvul/childcare.asp Last Accessed: 14 Mar 2008 Mina K. Dulcan, Jerry M. Wiener (2004), Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Pub, Inc, Arlington. Martin Davies (2000), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Social Work, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK. Tony Newman and Sarah Blackburn (2002), 'Transitions in the Lives of Children and Young People: Resilience Factors', Interchange7, viewed 17 Mar 2008. (2003) UNICEF Available: http://www.unicef.org/lifeskills/index_8018.html last accessed: 11 Mar 2008. Rob Geen, Shelley Waters Boots, Karen C. Tumlin, 1999, Urban Institute Available: http://www.urban.org/publications/308046.html last accessed: 13 Mar 2008 Kendall, Nancy,O'Gara, Chloe (2007), 'Vulnerable Children, Communities and Schools: Lessons from Three HIV/AIDS Affected Areas', A Journal of Comparative Education, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 5-21, viewed 16 Mar 2008. (January 2004) City of York Council Available: http://www.york.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2004/january/159011 last accessed:10 Mar 2008 Read More