Assessment of Child Abuse and Criminal Behaviors
1.1. Introduction and Problem Statement
Abused children in general, are those children that have experience physical, mental and sexual abuse. Typically, they show manifestations of behavioral or emotional problems and lack the needed support to handle developmental tasks successfully. Once these abused children grow into adults, they are likely to be involved in chronic unemployment, divorce, substance abuse, physical and psychiatric problems, divorce incidences as well as other forms of criminal activity (Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989: 331). So as to aid abused children, mentoring and assessment programs have been introduced.
Mentoring and assessment programs have become a popular strategy for attending to the need of young people who have been abused.. Thus, a number of schools and social service agencies are presently conducting programs for mentoring. Through these efforts, mentoring has then become an essential approach for responding to students with problems on academics and behavior (For comment #11) (Struchen and Porta, 1997). In an assessment set up, adults usually take the role of a parent or advisor and are paired with young people to establish a supportive and trusting relationship. Aside from the fact that mentoring and assessment programs enable community development and cooperation, they can be customized based on the students’ personality and learning capabilities (Campbell-Whatley, Algozzine and Obakor, 1997: 362).
In the United States, the increasing awareness on the availability of various mentoring and assessment programs has led to their rapid growth. These mentoring and assessment programs are focused on the establishment of a relationship between a troubled youngster and a caring adult. This relationship is developed by means of spending quality time together and providing substantial support and guidance. In general, the aim of these mentoring and assessment programs is to help young individual in overcoming the difficulties of life (Allessandri, et al., 2002: 717). While mentoring and assessment programs have clear objectives and established approaches on addressing youth concerns, the efficacy of these programs remain in question. There have been previous researches with regard to the effects of mentoring and assessment programs to abused children (e.g. Grossman and Garry, 1997; Tierney and Grossman, 1995; Slicker and Palmer, 1993). Nonetheless, results of these previous researches were inconsistent, implying that research on the effects of mentoring and assessment programs is still at its infancy stage (Allessandri, et al., 2002: 718).
Considering that there is an urgent need to address the problems inherent among abused children, assessing the effectiveness of these mentoring and assessment programs is then necessary. Hence, this research study will be conducted for the purpose of examining the efficacy of a particular mentoring program (For Comment #12). This will be achieved by identifying the effects mentoring and assessment programs have on abused children, specifically on their academic and behavioral development. The focus of the research will be on the history and current status of mentoring and assessment programs in the United States, as well as their relationship on the abused children development. The perceptions of the participants towards these mentoring and assessment programs will be essential to the outcome of this research.
In general, this study intends to examine the quality and efficacy of mentoring and assessment programs for abused children. So as to gather relevant information, this study will attempt to answer the following queries:
1. What is the current status of the chosen assessment and mentoring program on abused children?
2. What are the variables that significantly affect the mentoring program on abused children?
3. Did the selected assessment and mentoring program among abused childrens affect their academic and behavioral development?
4. Did the mentoring and assessment program for abused children result to enhanced academic performance or behavior?
5. In what ways can current mentoring and assessment programs be improved?
Methodology
The study intends to investigate the impact of assessment and mentoring programs to at-risk youth. For this study, primary research and secondary research will be used. Moreover, the descriptive research method will be utilized. In this method, it is possible that the study would be cheap and quick. It could also suggest unanticipated hypotheses. Nonetheless, it would be very hard to rule out alternative explanations and especially infer causations. Thus, this study will use the descriptive approach. This descriptive type of research utilizes observations in the study. Descriptive research method is used to gather information about in order to describe a particular condition, phenomena or event (Creswell, 1994)
Primary research will be conducted using the data from “Child Behavior Checklists” as well as from survey questionnaires that will be given to the children’s parents or family members. Basically, the data from “Child Behavior Checklists” will be obtained through pre and post intervention interviews. The secondary data will based from the recent literatures related to mentoring, mentoring programs and at-risk youth.
As stated above, this research will partially base its findings through quantitative research methods as this permits a flexible and iterative approach. During data gathering, the choice and design of methods will be constantly modified based on ongoing analysis. This study will also employ qualitative research method as it will try to find and build theories that will explain the relationship of one variable with another through qualitative elements in research. Through this method, qualitative elements that do not have standard measures such as behavior, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs within the health institution domain will be analyzed
Reference
Allessandri, M., Foster, S., Keating, L. and Tomishima, M. (2002). The Effects of a Mentoring Program on At-Risk Youth. Adolescence, 37(148), 717-734.
Campbell-Whatley, G. D., Algozzine, B., and Obiakor, E. E. (1997). Using mentoring to improve academic programming for African American male youths with mild disabilities. The School Counselor, 44, 362-367.
Creswell, J.W. (1994) Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.
Grossman, J. B., and Garry, E. M. (1997). Mentoring: A proven delinquency prevention strategy. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Grossman, J. B., and Rhodes, J. E. (2002). The test of time: Predictors and effects of duration in youth mentoring relationships. American Journal of Community Psychology.
Patterson, G. R., DeBaryshe, B. D., & Ramsey, E. (1989). A developmental perspective on antisocial behavior. American Psychologist, 44, 329-335.
Slicker, E. K., and Palmer, D. J. (1993). Mentoring at-risk high school students: Evaluation of a school-based program. The School Counselor, 40, 327-334.
Struchen, W., and Porta, M. (1997). From role modeling to mentoring for African American youth: Ingredients for successful relationships. Preventing School Failure, 41(3), 119-123.
Tierney, J. P., and Grossman, J. (1995). Making a difference: An impact study. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment