Introduction
Neglect and child abuse is any act by caregivers or parents that is out of the conduct norms and pose a risk of causing emotional or physical harm to a young person. Child abuse and neglect are either intentional or unintentional and vary in various types, including emotional maltreatment, physical abuse, witnessing domestic violence, sexual abuse, and absent parents. Many black teenagers suffer from these types of abuses and neglect and are influenced by factors such as living in dangerous neighborhoods, social isolation, large families, socio-economic disadvantage, disabilities in children, and living with a depressed or drug busing caregiver.
Teenagers who have experienced abuse and neglect for a long ought to develop resilience and may risk having poorer and advanced outcomes. Thus, immediate action should be taken to prevent negative outcomes from teenagers. Appropriate interventions and treatment suitable for specific individuals are to be applied. Although the effects of abuse and neglect in teenagers are irreversible, rehabilitative treatment should be offered in time to prevent them from worsening.
Immediate Action
The first step to take after abuse or neglect is to involve legal authority to deal with the perpetrators. The study shows that 1 in 100 black teenagers experience abuse, neglect, or both in their teenage lives (Strathearn et al., 2020). These children or observers may report such happenings to the local authorities for affirmative action to be taken. Teenagers taken to a clinical health system should be evaluated for immediate mental effects and receive treatment to prevent advanced health outcomes. Prolonged abuse or neglect in young people can have mental health consequences such as stress, post-traumatic depression, and anxiety.
Furthermore, depending on the type of maltreatment, substantial long-term effects may be behavioral, physical, and cognitive. Children who face maltreatment at an early age have a high risk of experiencing problems in later life.
The severity of abuse is directly proportional to the level of negative outcomes. Different types of abuse and neglect have varied outcomes and hence should be handled independently (Zeana & Humphreys, 2018). The perceptions of teenagers about abuse may differ because while some grow resilience, others can develop feelings of stigmatization, shame, and self-blame. The relationship between the adolescent and the perpetrator may increasingly become negative depending on the child’s effects of abuse or negligence.
Rehabilitative Treatment
Rehabilitation centers seek to offer mental health care and safety to the victims of abuse and negligence. The priority of this care is to provide well-being and defense to a maltreated child (Zeana & Humphreys, 2018). A prolonged rehabilitative therapy seeks to prevent future abuse or negligence and reduce the long-term effects of physical and psychological abuse. Study shows that more than 50% of the teenagers in rehabilitation institutions have histories of neglect and abuse (Strathearn et al., 2020). Rehabilitative care focusing on the teenage victim should incorporate psychotherapy amongst other medical forms of therapy.
Psychotherapy
In psychotherapy, a mental health professional speaks with the maltreated children to teach them how to trust again, have normal behaviors and relationships, manage conflict, and boost self-esteem (Stewart et al., 2021). Black teenagers who have suffered from child abuse or neglect are more likely to engage in serious crimes and violent situations. Therefore, a therapy focused on taming the likelihood of bad behaviors is recommended for the group. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is suitable for such cases because it helps the victims better manage their feelings of distress and deal with traumatic memories. Furthermore, a supportive parent or caregiver, who is not the perpetrator, is involved in the therapy.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) aims at changing the behaviors of the maltreated by addressing their perceptions or thoughts. The counseling personnel work towards destroying the thinking patterns which create unhelpful or distorted views. CBT also seeks to change habitual responses and stimuli by teaching anger or fear management skills (Stewart et al., 2021). For example, teenagers living in homes with domestic violence may live in fear and hence will need training on how to respond to fear. Together with the supportive parent and the victims of abuse and neglect, the counselor examines interactive patterns amongst family members to identify and solve problems.
CBT also addressed attachment theory and developmental neurobiology as models for solving child-parent relationships. In attachment theory, the therapist evaluates the child-parent or caregiver relationship based on evolution, ethological, and psychological perspectives. There are four attachment styles, namely, avoidant, disorganized, secure, and anxious-ambivalent (Stewart et al., 2021). People have varied child-parent relationships based on their attachment styles.
Development neurobiology sheds insight into brain development during childhood. CBT works best for teenagers willing to open up and cooperate with counselors during therapy sessions (Strathearn et al., 2020). However, CBT may not be effective for teenagers who have had behavioral problems before traumatic incidents. Thus, a proper evaluation of children’s status should be conducted to ensure they fit the profile for CBT.
During the rehabilitation period, specific actions to prevent the reoccurrence of abuse or neglect are taken. A teenager witnessing domestic violence is provided with a temporary home as the social workers work with the parents to make the home a safe place for the child (Zeana & Humphreys, 2018). Other support measures which may be subjected to both child and caregivers include domestic violence interventions, parent education and support, fatherhood support groups, fear and anger management techniques, socio-emotional teenage learning programs, and teenagers’ programs for skills to have healthy relationships (Stewart et al., 2021). Another most effective method of helping post-abuse and neglected teenagers is working with their parents for the long term.
Working with Teenage and their Parents for Long Term
Parents or caregivers will have varied reactions to the act of abuse or neglect. Some parents respond differently to crises and incorporate life experiences with those that they carry (Strathearn et al., 2020). Therefore, advocates need to involve the parent in the victim’s process of healing. During advocacy of this process, the support may seem to be more directed to the parent than the child, but it works by supporting the caregivers so they would support the child. A clinical mental health setting focuses on more than the family problems associated with neglect or abuse but also on factors such as culture and its connection with the problem.
Effective advocacy provides services within the victim’s culture and its competencies. Therefore, advocating for black teenagers requires considering the black culture and its practices. Culture, viewed as a set of norms, traditions, and values, may invisibly encompass a person’s identity more than just a race (McLeigh et al., 2018). When the counselor is addressing the problem with the victim’s parents, it is critical to have cultural diversity competence. For instance, in this case, the blacks have a history of oppression; hence essential to include that fact during the problem evaluation.
One of the models used in the process of advocacy is thinking-feeling-acting (TFA). The approach involves evaluating how the parent and victim think, feel, and act afterward (Swenson & Schaeffer, 2018). In terms of thinking, the parents tend to overthink; hence the counselor should offer assistance by giving them all the information and answers related to the problem. The feeling aspects entail parents expressing their emotions which gives the advocate the task of listening and validating their emotions. Action-oriented parents need to feel useful in the case examination (McLeigh et al., 2018). Effective advocacy ensures that the parents are engaged in the solution by asking them to do involving tasks like monitoring the teenage behaviors and physical changes or making a call list to find more information.
Another equally effective model is the cognitive processing style which involves the inner and outer world. Depending on whether the parents and victim are introverts or extroverts, they are likely to need information processing time (Swenson & Schaeffer, 2018). When the counselor is questioning the roots of either abuse or neglect to find a solution, some parents may not be outspoken. The counselor, in such cases, gives them all the information they need and leaves them where after processing calls with more information (McLeigh et al., 2018). Outspoken parents will cooperate by giving immediate responses. Hence, the advocate will need to listen more and allow them to talk through the issues. During the process of working with parents, the counselor offers counseling services to traumatized teenagers and parents.
Conclusion
Negligence and abuse amongst black teenagers require rehabilitation therapy and parental counseling to prevent further negative effects. In a clinical mental health institution, counselors are mandated to treat the victims with pharmacological and therapy treatments. CBT offers preventive strategies for the victims of abuse or neglect. Proper CBT would, at times, be enough to form care, especially in less severe cases. A long-term solution for both child and parents involves advocates or counselors working closely with parents to ensure healing and zero reoccurrences of such problems.
References
McLeigh, J. D., McDonell, J. R., & Lavenda, O. (2018). Neighborhood poverty and child abuse and neglect: The mediating role of social cohesion. Children and Youth Services Review, 93(1), 154-160. Web.
Stewart, R. W., Orengo-Aguayo, R., Wallace, M., Metzger, I. W., & Rheingold, A. A. (2021). Leveraging technology and cultural adaptations to increase access and engagement among trauma-exposed African American youth: Exploratory study of school-based telehealth delivery of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(15), 1-9. Web.
Strathearn, L., Giannotti, M., Mills, R., Kisely, S., Najman, J., & Abajobir, A. (2020). Long-term cognitive, psychological, and health outcomes associated with child abuse and neglect. Pediatrics, 146(4). Web.
Swenson, C. C., & Schaeffer, C. M. (2018). A multisystemic approach to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect. International Journal on Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy and Practice, 1(1), 97-120. Web.
Zeanah, C. H., & Humphreys, K. L. (2018). Child abuse and neglect. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(9), 637-644. Web.