Jasmine - Abuse Case Study

...

A preventive service that would have kept him out of court is Home visitation (Pg 323). With home visitation, trained nurses come to the home and help prepare for a baby or teach them childcare. More importantly, they advise the mother on birth control and other options other than becoming pregnant again. During the advising and talking to both the father and mother, they probably could have figured out that the father didn’t want any more kids. Something would have been done to help prevent Charlton from being exposed to such a negative environment and being in court for taking his anger out on his teacher. Home visitation would have cleared up any confusion and saved Charlton from being like he is now.

Roshelle

Roshelle is a sixteen-year-old girl who endured physical and sexual abuse in her childhood. At the age of 8, she was sent to live with her grandparents because her mother refused to leave her abusive boyfriend who also sexually abused Roshelle. Living with her grandparents was very difficult because they physically abused her and her younger brother. Since she never received counseling for all the abuse she endured, she acquired some of the same behaviors she grew up around, proving the Social Learning Theory. Having been sexually abused, it led her to be sexually preoccupied with both male and females. She never had a good role model in her life, which led her to be manipulative, and dramatic. Roshelle has also run away more than 40 times and she blames this on her mom who didn’t show her discipline. Being around so much negativity, and having an absence of punishment or rewards, made her act dramatically when she didn’t get what she wanted.

To prevent Roshelle ending up in court, the preventive service that could have helped is the Multisystemic family therapy (MFT). MFT is family therapy that is long and intensive. The purpose of this service is to work with the family relationships in the home and community. What makes this intensive is that the therapist is always available for when he or she is needed. Parents are given counseling involving discipline, which is what Roshelle needs. This service also works to better domestic relationships, which would have been very helpful in this case. If Roshelles mother had gone to MFT with Roshelle, she would have learned how to not only improve her own relationship but also the one with her daughter. It would have prevented Roshelle from being abused by her grandparents and obtaining characteristics from her negative environment.