The number of inmates with children and imprisonment numbers in the US and have exposed a lot of ills going on. The rate of children with an imprisoned parent raised drastically by 80% from 1991 to 2007 (Smith & Young, 2017). Immigration can also separate children from their parents, who may cause them to undergo stress and grow up without both or one parent. Social work professionals should, therefore, ensure that their response to both matters are swift and go as planned to reunite the family and have them familiarized. Their response should be similar in addressing the trauma that one experiences when they are separated from their parent (Skinner-Osei & Levenson, 2018). These children are more likely to develop PTSD, self-harming behaviors, depression, and anger issues, among many other complications. Their response should be trauma-informed for corrective purposes (Skinner-Osei & Levenson, 2018). They should also ensure that they have a good relationship with the client and avoid confrontational approaches. Their response could also be different in that during immigration, not many of their parents are incarcerated. The social workers need to address each case differently as those who experience their parents being arrested will suffer differently from those children separated by immigration (Morgan-Mullane, 2018). They will have different world views making it important for them to be addressed differently, although the premise of separation from a parent is the same.
When collecting information about a client experiencing challenges related to immigration or imprisonment, it is likely for the researcher to use an ecological systems perspective. The means of data collection is important as it plays the role of a deciding factor the next step for the professional (McLeod et al., 2019). The ecological systems perspective consists of five environmental systems all of which end up influencing one's behavior in varying degrees. This ecological systems perspective is beneficial as it will explain the client's mesosystem, microsystem, chronosystem, macrosystem, and finally exosystem to bring up a rounded visual on everything currently happening in the patient's life. However, it could also be time-consuming to acquire all the information on the client. A genogram would not be suitable in this case as it only provides familial relationships. According to Dyer, Day, & Wiley, (2018), children of immigrant or incarcerated parents have more underlying problems which increase as they grow up. As such, an understanding of the environment is needed. However, it has the potential to summarize the familial relations simply, thus could be time-saving.
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A psychosocial development theory and social constructionism theory could be useful in social work with Children and Families impacted by incarceration and/or immigration. Some of these children grow up in homes where they have bad experiences that they grow into (Morgan-Mullane, 2018). Psychosocial developmental theory concentrates on the various ways external and internal forces form life progression as the stages of life come to pass by. Social workers will understand how human development occurs while learning how time and context shape human beings. They will then be more equipped to deal with children from these unfortunate circumstances. They will also be able to manage crises that the children face while helping them get through different stages in life. Social constructionism deals with how the historical contexts and socio-cultural aspects shape people and the formation of knowledge. Social workers will understand how all experience is subjective to the human mind and is never static. They will learn how to offer clients information that they can decipher and help them as they are self-interpreting beings.
References
Dyer, W. J., Day, R. D., & Wiley, A. R. (2018). Jailed Fathers and Family Complexity. Social Work Research , 42 (3), 210-222.
McLeod, B. A., Johnson Jr, W. E., Cryer-Coupet, Q. R., & Mincy, R. B. (2019). Examining the longitudinal effects of paternal incarceration and coparenting relationships on sons' educational outcomes: A mediation analysis. Children and Youth Services Review .
Morgan-Mullane, A. (2018). Trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy with children of incarcerated parents. Clinical social work journal , 46 (3), 200-209.
Skinner-Osei, P. & Levenson, J. S. (2018) Trauma-informed services for children with incarcerated parents, Journal of Family Social Work , 21:4-5, 421-437, DOI: 10.1080/10522158.2018.1499064
Smith, C. J., & Young, D. S. (2017). A retrospective look at the experience of parental incarceration and family reentry during adolescence. Social work in public health , 32 (8), 475-488.
