Group Discussion Post:

Think about the categories of behavior listed below. Do any of the behaviors or the statistics associated with them surprise you? Why or why not? Do you think that OT hasa responsibility to address any of these behaviors? If so, why and which ones?

Behaviors that Contribute to Unintentional Injuries (beginning on page 5), Behaviors that Contribute to Violence (beginning on page 7), Tobacco Use (beginning on page 13), Alcohol or Other Drug Use (beginning on page 17) , Sexual Behaviors that Contribute to Unintended Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infections, Including HIV Infection
Dietary Behaviors (beginning on page 29), Physical Activity (beginning on page 35), Obesity, Overweight, and Weight Control (beginning on page 39)

As I learn and study the OT field, I am becoming much more aware of what it is exactly that an OT does and what roles we play throughout our communities. I believe it is our responsibility to educate children when no one else will, but I also believe that these need to be school-wide lessons for all children. These behaviors are all things that I as a student had to deal with. I took D.A.R.E and I had to learn about "Family Matters" in fifth grade and take sexual health in high school. These behaviors are typically, not always, but typically behaviors that are passed down throughout households. Behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, obesity, violence, and unprotected sex are a product of poor education. I have a degree in Public Health and we spent a lot of time looking into human behaviors. The most eye opening things I learned was that most people honestly just don't know the health risks some of these products have on our bodies due to a lack of education.

After reading through the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, I honestly found the most surprising statistic to be that only 5.2% of students carried a weapon on school grounds at least one day before the 30 day period prior to taking the survey. In today's society, I would have assumed that specific statistic would have been much higher. Living in Chicago, I would have assumed that statistic would have been much higher. The fact that only 5.2% of students carry a weapon on campus throughout all 50 U.S. States really shocked me. Having the Public Health background, not many of the other statistics really surprised me. The other behaviors, such as, obesity, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and sexual behaviors are all pretty standard stats.

I believe the OT's are and should be responsible to some extent, but to truly prevent these behaviors, repetitive, informative, interactive, positive learning needs to be implemented into the curriculum. In today's society, drugs, alcohol consumption, sex, and violence are puked all over our children through T.V., movies, music, and social media, so educating children on the realistic outcomes of what those substances can do to your body could potentially help reduce the numbers. Making the substances "hush hush" only makes them more enticing, so the more we talk about them and the more we take influences from our society and glorify them in the way we want them to be portrayed, I believe we as OT's and community members can hopefully start to see some of these statisitcs change for the better.

General Discussion Post:

Find one full-text journal article related to teaching social emotional skills to students with behavior disorders or other mental health concerns at school. You can use Google Scholar, the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, or (if you are a registered Midwestern University student) any of the MWU library search engines. Read this article and summarize it in a word document.

This article looks to discover what the comparison is between existing emotional and behavioral problems (EBP) that lead to impaired peer relationships or whether poor peer relationships lead to EBP. The article looks into the child’s social-ecological environment to determine what factors in the child’s life could potentially be affecting the child’s emotional and behavioral states. For children, according to Bronfenbrenner’s social-ecological model on human development, it states that the child is a product of “complex interactions between the child and his/her social environments (family, school, and peer relationships) to the broader influences of community, cultural norms, practices and beliefs, and policies that govern services for children, youth, and families” (Trach, 2018). The child’s immediate environment is the main target in this article. Because school is one of the child’s main environments, the article looks at the student-teacher relationship as a means to instill SEL into the schools and classrooms. By encouraging teachers to take notice of students who exhibit internal (anxiety, depression, fear, sadness, etc.) and/or external (aggression, defiant, disruptive, hyperactive, etc.) behaviors allow for the student-teacher relationship to develop. This article explains how in mental health, one of the most prominent and successful relationships the client interacts in is the client-therapist relationship. That model has been taken and applied to the schools in a student-teacher relationship. The relationship allows for the teachers to be aware and proactive when things go awry. This article explains the strategies that could potentially help make the student-teacher relationship more positive. The strategies include organization, positive behavior management, student involvement in decision-making, and regular, positive feedback to the students about their social skills that indicate what they did well and how they can improve. The article also explains some other things the teachers can do to keep that positive environment alive, including, support for diversity, addressing peer group and classroom dynamics (group norms), positive peer relationships, school climate (values and beliefs in school), cooperative learning structures, home-school partnerships, and community and service-learning. By instilling these ideas into the school system, the overall idea is that these concepts will be carried out throughout the child’s school day and beyond. It has been statistically proven that students that engage in student-teacher relationships perform better in school and in peer relationships, compared to their counterparts who do not. Students who do not engage in student-teacher relationships typically have low warmth relationships and high conflict within the classroom. By taking the time during the school day to understand a child who is experiencing some type of EBP, hopefully, it can decrease the number of cases that are seen in the schools today.

Reference:

Trach, J., Lee, M., and Hymel, S. (2018). A social-emotional approach to addressing emotional and behavioral problems in

schools: Focusing on group processes and social dynamics. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Vol. 26(1):11-

20. DOI:https://midwestern.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/DGV/illiad.dll?Action=10&Form=75&Value=154301

The programs are divided by age group. Below are links to the 2 groupings.

Early Childhood and Elementary School Programs: http://www.casel.org/guide/programs

Middle School and High School Programs: http://secondaryguide.casel.org/#Descriptions

Who Cares About Kelsey Video:

For the full video Click the link below:

https://whocaresaboutkelsey.com/

Group Discussion Post:

Review Chapter 4 in Bazyk and the article by Reberio (2001). Write down attributes or descriptors of positive or affirming environments.

Next, watch the extended trailer for the Dan Habib movie, Who Cares about Kelsey? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN_Zfgxg0Aw

Write about this and your reactions to the trailer or the movie.

According to Bazyk’s textbook about the positive and affirming environments, Kelsey’s environment failed her in many different ways. In my opinion, I believe Kelsey’s case is a product of poor education on main topics of health and wellness. Her social environment (family) did not give her a sturdy childhood that could not help Kelsey navigate her future. The fact that she tried to block out the “bad” in her childhood can cause so many emotional issues within a person. When she did talk about her childhood, she spoke about how her sister had to wash her in the sink and her mom was always drunk/high on recreational drugs. Kelsey suffers from emotional behavioral issues that cause her to become depressed, withdrawn, impulsive, and angry. All of those characteristics typically cause the high-risk behaviors to become more attractive to someone who wants to feel better, so they begin participating in risky behaviors, such as alcohol consumption, drugs, and sexual behaviors. Her physical environment had access to drugs and violence at school and in her home. Those two behaviors make her safety and comfort unstable and provide high risk behaviors in her environment. Her involvement with her prescription drugs is a gateway into potentially harmful habits involving drugs that can cause more harm. Kelsey’s parents left her at home unattended while they went to work or participated in recreational drug use/alcohol consumption leaving her to fend for herself. That unstructured environment gave Kelsey the freedom she needed as a teen and a lack of structure to promote good health and healthy behaviors. Her school environment’s affordances did seem to provide the proper supports and levels of resources based on her description of the school. She saw therapists and had extra help in areas where it was required. Kelsey’s social cohesion seemed like she had it in check. She didn’t seem to be influenced by her peers to participate in risky behaviors, however, this was only the trailer of the entire film, so I am uncertain that she didn’t have larger peer pressures in her life. She seems to have friends that did not persuade her to participate in the risky behaviors. Kelsey’s activity and experiences attribute to her sense of happiness, fulfillment, and identity formation. She has had a tough life but has the ability to turn it around and potentially find a new sense of happiness, new fulfillment, and a new identity. I think Kelsey’s environment plays a major role in her development and potential as an adult. Her diagnosis of her emotional behavioral disorder I believe could have been avoided had she been raised in a different environment.