Sociodemographic Traits of Risk Families

Introduction

Social services are referred to a range of public services which are provided by the private, government or the non-profit organisations. These services are aimed at creating more effective organisations and promoting opportunity and equality in the society along with building stronger communities. The social services are required for children who belong from social risk families to protect from any harm or abuse and assist them to have access to all requirements required by them to live a healthy life. In this assignment, an understanding regarding theoretical aspects of social risk families along with social services present for children who belong from risk family is discussed. Moreover, research is to be executed for discussing social services to be given for children from social risk families.

I. Theoretical Aspects of Social Risk Family

1.1. Understanding of social risk family

In relation to human society, a family is referred as a group of individuals who are related either by affinity, co-residence or consanguinity (Gelles and Straus, 2017). In scientific literature, there are various family-related indicator of risk but the social risk in families that are usually involved with children include economic stress issues, substance abuse by the parents, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect and others. The key criteria for identifying the social risk in families are the extent of capability of the family for satisfying needs of the children. The social risk family are those in which the health of the child is at danger along with their basic needs. Moreover, in social risk family, the children require more emotional support than the normal children as their emotional needs are not properly met by their parents and these children are often at the risk of losing care from their biological families and relatives (Vidal et al. 2017). The level of risk is denoted by basic needs of the children not being met, risk of the children of getting separated from their families, activities of the caregiver and other.

1.2. Sociodemographic characteristics of social risk family

The one of the sociodemographic characteristics of the social risk family is that they are going to have low financial status. This is because often this nature of family is seen to have members who are unemployed or have lower earnings to avail the basic needs of life for them as well as for their children (Boyer et al. 2017). As a result, they put social pressure on the children to involve in earning finances for the family so that their economic status can be uplifted and in this process often the children are abused and harmed to get into professional work by the parents. The other Socio-demographical characteristic is low maternal education along with overcrowded family size. This is because the family do not effective financial ability to avail education and due to lack of education the parents are unable to execute family planning leading to having an overcrowded family with large number of children (Freisthler and Maguire-Jack, 2015). Thus, overcrowded condition of the family leads the parents not being able to cater to all needs of all the children resulting in lack of proper care of the children. The other characteristics of the social risk family are lower welfare status, limited employment skills of the family head and others.

1.3 Social and family risk factors for children at social risk family

The social and family risk factors for children who are living in social risk family include poverty, lack of mother-child interaction, stressful life events of the child, reduced quality daycare environment and others (Garbarino, 2017). The poverty acts as a social and family risk factor for children in social risk family because it leads the child to experience lower nutrition and lack of healthy environment to grow up. This is because poverty leads the parents to have reduced economic ability to arrange proper food and healthcare environment for the child needed in their growing years as lack of finances makes living itself become a challenging task for them. The lack of mother-child interaction is seen as potential risk for children in social risk families because lower interaction leads the children to get depressed as they cannot share their emotions with the parents to get mental support to live in a healthy manner. This, in turn, leads the children to also live a stressful life as they have no one to support to resolve their stress (Patterson et al. 2017). The parents are unable to support the children in this case because they are often seen to be busy in earning finances to make family’s end-meet or are seen to be involved in substance abuse or other activities which diverts their mind from taking proper care of the child. They feel the children be burden for the family often leading the parents in these social risk families to abuse and harm the children.

II. Social Services for Children from Social Risk Family

2.1. Review of Lithuanian child protection system

The Lithuanian child protection system ensures that all the rights of the children are properly protected with supervision of laws so that they do not face harm or abuse (xn--vaikoteiss-zmb.lt, 2018). This is effective step by the system as it is going to help in preventing children of the social risk families from getting abused by their parents assisting them to have a better future. The Lithuanian child protection system is also seen to perform the function of organising guardianship of the children who are deprived of parental care (Nygren et al. 2018). This is a positive step for the children because through guardianship they would be able to access proper parental care from others assisting the children to live a healthy and stress-free life with proper support from the caregivers. The child protection system also organises help and services for abandoned and abused children (Tamutienė, 2018). This is also a positive approach for children benefit who belong from the social risk family as they would be able to get a place to live along with assistance to live life with hope for a better future. However, the system lacks effective information regarding the way to detect the children of the social risk family who actually requires help from them. Thus, it acts as a drawback as many children at risk may not be identified by the social workers following the system due to lack of direction regarding the way to execute it.

2.2. Social services as a fundamental part of social work

The social services are the services given to help to provide aid to the vulnerable, distressed or disadvantaged community or person which is the key aim of the social work (Garbarino, 2017). In human rights profession, social work is done to respect the personal autonomy of the individuals and supporting solidarity-based relationships along with helping to uphold social justice of the community, group or individuals in the society (Sue et al. 2015). The social work can be executed through efficient delivery of the social services to the individuals and thus it is regarded as a fundamental part of the social work as without it the social work cannot be executed.

2.3. Provision of social services for children from social risk family

The social service provision for children who belongs from the social risk family may be manifold such as arrangement of guardianship or adoption of the children, organising proper educational environment for the children, arrangement of emotional therapy, providing financial help to the families of the children, education of the parents of the children, protection of child rights and others. As mentioned by Vidal et al. (2017), the social services provision offer opportunity to protect the rights of the children from social risk family so that they are not abused or harmed by their family. This is required as the abuse or harm often lead to a negative psychological impact on the mind of the children which make them feel depressed and stressed for life. Moreover, the protection of rights of the children led them to live a normal life like other children allowing them to access basic needs required by them to live a healthy life. As argued by Diane et al. (2018), often the children from social risk family are abandoned by the parents due to financial or social issues which lead the children to lose hope to live. Thus, to help the children to live a proper life the social services are required. The arrangement of education as a provision of social services for the children from the social risk families helps them to develop their own future without being dependent for care on the family in future (Larkin et al. 2014). This is because they use the education to develop their career to earn to live free from being burden on the family.

III. Research on Social Services For Children From Social Risk Family

3.1. Methodology and organization of the research

The research strategy followed in executing this study is case study research strategy. As mentioned by Cronin (2014), case study research strategy is used to explore and investigate the research topic by analysis of the previous literature. This strategy is chosen because it helps to compare the facts with proper evidence ensuring the authenticity of the findings. In order to execute the research, secondary data collection method is used. For this purpose, keywords like social risk family, children, family and social services are used to collect data from existing literature, journal articles and others for supporting the study. In this research, secondary data collection method is used because it is time-saving and delivers authenticated data related to the study.

3.2. Interpretation of the research findings

The findings inform that social risk family are those families where substance abuse by parents, economic issues, domestic violence and others exists. In these families, the children are adversely affected. This leads to the interpretation that lack of fulfilment of the basic needs makes the parents react negatively towards the children leading to raise risk for the children in the social risk family. The social and family risk for the children at the social risk family are stressful life event of the child, poverty, reduced quality care by parents and others. These are risk for the children as these factors act a barrier towards their proper upbringing in the society leading them to live hindered life with lack of care and love from parents. The social services for children are required to be arrangement of proper adoption or guardianship, emotional therapy, financial help and others. This is required to help the children have the ability and provision to properly socialise and become better individuals in future.

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that social risk family are those where risk of domestic violence, unemployment, lack of parent-child relationship and others are present. The children who belong from the social risk family often face the risk of poverty, lack of education, stressful life, abuse from parents and others. For this purpose, effective social services are required for the children so that their rights are protected and they are able to live a healthy life.

Recommendations

The social workers for effectively managing children of the social risk family are suggested to thoroughly assess the family situation and the mental condition of the children as well as their parents. This is required as it is going to inform them about the way they are required as well as needed to organise provision for the children so that the children feel safe and secure along with having a better future with the availability of services from them. The social workers are further recommended to develop strict guidelines through collaborative effort of expert social services leaders to properly and quickly identify children at risk who belong from the social risk family. This is going to help is providing better social services to the needy children without delay thus improving the quality of social work in the place.

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