Prevention versus Treatment of Chronic Illnesses and Childhood Mental Illness

Every parent who has a child suffering from a psychological disorder that affects their behavior dreads a new school year. This means new teachers not aware of the disorder, more parent-teacher conferences, and more pressure to medicate the child. The most common and well known behavioral disorders are Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The toddler and preschool years in a child’s life are very important and there are many programs that have been implemented to ensure a quality life. As a result, programs such as: (a) Head Start, (b) Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and (c) Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children all were created to adhere to children ages 1-4. First, the federal Head Start program was launched in 1965 as a part of President Johnson’s “war on poverty” (Kotch, 2013, p.152). Head Start was a national initiative to help improve the odds of an impoverished child succeeding in life. This program provides child care, parent education, and monitors children’s nutritional and emotional status. The second program implemented

One of the biggest criticisms that Managed Mental health has received is that because of the way the managed care system works in regards to reducing cost utilization, then Managed mental health care could limit access (Boyle & Callahan.1995). However, in reality, there is a belief and some empirical evidence that Medicaid managed behavioral health care for children enhances access to care and that patients are more likely to obtain services in a timely and appropriate manner than under financially restrictive, traditional fee-for-service care (Boyle & Callahan, 1995). Regardless of this, the Surgeon General 's 1999 comprehensive report on mental health noted the seriousness of the problem and estimated that 70% of children needing mental health services do not receive those (Mennen & Trickett, 2007). Therefore, focusing on

In addition, public policies are conceptualized as potentially targeting any of these sets of factors (selection factors, dimensions of poverty, mediating mechanisms, or child outcomes).” (Yoshikawa et al., 2012) In other words, they designed a framework that can be used to observe and review the selection process and mechanisms that affect the mental, emotional and behavioral health of poor children in hopes of providing approaches that can help decrease existing poverty and avert future

The true long-term effectiveness of early intervention programs such as Head Start is difficult to measure. The “Early Children Education Program” paper by Janet Currie provides various studies to which all present either weak statistical significance or some other potential factors that may have influenced the long-term outcomes. This is mainly due to poorly designed studies such as non-randomization. Inconclusive evidence of a true long-term effect of early intervention hinders well-supported arguments for public policy to fund these programs.

A. Prevention or treatment of this problem means a change of attitude, developing a healthy lifestyle, including physical activity and healthy food and drink choices.

An increasing body of evidence shows that children’s earliest experiences in early care and education programs play a major role on their later success as healthy individuals. However, low-income children may not experience school readiness gains

Golos, A. Sarid, M., Weintraub, N. (2011). Efficacy of an early intervention program for at-risk preschool boys: A two-group control study. American Journal of Therapy, 65, 400-408. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2011.000455.

Many research studies have been conducted to determine what early interventions have proven most effective with at-risk youth. According to recent studies such as those conducted by Ferdon et al (2014), prevention and early intervention methods are essential and effective in reducing crime, violence, and other delinquent behavior in youth. It is imperative that parents, caretakers, families, community members, educators, and policy makers, educate themselves, spread awareness, and implement and utilize these interventions.

Prevention researchers distinguish among universal interventions (delivered to all members of a population), selective interventions (delivered to segments of a population identified as being at high risk for a particular outcome), and indicated interventions (delivered to individuals already showing signs of a particular risk). Some interventions operate across these levels, depending on need and risk. Interventions may also focus on a range of ages. Those that focus on young children tend to have comparatively stronger effects, Gonzales observed, because younger children are more malleable. It is often possible to have broader impact on a range of risks with early intervention. Home visits to new mothers, designed to instill positive parent-child interactions from the beginning, is an early intervention that has shown promise. Effects for this approach include reduced physical

Scotland has several programs to aid in the prevention of the progression mental illness. There are courses on Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid, mentally healthy workplace training, and suicide prevention training. The Mental Health First Aid training is designed to help people recognize the signs and symptoms of a mental disorder and gives people the knowledge necessary to handle a mental health crisis. The mentally healthy workplace training is focused on mental health in and around the workplace, especially problems arising from stigma and discrimination. The Choose Life suicide prevention program has multiple training sessions that vary in length and subject. Applied Suicide

A Sure Start Childrens Centre study based on research in the USA showed that for every $1 spent on intervening early into a childs life, $7 were saved later on due to help being given to the child

Ms. A is a 28-year-old married, executive who sees the clinician for symptoms over the last three months. Ms. A experiences trouble sleeping and nervousness. Ms. A states she is in good health and used to use substances, but has not used any substances in the last five years. She has had a 15-pound weight loss and fatigue. She has worrisome thoughts that her husband will leave her after his last business trip. She is irritable and restless, and states that even when she is in a relationship, she has feelings of emptiness. (The case study, n.d.).

It is no secret that low income communities are at a disadvantage when it comes to health. Studies have repeatedly shown that people with low income tend to be in poorer health and also be more at risk for health complications. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation notes that economic stability, neighborhood and physical environment, education, community and social context, food, and the health care system are all factors that play a role in health outcomes (Heiman & Artiga, 2015) which has also been articulated in class. Many of those are factors in the lives of families at the Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS) Early Head Start program (EHS) which creates complications presently and in the future for communities. Two of the main factors

Although it is clear that implementing some socialization outside of the home is beneficial for a child’s social and academic development, the long-term benefits are a topic of controversy among many. Barnett (1995) found that early childhood programs can have large short-term benefits for children and sizable long-term effects on school achievement, grade retention, placement in special education, and social adjustment. He obtained these results through a study assessing 36 studies divided into two categories. In 15 of the studies, researchers developed their own child-care programs to study the effects of model programs. In the remaining 21 studies, researchers analyzed the effects of ongoing, large-scale child-care programs; in five of these studies the children attended state or local programs, five studied children who had attended Head Start and state or local programs, and 11 examined Head Start programs. Head Start is a program throughout the United States set up through the department of Health and Human Services that aids low income families by providing comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services (Head Start, n.d.). Comparisons of estimated long-term effects between the model programs and large-scale programs found that the large-scale program did tend to have smaller effects, possibly due to the fact that the model programs were able to provide higher quality services and more one on one time with the children since