The setting that
I worked in was a head start program .
I currently work in a head start program and I am familiar with the way
things are done or supposed to be. I spoke with a mental health consultant and
a teacher. My research paper is going to be on Violence in the life of our
children. There are so many issues that
are an influence to our children being abused or neglected. When I spoke to the head start teacher, she
was well aware of the issues that the
children face in the home with family members, friends, and even strangers.
The main issue that
we discussed were having the child imitate some of the behaviors in the home
that sometime turn out to be violent and disturbing. Being a mental health
person, Ms. M. told me that lots of
behaviors that the children display, stem from what they see at home. She showed me some samples of behaviors that
the children can experience while going through some kind of abuse or
neglect. These can be from bullying,
sexual behaviors, abusive language, hostility towards others, and even
using objects as weapons such as knives, guns, bats etc.
Ms. M. explained
to me that there are many resources out there that are being affected to help
people to decrease and overcome abuse and neglect. Some of the challenges that she spoke about
were having the parents to come in for assistance from the school, speaking to
a counselor, or just getting some kind of help with any problems. She stated
that some people don’t want others to know what is going on in their home and
they appear to be fine. Another problem
she told me about was the fact that some parents feel overwhelm because they
don’t know what the outcome may be and that their children may be taken away
from them.
The teacher told
me that the lesson plans are set up to work on social emotional skills throughout
the day in the classroom. They work on conflict resolution, sharing, and being
able to tell how they feel. Children are
eager to tell things that that are happening to them or others. We know that
confidentiality is a big key but it is hard to get the parents to believe this
sometimes. Outside resources are
sometimes good because the parents don’t know them and they may say more to
someone that are not close to because of
them “ knowing their business”.
