At Risk Case Study Essay
Arguably one of the most difficult populations to work with, at risk juveniles is a population that undoubtedly needs the help and guidance of those in the field of helping. Posing a great deal of challenges, juveniles have a need for high contact and guidance along every step of the way towards a successful outcome thus meaning that the professionals who work with them must be available and willing to put in a great deal of time and effort into achieving a successful outcome. The behavior of at-risk teens is often times not conducive to being open for help and instead is standoff-ish and hard to work with. This puts a great deal of stress on the professionals working with this client population as they must work to overcome the personal attitudes of the client, their mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing, and all other aspects that are included in being considered a successful adult. In the field today, these at risk youth often seem to be overlooked by many due to the difficult reputations that have seemed to overpower any gleam of hope in the eyes of some
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professionals. These professionals who overlook troubled youth often have the mindset that they are lost causes and that they do not care what happens to them personally and put in no effort so why should a professional. While in some cases this stereotype that follows the youth that find themselves in the care of the system, many simply need guidance and solid reliable figures to anchor down their chaotic and sometimes unfortunate lives. They need someone to step in and be an authoritative figure to handle the pressures of living while the youth have to play catch up on their psychological development. Some youth have histories that involve them being the caretaker of the home when they themselves were just little kids forcing them to forego their own childhood. Often times they do not know the social components of life that an everyday person in public would not even have to think about such as saying please and thank you, how to start conversations, how to ask for things, and the list goes on. Individuals, who find themselves in situations like this and removed from their families due to an inability to live there, are commonly immature compared to their counterparts but more mature in the sense of facing reality. The forming of survival skills seems to take precedence over normal aging and common developmental growth. Starting from young ages, those who find themselves in the care of the state in their teen years, often experienced a multitude of trauma whether it is sexual, physical, mental, or verbal. Experiencing such trauma at the peak developmental years, has a major negative impact on the way that that the youth come to be. They carry with them the effects of the abuse on a daily basis and it can interfere with their ability to form relationships, making rational decisions, and keeping jobs. While children are thought of as being rather resilient, repeated traumas that these youth face pose greater threats in the long run. Mentality is worn down and the likely hood of serious mental health problems rise. “Children in foster care are five times more likely to be diagnosed with depression, four times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, and ten times more likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder than other children, for instance” (Wildenan, 2014 ). The increased vulnerability and susceptibility to mental disorders such as the ones previously mentioned, and the risk of more serious diagnosis, leads to a problem that needs to be fixed.
Youth who enter into the care of the state are not just at a higher rick for mental disorders but also sexual, and various other forms of abuse. This abuse in the system is often times a repeated occurrence of why individuals are taken from their homes. Such instability, abuse, and lack of emotional support lead to a lack of proper coping skills. Without the guidance of how to properly release tension, concerns, and emotions, youth turn to unconventional ways such as lashing out, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. When these instances occur, temporary care takers and workers do not have enough time to properly handle the situation due to over booked workloads. High client caseloads lead to the youth being passed off from one place to another in order to try to de-escalate the situation. Thus, many youth are admitted for short or long term stays at psychiatric facilities instead of having a permanent, long term, stable environment to live in.
Projected life courses may have a negative look without the help of committed individuals to combat the population of at-risk youth.
While it takes many aspects such as different facilities and departments to build a solid case plan for an individual, our current system needs to see an upgrade if more cases are going to be seen as a success. In one study on the transition from foster care to adulthood, “Between 31% and 46% of our study participants had been homeless at least once by age 26 years” (Dwarsky, 2013). A high percentage of youth leaving the foster care system with no permanent family or placement to go to end up homeless at one point or another due to the lack of skills and knowledge provided to them while in the system. The instability faced while in the care of the state carries parallels adulthood and the instability that individuals face with making it and being considered
successful. There need to be changes to the current state of the system so that individuals who find themselves dealing with more stressors and traumatic events as a child such as the abuse and being at the will of the system in care, have a greater chance of not just surviving but thriving and contributing to society. So much energy is focused on the survival aspect of youth while they are in the care of the state and much emphasis is geared towards the legal aspect and business side of things. While there is no way to go around a legal or business aspect of the foster care system , less time should be spent on the paperwork and documentation of redundant or impertinent information. If menial tasks were taken away from the backside of taking care of a youth, the more time could be given to the youth as individuals. More life skills could be taught, working relationships could be formed and modeled, and youth could be better equipped to enter the real world on their own as adults. Youth need help with simple tasks such as personal hygiene and keeping apartments clean that an overloaded worker will not have time to assist with.
One study looked at a solution-based brief therapy practice as a solution to the problem. This form of therapy “is future-focused and goal-directed, and it emphasizes potential solutions to the problems that bring clients to therapy (Cathaleen, 2013). This type of therapy utilizes the skills of the individual along with their goals and desires to work towards a successful outcome. The main goal is to become more self-sufficient which is what youth need to learn if they are going to be expected to make it without a case worker or social worker. Therapies that are focused on teaching useful skills are only applicable if there are individuals willing to teach. There seems to be some disconnect in the high need for services and the low number of staff available. Workers are overworked with caseloads of clients that could be broken down into three different people’s loads. This leads to high stress on the part of the worker as well as the youth as they often times do not get the attention and guidance that they need. When the youth are not happy, the workers can tell and get even more stressed. An already overworked worker often times will break in the stressors from the workload but when the workload consists of difficult teenagers the cycle leads to a high burnout rate. After spending a great deal of time with this population, I have come to see the need and importance for a change in our current system. Handling cases how they are handled currently, seems to produce less than average outcomes. Instilled in the eyes of the youth from very young ages, everyone that they come in contact with seems to leave or give up on them. As a reaction to this they put up walls and build unconventional defense mechanisms that they seem to think is protecting them. These walls and obstacles need to be stopped, and the system needs to be changed. The cycle of abuse, neglect, and instability needs to end and the youth that are susceptible to falling in between the cracks, need to be given a better chance at having the opportunity to survive adulthood. There is a great need and yearning for a more personal standard of care from youth. These conditions of care can only improve if the worker situation is taken care of. More needs to be done to lessen workloads and stress in working with an already challenging population. Once workers are able to focus more attention on individuals, an increase of success stories is sure to come.
professionals. These professionals who overlook troubled youth often have the mindset that they are lost causes and that they do not care what happens to them personally and put in no effort so why should a professional. While in some cases this stereotype that follows the youth that find themselves in the care of the system, many simply need guidance and solid reliable figures to anchor down their chaotic and sometimes unfortunate lives. They need someone to step in and be an authoritative figure to handle the pressures of living while the youth have to play catch up on their psychological development. Some youth have histories that involve them being the caretaker of the home when they themselves were just little kids forcing them to forego their own childhood. Often times they do not know the social components of life that an everyday person in public would not even have to think about such as saying please and thank you, how to start conversations, how to ask for things, and the list goes on. Individuals, who find themselves in situations like this and removed from their families due to an inability to live there, are commonly immature compared to their counterparts but more mature in the sense of facing reality. The forming of survival skills seems to take precedence over normal aging and common developmental growth. Starting from young ages, those who find themselves in the care of the state in their teen years, often experienced a multitude of trauma whether it is sexual, physical, mental, or verbal. Experiencing such trauma at the peak developmental years, has a major negative impact on the way that that the youth come to be. They carry with them the effects of the abuse on a daily basis and it can interfere with their ability to form relationships, making rational decisions, and keeping jobs. While children are thought of as being rather resilient, repeated traumas that these youth face pose greater threats in the long run. Mentality is worn down and the likely hood of serious mental health problems rise. “Children in foster care are five times more likely to be diagnosed with depression, four times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, and ten times more likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder than other children, for instance” (Wildenan, 2014 ). The increased vulnerability and susceptibility to mental disorders such as the ones previously mentioned, and the risk of more serious diagnosis, leads to a problem that needs to be fixed.
Youth who enter into the care of the state are not just at a higher rick for mental disorders but also sexual, and various other forms of abuse. This abuse in the system is often times a repeated occurrence of why individuals are taken from their homes. Such instability, abuse, and lack of emotional support lead to a lack of proper coping skills. Without the guidance of how to properly release tension, concerns, and emotions, youth turn to unconventional ways such as lashing out, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. When these instances occur, temporary care takers and workers do not have enough time to properly handle the situation due to over booked workloads. High client caseloads lead to the youth being passed off from one place to another in order to try to de-escalate the situation. Thus, many youth are admitted for short or long term stays at psychiatric facilities instead of having a permanent, long term, stable environment to live in.
Projected life courses may have a negative look without the help of committed individuals to combat the population of at-risk youth.
While it takes many aspects such as different facilities and departments to build a solid case plan for an individual, our current system needs to see an upgrade if more cases are going to be seen as a success. In one study on the transition from foster care to adulthood, “Between 31% and 46% of our study participants had been homeless at least once by age 26 years” (Dwarsky, 2013). A high percentage of youth leaving the foster care system with no permanent family or placement to go to end up homeless at one point or another due to the lack of skills and knowledge provided to them while in the system. The instability faced while in the care of the state carries parallels adulthood and the instability that individuals face with making it and being considered
successful. There need to be changes to the current state of the system so that individuals who find themselves dealing with more stressors and traumatic events as a child such as the abuse and being at the will of the system in care, have a greater chance of not just surviving but thriving and contributing to society. So much energy is focused on the survival aspect of youth while they are in the care of the state and much emphasis is geared towards the legal aspect and business side of things. While there is no way to go around a legal or business aspect of the foster care system , less time should be spent on the paperwork and documentation of redundant or impertinent information. If menial tasks were taken away from the backside of taking care of a youth, the more time could be given to the youth as individuals. More life skills could be taught, working relationships could be formed and modeled, and youth could be better equipped to enter the real world on their own as adults. Youth need help with simple tasks such as personal hygiene and keeping apartments clean that an overloaded worker will not have time to assist with.
One study looked at a solution-based brief therapy practice as a solution to the problem. This form of therapy “is future-focused and goal-directed, and it emphasizes potential solutions to the problems that bring clients to therapy (Cathaleen, 2013). This type of therapy utilizes the skills of the individual along with their goals and desires to work towards a successful outcome. The main goal is to become more self-sufficient which is what youth need to learn if they are going to be expected to make it without a case worker or social worker. Therapies that are focused on teaching useful skills are only applicable if there are individuals willing to teach. There seems to be some disconnect in the high need for services and the low number of staff available. Workers are overworked with caseloads of clients that could be broken down into three different people’s loads. This leads to high stress on the part of the worker as well as the youth as they often times do not get the attention and guidance that they need. When the youth are not happy, the workers can tell and get even more stressed. An already overworked worker often times will break in the stressors from the workload but when the workload consists of difficult teenagers the cycle leads to a high burnout rate. After spending a great deal of time with this population, I have come to see the need and importance for a change in our current system. Handling cases how they are handled currently, seems to produce less than average outcomes. Instilled in the eyes of the youth from very young ages, everyone that they come in contact with seems to leave or give up on them. As a reaction to this they put up walls and build unconventional defense mechanisms that they seem to think is protecting them. These walls and obstacles need to be stopped, and the system needs to be changed. The cycle of abuse, neglect, and instability needs to end and the youth that are susceptible to falling in between the cracks, need to be given a better chance at having the opportunity to survive adulthood. There is a great need and yearning for a more personal standard of care from youth. These conditions of care can only improve if the worker situation is taken care of. More needs to be done to lessen workloads and stress in working with an already challenging population. Once workers are able to focus more attention on individuals, an increase of success stories is sure to come.