Population Social Advocacy Needs
Describe the social advocacy needs of the population you chose for your final course project.
Describe two advocacy actions you can personally and professional take that could potentially improve the lives of this population.
Homelessness is now considered a serious ongoing public health problem. The U.S. has tried to conquer the factors that cause homelessness but has struggled to truly define what the issues are. Individuals with mental illness have a higher degree of risk to become homeless (Mejia-Lancheros et al, 2020). It has been estimated that mental illness accounts for about a third of the world’s disability. The U.S. has estimated that there are about 30 – 60% of homeless people that have some kind of mental health disorder (Fleury et al., 2021). Mental illness that is firmly associated to poverty can lead to homeless. The mentally ill homeless is faced with the same struggles that the homeless who are not suffering with mental illness along with mental health challenges of trying to exist day to day. This specific society has special issues. The discrimination that they must tolerate is the normal avoidance and looked down upon as other homeless people and they have the “crazy” factor. These individuals are even more discriminated against due to fear, stereo typing and disgust (Mejia-Lancheros et al. 2020). Now what is happening is that social and health care services are projecting discriminating behavior to the individuals that they should be caring and assisting. This causes many of the homeless with mental illness to not get the assistance or health care that they may need. The homeless with mental illness is in many ways an island of their own. Their needs to have more training and education for those who are interacting with these people. There is no law or amendment that specifies the mentally ill homeless. The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act produced fifteen programs and only two of those programs mentions the mentally ill homeless.
The advocacy actions that I could do is to get more involved with the homeless support organizations. I could discuss with those who are in charge of these organizations and find out what has been done about the homeless with mental illness discrimination. It would be ideal to get more training implemented for these organizations to really focused on the issue. I could do more research on the discrimination of the homeless with mental illness to present to homeless support organizations and groups to help keep the awareness in focus and hopefully bring more people into supporting this social injustice. Having relevant and high quality research helps show documented support and influences the audience.
The homeless with mental illness is really a society of poverty individuals that need assistance and support. Having the mental issues adds to the inability to maintain normal everyday functions like going to work, pay bills and take care of daily needs. Discrimination has been shown to have strong influences on those it affects. It has been observed that the stress due to perceived discrimination has negative affects which can cause harm physically and mentally (Skosireva et al., 2014). This affect could lead to risky health behaviors. If you add this behavior to the services that are supposed to support and care for you. This could be detrimental. The need to get this group of individuals social justice is vital. Anyone who needs help should not be treated like they do not deserve it.
References:
Fleury, M., Greiner, G., Sabetti, J., Bertrand, K., Clément, M., & Brochu, S. (2021). Met and unmet needs of homeless individuals at different stages of housing reintegration: A mixed-method investigation. PloS One, 16(1), e0245088-e0245088. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245088
Mejia-Lancheros, C., Lachaud, J., O’Campo, P., Wiens, K., Nisenbaum, R., Wang, R., Hwang, S. W., & Stergiopoulos, V. (2020). Trajectories and mental health-related predictors of perceived discrimination and stigma among homeless adults with mental illness. PloS One, 15(2), e0229385. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229385
Skosireva, A., O’Campo, P., Zerger, S., Chambers, C., Gapka, S., & Stergiopoulos, V. (2014). Different faces of discrimination: Perceived discrimination among homeless adults with mental illness in healthcare settings. BMC Health Services Research, 14(1), 376-376. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-376
reply # 2
Alexis Alexander
Describe the social advocacy needs of the population you chose for your final course project.
Describe two advocacy actions you can personally and professional take that could potentially improve the lives of this population.
The African American population of returning citizens from correctional facilities was my chosen subject for my final project. It is disheartening of the over-representation of African Americans, specifically males, in the prison systems. Existing research shows that neighborhood-level disadvantages produces race based differences in adolescent violence as an account in serious crime noted among returning citizens (Bellair & Kowalski, 2011). Discrimination in the criminal justice ssystem can be addressed by uprooting and modifying disadvantaged families and neighborhoods with quality access to services and favorable conditions.
Two advocacy actions I can personally and professionally take that could potentially improves the lives of this population are continued education in the social work profession and create an organization that bring low income disadvantaged communities together and educate them as well. Awareness and knowledge are the two biggest things that can improve most situations or issue.
References:
Bellair, P. E., & Kowalski, B. R. (2011). Low-skill employment opportunity and African
american-white difference in recidivism. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 48(2), 176-208.
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