Client History and Background
Clareece Jones, 16 year old female, was referred to this office for counseling by a teacher from her school. She prefers to be called and go by the name, “Precious.” Currently she resides in a halfway house and prior to that she was living in section 8 housing with her mother. Her mother does not work and collects welfare from the state. Her mother is physically, verbally and sexually abusive towards Precious. While living with her mother her main diet consisted of fried foods. There are many days she did not eat and her mother would force her to eat fried foods and then call her, “fat.” Client is in poor health and very overweight.
Her father has been in and out of the home all of her life. He began sexually abusing Precious at the age of three. Precious has two children by her father, a girl age 3 who suffers from down syndrome and a 2-week old son. Her daughter lives with her grandmother, however her mother still collects welfare for both Precious and her daughter.
Precious was attending a public high school until the school discovered she was pregnant with her second child. She was transferred to an alternative school called, “Each one Teach one.” The school testing discovered that she reads at only a second grade level and she has made it with passing scores to the ninth grade.
The most recent event occurred after Precious brought her baby home and her mother threw the baby on the ground. Precious fought back for the first time since the abuse started and got her baby out of the home. This event is what let her to the halfway home she currently lives in. .
The client’s mother did visit with Precious at the halfway house and informed her that her fath...
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Community Resources and Referrals
In this client’s case there are many community resources that can assist her in daily life. The National Parent Helpline is available 24 hours a day to provide emotional support in parenting. This would be crucial for Precious since she has decided to care for both her children. Safe Horizons also offers support groups in the client’s area for child abuse and incest survivors which would could greatly benefit Precious in her recovery (Child Abuse, 2014).
As Precious approaches adult hood it could be beneficial for her to connect with community sources such as the Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA) which is a self-help program designed for adults survivors of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. ASCA provides community, web based self-help support groups and, “Survivor to Thriver,” workbooks for the client.
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
When Sophia and Princess Calizaire were four and seven years old, they were taken into foster care after their mother left them stranded at a motel. However, this simple abandonment led to a series of problems. Not only were they tossed from house to house as if they were trash, but they also suffered abuse from their foster families. On several occasions, the two sisters were beaten with belts, hangars, and heels, as well as having their heads submerged in sinks until they were near death; they ate dog food, slept outside, and were raped daily. Luckily, the two girls were able to survive, so that they may share their stories in adulthood. The women now live to warn others of the dangers of foster care, as they did through their interview with
Power relationships are represented in different ways in various texts dependent on the historical era from which the text is produced. Jasper Jones is a coming-of-age novel written by Australian writer, Craig Silvey in 2009. It follows the life of Charlie Bucktin, a thirteen year old resident of Corrigan, a rural mining town in Western Australia as he matures into adulthood. In order to protect Jasper Jones, the town’s ‘troublemaker’, he helps Jasper to dispose the dead body of Laura Wishart, the missing daughter of the shire president and struggles to keep this dreadful secret. Power relationships in this novel have been reflected, reinforced and challenged in their own context and my personal context through various narrative conventions. Racial power has been reflected in the text through the context in which the text is set. Sexual power has been reinforced in the contemporary context. Furthermore, in both the text’s context and my context, the idea of political power has been challenged.
“We aren’t the weeds in the crack of life. We’re the strong, amazing flowers that found a way to grow in the challenging conditions.” (McElvaney, 1057) The book entitled “Spirit Unbroken: Abby’s Story,” offers a perspective on child abuse providing a positive outlook on a tragic situation. Even in the best of circumstances, however, victims of abuse can see the effects of the trauma for the rest of their life. For each individual person affected by this form of trauma, the reactions can vary. The same type of abuse in two different people can have very different outcomes – one could be that of coping, and the other a life of brokenness. Especially at impressionable ages, any form of abuse can be a hindrance in living a normal life. Children
This book shows the struggles that the main character, Precious Jones, has to go through after she was raped by her father twice. Not only is she raped, but her mother does nothing about it and just wants her to live with what ha...
The movie Precious is a movie about a sixteen year old girl nicknamed Precious. The movie shows her difficult life as she lives with her mother. Precious is a teen mother expecting her second child, who is also her father’s child due to him raping her. She is verbally and physically abused constantly by her mother and lives in a very unhealthy environment overall. She takes care of herself and her mother and is told what to do everyday. In the movie she begins to turn her life around when a teacher has faith in her and she begins to get an education, and learns she is not what her mother thinks she is.
This happens once more when the social worker visits her house and Precious has the opportunity to expose her mother for who she is, but when she is asked if everything is okay, she tells them everything is fine, once again suppressing her feelings and displaying suitable emotion for the public.
In the movie “ Precious “ by Lee Daniels, Gabourey Sidibe plays a sixteen years old, illiterate and overweight girl name Precious, who lives in Harlem, New York. She lives with her mother Mary Jones, who was entropic and abusive to her. The abuse and oppression was so traumatic for Precious, she would often dissociate herself from the situation and pretend to be someone else. Losing track of time, her situation and herself was her coping mechanism; throughout the movie it appeared that she would have these dreaming episodes where she would be another person in a much better situation. Precious become pregnant twice from her biological father, who had abandoned the family and infected both she and her mother with the HIV virus. She suffered long-term physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal abuse from her from her parents; symptoms from her personal oppression were depressive and withdrawn attitude. Often she was very quiet and appeared unengaged and inattentive in class.
In the essay "Overcoming Abuse - My Story", Shawna Platt talks about her childhood with her alcoholic parents and her struggles. She has experienced neglect, domestic, emotional and sexual abuse. She also talks about how she overcame all the abuse, the way the abuse effected her mental health, and how she broke the cycle with her children.
Julie Gregory was a sick child. She was in and out of the doctor’s office, and was in the hospital on several occasions. Her illnesses baffled the doctors. She was treated for a variety of sicknesses, but she always seemed to come down with yet another ailment. After enduring years of sickness and misdiagnosis, Julie finally figured out that it was her mother who was responsible for her suffering. Her mother suffered from Munchausen by Proxy. She was abusing Julie to gain attention and sympathy for herself. Julie was not suffering from chronic illness; she was suffering from chronic child abuse. Julie is not alone. Too often in the world today, children are abused, resulting in lasting emotional and physical scars. The question is, how does the pattern of abuse actually affect a person later in life? Julie sought help and seems to be on the road to recovery, but for some, the damage is ongoing.
Jasmine Beckford’s case is the oldest out of the three; in 1984 Jasmine died as a result of long-term abuse aged 4. In 1981 her and her younger sister suffered serious injuries and were paced with foster carers for six months. After this they were allowed back home with their mother on a trial basis as social services were meant to support them. During the last ten months of Jasmine’s life she was only seen once by social workers (Corby, 2006).
When Deborah was only sixteen she became pregnant with her first child by Cheetah and boy she liked when she was younger. Cheetah and Deborah got married and then had their second child. Deborah became very unhappy in the marriage because Cheetah started drinking and doing drugs. He started abusing Deborah. Cheetah pushed Deborah so much she almost killed him if it wasn’t for Bobbette. Deborah’s brothers Sonny and Lawrence were doing well except for Joe. Joe was another case. Joe went to the military, and the family was hoping that would do him good; but he came out worse than when he went in. Joe was threatened and beaten up by a boy named Ivy. Joe was in so much rage he went and stabbed him and killed him. Joe eventually turned himself in to the law, was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced fifteen years in prison.
As previously stated, her father, Carl, sexually assaulted and raped her a copious amount of times and impregnated her not only once, but twice. The abuse began when she was only three years old and continued until she was fifteen; Precious was pregnant at twelve years old. Child rape occurs every two minutes in the United States and sadly one in three girls will be sexually molested before the age seventeen. Sexual abuse is an atrocious, disgusting and horrendous issue that happens every single day to an immense number of children. “Precious” acknowledges this topic and again, shows the negative effects it has on an individual. Although Precious was a victim of sexual abuse and incest; she wanted more for her and her children’s lives. A child who is the victim of prolonged sexual abuse usually develops low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness, an abnormal or distorted view of sex and has a higher risk of committing suicide. On the other hand, Precious did not let her destructive sexual abuse define who she is. “I cried the other day and I felt stupid, but f*ck that day. That’s why god made new days,” she says. Despite her rough past, she is strong enough to continue her life. The director and writer incorporated this issue to increase resilience in children subject to dysfunctional families and to sexual and physical abuse. In children who do not have to contend with those problems, the movie
Precious is a teen who is suffering from obesity and also has other disorders. The movie Precious is a different type of film. She was pregnant with her father's child for the second time at the age of 16 years old and suffers from abuse from her mother. Precious was being abused physically, mentally and emotionally. Although some knew these things were occurring it took a while for anyone to help her. Precious soon sees a change to be able to head in the right direction in her life. When her second pregnancy occur it caused her school to send her to an alternative school. Where she then there learns how to read and write for the first time. Also her mother would not give her money to eat knowing she was pregnant that she needed to eat more and health for the baby.
There are many biological needs a person has. These are usually things that drive species to do things in order to survive. Especially, since Precious is pregnant, she must have food, water, oxygen, sleep, and avoidance of pain. At one point in the movie, when Precious’ mother would not give her money to buy food, Precious goes into a restaurant, orders some chicken wings, and runs out without paying. Precious was very hunger and her biological need to have food and water drove her to do this. Precious was always psychically abused by her mother, Mary. However, after giving birth to her second child, she started to defend herself against her mother to avoid pain. These are just s...