Family Support Strategies

Parents and children will be divided into groups and on occasion join together for group sessions (“Strengthening Families Program”, n.d.). The age of the children are broken down into 4 groups consisting of: pre-school 3-5 years, elementary school 6-11 years, junior high 10-14 years, early teens and high school 12-16 years (“Strengthening Families Program”, n.d.). The group of children that I will be facilitating is the early teens and high school. The outlines for the sessions are as follows: session 1: getting started and dreams, session 2: speaking and listening, session 3: staying cool in conflicts, session 4: being who you want to be, session 5: speaking for yourself, session 6: speaking up in your family, session 7: handling peer pressure and temptation, session 8: alcohol and drugs, session 9: problem Solving, session 10: friends dating and sexuality, session 11: managing emotions, session 12: handling criticism, session 13: coping with anger, and session 14: resources, review and

In conclusion, my research will primarily contribute new theoretical challenges to counselling, psychotherapy, culture, policies, laws, theories, and systems. The empirical data from fieldwork, combined with my theoretical approach, will benefit researchers in other fields such as Psychology, Social Work, Sociology, Gender Studies, Christian and Cross-Cultural Studies. The results of my findings will challenge existing assessment and treatment approaches that exclude spirituality, faith and culture. They will also lead to the inclusion of spiritual and cultural assessments and treatment in mental health treatment programs. In addition, the findings may prove that combination therapy can lead to a more successful outcome in counselling therapy for individuals with trauma diagnosis; they may also prove that people suffering from intense psychological and psychosocial distress like PTSD can benefit from

Children born into poverty are more likely to have social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral problems. In addition, children in poverty are more likely to have physical health problems, mental health problems, and mothers receive less prenatal care. For instance, a child born in poverty is more likely to have a lower birth weight than his or her counterparts. Low birth rate is a contributing factor in infant mortality within the first year of the child’s life. Additionally, children born in poverty have lower IQ test scores and have less school achievements when compared to their counterparts. Because poverty impacts cognitive development more than physical, it is likely, that poverty will persist through subsequent generations. Further, nutrition, or the lack of, is one factor that contributes to the development of a child. One study suggests that children in poverty are twenty-two times more likely to suffer from maltreatment than those children not in poverty. The poverty rate in comparison state is twenty-two percent, which is the second highest in the country and equal to the national rate of children living in poverty. Children born into poverty, on average, live in poverty until he or she is eight years old. Therefore, it is important to provide services to people living in poverty to help them understand their situation and provide them with the resources necessary to break the poverty cycle.

As a helping professional focused on child welfare, educational resources are essential to provide children with adequate support. Often times, the children’s’ advocates, caregivers and volunteers, need assistance connecting with the school to secure social work services. There have been countless occurrences where the child is faltering academically and the school is unaware that they are in foster care. The teachers are overworked and unable to identity which children are in the greatest need because there are many who struggle. Linking the advocates with social workers will help increase the likelihood of the children’s success. Increasing the awareness of the children’s advocates, informing them of the available resources, enhances their support system. An interview was conducted with a social worker for several public schools to increase awareness of the free services offered to families and children within the district.

Family involvement and support is critical to ensure positive outcomes in education and employment and productive community ties for all youth. Family involvement an essential element of transition planning as families are continuous advocates and supporters for their students whose partnership has effect on graduation rates, employment and achievement of other post school outcomes (Wandry & Pleet, 2012) . Families and youth in transition must access a wealth of information and support to ensure their youth's success. (Pleet-Odle, Aspel, Leuchovius, Roy & Hawkins, 2013; Jennings, 2012; Turnbull & Test, 2016) Schools and other human service systems need to view the families as key influencers of youth

Mrs. McKenzie has been teaching for over twenty years. During her early career she worked at a Montessori school for children between 12-months and ten years of age. For the past ten years Mrs. Mckenzie has worked in the Florida School system as a pre-K teacher. Working in the Head Start program has been a roller coaster of successes and hard situations for Mrs. McKenzie. The Head Start program accepts only children from low-income households. Various research has proven that students coming from families of low socioeconomic class typically don’t achieve the same level of academia of their peers coming from families of higher socioeconomic status. Working with these students is difficult for all types of reasons, such as language barriers, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. Most of Mrs. McKenzie’s students have never had prior schooling and come from foreign speaking homes so not only are they coming into the new environment of school but linguistically they are completely frazzled for the first few months(if not years) of school. Despite these difficulties Mrs. McKenzie cries every time these children leave her at the closing of the school year. She loves being able to watch these curious, young minds blossom in ways they had never

Interventions that seek to address specific stressors typically give accurate information, counteract pathological appraisals, teach problem solving strategies, teach affect awareness and regulatory skills and provide social support. However, Sandler et al. note that it is unknown how the programmes achieve the positive effects.

As a service coordinator, it is our job to provide support, coaching, referrals, and resources needed so that the family and children involved in EI are able to achieve their outcomes and successfully function once discharged out of Early Intervention. Although I am only beginning my journey as a service coordinator, I have been assigned to work with over 40 families of different incomes, races, ethnicities, and cultures. As a service coordinator I find the most intrinsic value when working for families of oppressed populations. In my own personal experience as a member of a minority Hispanic culture and f families of minority cultures are less likely to be educated on early childhood development and the importance of intervening as soon as possible. For that reason, I try my best to provide as much education as possible around the strategies I bring forth to assist the child, which often includes articles, offering workshop sessions and bringing in additional therapists onto the team. In addition to working with families of minority cultures, many children are often referred to early intervention through the department of children youth and families. Families involved in dcyf are often experiencing many difficult circumstances including no housing, mental illness, domestic abuse and many others. These circumstances often leave families feeling vulnerable, helpless, and without options. It is especially crucial and important to provide support and guidance to help empower

When appropriate, facilitate the adaptive expression of anger of one family member in order to block the recurrent problematic behavior of another

I believe in GOD, FAMILY and SOLDIERS…I believe in Family Readiness Groups. I have an Open Door Policy, and I will treat you with respect.

Doctor Forma Walsh developed the resilience approach in 2003. Doctor Walsh describes her approach as the “healing, transformation and growth out of crisis, trauma and loss” (Walsh, 2003, p.49)

In this study, various principles for the development of effective programs were identified. These principles included, but were not limited to: Being theory driven, being developmentally appropriate, ensuring sociocultural relevance, focusing on positive relationships, being comprehensive, using varied teaching methods, using appropriate timing, using well-trained staff, conducting an outcome evaluation, and providing documentation. Understanding these principles resulted in the use of the HOPE program because of the ecological theory. This theory states that, “A child’s development is shaped by the interaction of both nature and nurture, including the child’s biogenetic makeup, his/her experiences and interactions with others in the family, the school and the wider social environment;” therefore, the ecological theory explains why the use of the HOPE program is necessary.

The aim of this test is to provide the development of a test measurement instrument, specifically looking at the perceptions of organisational family support. The test used with regards to this construct will be an adaptation of the Survey of Perceived Organisational Support (SPOS) measure developed by Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison & Sowa (1986).

A study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, concludes that caring for a child with health problems profoundly affects the physical health, mental health and work attendance of parents.

The family consists of two adults, Mr. Jonathan Jonathan, 30 years old Caucasian male, Ms. Recipe Jonathan, 27 years old Caucasian female, and 2 children, Mary Jonathan, 4 years old and Kailyn Jonathan, 3 years old. The family has occupied the current residence for the last two and half years (May 2014- current). The house is owned by Mr. Jonathan’s father. He has given it to the family, they do not pay rent, and the present housing appears to be stable. The family reports having no difficulty meeting financial obligations although Mr. Jonathan’s income varies month to month. Ms. Jonathan is unemployed and has filed for disability benefits. Mr. Jonathan is a Direct TV contractor and his income varies greatly. In a peak season he makes as much as $3000 and during an off season he make only $500. Ms. Jonathan reported receiving SNAP benefits in the amount of 521.00 monthly. Sometime income is limited but not sufficient enough to meet the family’s needs. Ms. Jonathan denies using outside resources other than SNAP benefits. Ms. Jonathan and the children have Wellcare medical insurance, but Mr. Jonathan is uninsured. Ms. Jonathan reports having no budgeting strategy or spending priorities. Mr. Jonathan reported he does not have any outstanding debt. The family meets basic nutritional needs; however, Ms. Jonathan reported that they eat only two meals (Brunch and dinner and snacks in between). The children have been observed as wearing clothing appropriate to the season and they