Ecological Theory Summary Paper

While practicing social work it is important to understand how an individual’s system and environment can

Throughout the world there are many homeless individuals who are in need of help. Many of these people have trouble finding a job or a way to help themselves get stable. Not a lot of the homeless know how to handle money or illnesses they have developed. Many homeless also suffer from addictions and are in need of rehabilitation programs. The cause of these illnesses or drug problems can be related to the fact that when growing up they suffered from different life changes and expectations within the bio ecological theory or context. For my Service Learning Project I have implemented a project that I believe will help the homeless community with their second chance.

Events such as the Poor People’s March in Washington D.C., the airing of “Hunger in America” on CBS, and the National Nutrition Survey of 1967 all brought widespread attention to the issue of poverty, hungry, poor nutrition trends, and lack of healthy food resources for pregnant women, mothers, infants, and children in low income households and communities through heavy media coverage in the 1960s. With these issues heavily publicized by media outlets around the country, citizens now had a bird’s eye view of impoverished women and children with scarce options to effectively alleviate hunger in their households on a consistent basis, let alone have consistent access to healthy foods. Society often

According to Gardiner and Kosmitzki (2008), most recently the ecological perspective has become a leading approach towards addressing the relationships among persons and environment. In Essentials of Human Behavior, Hutchinson (2013) uses a multidimensional approach to better understand social work practice. Using this approach, one can analyze the connection between a client’s person, such as psychologically or biologically, a client’s environment, such as families or communities, and a client’s time, such as their linear time in past, present, or future. Specifically analyzing the environmental component, Uri Bronfenbrenner’s (1999) ecological perspective identifies four levels of systems a client may be associated with: microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, and macrosystems.

Social work has long recognized the relationship between the behavior of an individual and the environment in which the individual interacts (Hutchison, 2008). Human behavior theories offer a framework to organize, interpret and understand this relationship (Hutchison, 2008). For this case study, the following three theories will be examined for relevancy: Life cycle theory, role theory and resiliency theory.

Purpose: To persuade my audience to feed people in America that are less fortunate than we are.

In our advertisement for Feeding America, my group appealed to our audience of classmates and Ms. Buescher through the relatability and necessity of proper nutrition. My group, consisting of Irene, Nia, and myself, spoke about hunger because we realized the importance of a proper diet and how our audience could understand the urgent necessity for hunger relief in America. Our audience may not have originally understood the scale of hunger in America, so we provided a statistic to show that one out of every eight people face hunger. This and other devices, such as the image, additional statistics, and textual explanation, were used to persuade the audience to donate to Feeding America.

Cities increasingly grapple with homelessness, while facing budget cuts to various services, but the failure to tackle homelessness creates more problems. While there are homeless people who are on drugs, some are there because housing is expensive and they have no reliable sources of income. Homelessness may result in the city spending more on welfare in a never ending cycle without finding a solution to homelessness. There are various factors associated with the risk of homelessness, including individual factors like those fleeing domestic abuse, and even those who can longer earn a living because of health conditions and disabilities. The problem of homelessness is further compounded when the homeless suffer mental health issues and alcohol or drug dependence (Benston, 2015). Homelessness is a problem that affects even the youth, and stakeholders ought to work together to tackle the problem, as city officials, and residents are the audience who should be concerned with the problem at the local level.

Discuss Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and how it applies to the plight of children in the European migrant crisis

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “Forty-nine million Americans live in food insecure households in today 's society”. This is the problem that the current SNAP program isn’t addressing, that funding is not enough to help these forty-nine million Americans struggling to get enough food to feed themselves and their families. We need to provide them the food that they need in order to survive, but we also must devise a plan to give them the healthiest and inexpensive choices that they deserve. For example, why would it make sense that on average a box of strawberries is more expensive than a bag of chips and it holds less nutritional value? For those that are poor in our society and cannot afford healthy eating, they

The reality of homeless people in the South Bronx district of Hunts Point is still on the rise today. Everywhere a bystander goes whether in the parks, streets, trains, buses, unoccupied lots, under bridge landscapes, and cities they are likely to see a homeless person struggling to survive. The Hunts Point neighborhood deserves to be an affordable, safe, comfortable place to live in, and not to be forgotten, and not to be left in the streets with uncertainty. In today’s society, a lot of people tune out the homelessness situation that is surrounding them because they are so driven by work and money to make a livelihood, but at the same time, they can be placed in this situation and loss of a home and assets. For example, psychologist Abraham

Facilitated activities for the California Department of Health Services, Prevention and Nutrition Section: Champions for Change. As a community leader, I was in charge of delivering Champion for Change nutrition education information. I participated in several events such as the Fruits and Veggie Fest and grocery store demos. During both events, I was able to reach out to both English and Spanish speaking community members and share Champion for Change recipes and promote the consumption of fruits and vegetables and a healthier lifestyle. I interacted with kids by playing nutrition related games and shared with parents tips and information packets from the Champions for Change material.

Food stamps are government-issued coupons for low income families. People in America like to take advantage of those coupons and use them for unhealthy food and drinks. In SNAP households, soft drinks are ranked the second highest purchase (Tanner). SNAP is the formerly known program for food stamps. In one study, low income women admitted their babies into a government nutrition assistance program. Researchers confirmed that “The rate of youngsters at risk for obesity fell during the study, from almost 15 percent in 2010 to 12 percent overall in 2014” (Tanner). In that study, the government took control of what food stamps were available, and the obesity rates fell among the families. Additionally, another survey published by SNAP provides a glimpse into the shopping cart of a typical house. As said by a group of Stanford researchers, “Banning sugary drinks for SNAP would be expected to significantly reduce obesity prevalence and type 2 diabetes incidence” (O’Connor). Here, it means, that instead of promoting unhealthy food, the government can give out food stamps that are a healthier alternative for the public . Although this may be true, some people consider that it is society’s responsibility to be healthy. Ryan Schwertfeger, president of the Student Senate concludes, “Those who make healthy choices will have no reason to suffer or worry about those

Its Dine Out For No Hungry Kid is an annual event in September which draws members of the food industry and consumers together to help fundraise and promote awareness about childhood hunger in America (Crutchfield & McLeod Grant, 2012). The Bake Sale For No Kid Hungry is a nationwide event encouraging people to organize bake sales in their towns to further raise money and donate it to the No Kid Hungry Campaign to fight against childhood hunger (Share Our Strength n.d.; Crutchfield & McLeod Grant, 2012). Taste the Nation, one of the nonprofit’s oldest and largest fundraising campaigns, brings chefs from around the country to contribute their time and effort to an assortment of events supporting the No Kid Hungry cause (CITE). Share Our Strength jointly puts on the Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival to bring fine dining experience to attendees while educating them on the quest to fight childhood hunger. This event raises awareness about Share Our Strength’s cause while the proceeds go to nonprofits who fight against hunger in

The ecological theory of development that was proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005), is relevant to state all of our lives. Bronfenbrenner’s research demonstrates how our development is affected by the environment in which we live. The model consist of five major systems; microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. "Ecological systems theory is an approach to study of human development that consists of the scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation, throughout the life course, between an active, growing human being, and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives, as this process is affected by the relations between these settings, and by the larger