Essay Sample on Child Mental Illness: Family Psychosocial Challenges

Introduction

A child is a human being who is below the age of puberty. Therefore, a child is a person who has not attained the legal age of majority. Family psychosocial problems are the challenges experienced by families due to mental disorders among their members (Zeanah, 2018). For instance families with children who suffer mental illness experience psychosocial problems. At times stigmazation may be experienced since the family may abandon and keep distance between the ill children or member of the family with mental disorder.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Children's mental disorder at times occurs as a result of reluctance in reaction to counteract the problem by the parents despite the fact that they have identified it. Some of the parents when they identify the problem in their children, they don't take faster reaction towards combating the problem until it reaches the pick. Apart from parents, nurses and doctors to some extent fail in their duties (Simms, 2018). This is because at some point when the patient exhibiting signs relating to mental disorder and is taken to the doctor, the doctor investigates but later fails to administer faster diagnosis which leads to the child developing mental disorder. This shows that there are a number of children who are suffering the disorder not because they were not identified at earlier stage but it is just because of the procrastination of diagnosis in the early stage. That is, the disorder was identified but the immediate action was not taken to impede the problem.

Poverty also negatively affects mental illness (Simms, 2018). At some point, the parent can identify the problem but lack the finances to cure it because of poverty succumbing the family. Apart from that, majority of the poor families hardly maintain on higher nutritional values. Therefore when the child is not fed with food full of required nutrients, his or her mind may be affected leading to mental disorder. Also, sexual orientation is very key to every individual. When a child is raped for instance, it will affect his or her mind which may lead to mental disorder.

Another crucial factor causing mental illness more so to children is life events. There are some of life events in the life of an individual which greatly triggers the mind of a child. Oppression is one of the life event. When the child is oppressed a lot most of the time, the probability of having mental disorder is too high. Forcing a child to undertake a certain task when he or she is not supposed to undertake will greatly affect his or her mind negatively. Family conflicts are also causes to mental illness to a child (Simms, 2018). When a child is developing, friendly environment is needed for the child to grow well. When the child is disturbed with family conflicts which are more close to him, he will develop illness in the mind compared to the child in the family where there is good relationship among members.

Also, substance abuse is a factor to mental illness of a child (Simms, 2018). Under normal circumstances, it is not preferred to introduce alcohol to a child. The harmful effects of alcohol to a child can make him or her to lose his or her mind. Apart from that, long term consumption of substances leads to paranoia, anxiety and depression which heavily affects the mind functioning. If the measure can not be taken earlier, the rise of the problem is at a higher rate. In United States there have been reported increasing number of children with mental disorder. According to the study 22% of the children and individuals in adolescent are diagnosable to the mental disorder (Zeanah, 2018).

The goal of social service system in psychosocial problems in families is to ensure the children are stable (Zeanah, 2018). They ensure the affected children are given support and care that is needed for their development. Therefore the social service system, have great value to the families with psychosocial problems. This is because they ensure the child attains what he or she needs for growth and fits in the community. The system also offers the treatment support which is valuable to the affected individuals. On the other hand, care givers are organized by the social service system to ensure the affected individuals are well cared for. Mentorship is also provided by the system (Taylor, 2015).

Social work therefore ensures there is social justice. The campaigns of treating the affected people as other normal people are held to ensure there is social justice. The group is determined to ensure there is no oppression and stigmazation to the children with mental disorder. Therefore, the system have numerous advantages to the families and children affected with mental disorder. Among the advantages include: mentorship program which gives hope to the victims, provision of care which helps both the family and the victims, provision of treatment which is a benefit to both victims and their families (Zeanah, 2018).

Conclusion

While mitigating mental disorder affection, policies and settings have been brought on board by the social service system. Consideration have been much placed on the affected people to ensure social justice prevail. To combat the effect of isolation and differences between normal people and the victims, the system have established programs that encourage people to take care of the victims (Taylor, 2015). Also, to ensure the victims are not oppressed, the system also provides caretakers who help the families in taking care of the affected individuals. Policies have been set by organization including World Health Organization to promote care and treatment of children and individuals in adolescent with mental disorder (Zeanah, 2018). In United States, families and youths have been associated in the policy making and practices so as to empower them and also formulation of policies to improve on the children with mental disorder (Taylor, 2015).

References

Simms, M. D., Madelyn, F., Battistelli, E.D., & Kaufman, N. D. (2018). Delivering health and mental health care services to children in family foster care after welfare and health care reform. In Family Foster Care in the Next Centuary (pp.167-184). Routledge.

Taylor, S. E. (2015). Health psychology. McGraw-Hill Education.

Zeanah, C.H. (Ed). (2018). Handbook of infant mental health. Guilford Publications.