Places of safety
Lately we have been focusing on supporting a place of safety in the community. It breaks my heart to see in what a psychology and physical state some of the children are due to neglect, psychological, emotional or physical abuse. The problems the occupational Therapy students have been facing over the years is that the carers are burnt out and do not want to learn which defeats the purpose of sustainability that we need to employ. The root of the problem does not seem to be addressed successfully which causes a vicious cycle that the place seems to be stuck in. We have discovered that this issue becomes a real ethical issue that we are in the process of solving. What makes the problem soling process challenging in that every therapist has a different rational of going about the problem. I have learnt that every therapist has a different approach and rationale when it comes to intervention which can cause quite an obstacle.
On Thursday in our community TUT, we discussed and reflected on the experiences we have had so far. My friend that is working in the same community that I am working in presented on child abuse which I found really interesting.
Did you know that 3-8 min someone is being rapped in South Africa!!! 45% of which are kids, of which 50% are under the age of 18 years old!
According to research, if a developing child is abuse in any kind of way, the body experiences an increase in cortisol levels resulting in brain death and shrinkage.
Many of the affected children "freeze" and have the ability to separate the pain from their consciousness. A template of fear is therefore being fixed in their brains.
Many children experience difficulty with memory which goes hand in hand with learning.
Our role in all of this is to work on the individuals deeper psychological needs such as self esteem, self image and their emotional insight.
(Sobey, K., 2014)
References
Sobey, K. (2014) Child Abuse. OCTH413W0. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Unpublished presentation
What do you think are the things which we as health care professionals should all work from as a basis (e.g. human rights), and where can there be room for discussion and debates? What about different paradigms and approaches that we come from or that we chose per situation?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately you cannot quote Kirsty as the source of the statistics - as that will come from somewhere else! ;)