Social Support Network as a Social Determinant
Question:
Discuss about the Primary Health Care in Action for Fishing Fathers.
The social determinants of health inform the way we use primary health care to help communities to maintain health and wellness. Using relevant examples from the video, identify and discuss how two (2) social determinants of health helped determine the need for the project.
The YouTube video ‘It Takes a Village’ by Rural Health Channel (2018) used two social determinants of health factors called social support network and social environment to determine the need for early intervention and prevention of child abuse. Social support network was targeted by the project because it was found that families who were isolated were most likely to have child abuse cases and families who were connected are less likely to neglect or abuse their kids. By the ‘Fishing Fathers’ project, the video showed how the social support network determines the need for engaging fathers in parenting workshops and it used fishing as a tool to teach fathers the way to interact with their child. Hence, it can be said that social support networks promote well-being for people by mitigating negative health consequences of stress (Park et al., 2013).
Another health determinant that was a focus of the child abuse prevention project was creating a positive social network for the young mothers. Social environment is the context in which social variables operate to influence health of an individual (de Andrade et al., 2015). In the ‘Young Mum’s’ project shown in the video, social environment was created for young mothers by bringing them together at youth center to discuss about health issue. As transportation was an issue for many mothers, the facilitators of the program also looked at transportation needs so that all mothers could attend the program and learn ways to deal with stress (Rural Health Channel 2018). The social environment for father was creating by means of fishing program and the fishing activity increases attendance of fathers in parenting skills program too. The video used social support network to develop appropriate social environment for fathers to engage in parenting program too (Mendelson & Letourneau, 2015). In addition, need for creating social support network for indigenous community in Kalumburu arise after the arrest of large number of men on charges of sexual assault. The video showed that too recover from the trauma, several work shops were arranged to foster care and support for everyone (Rural Health Channel 2018). Coordination between community members and social support services help to strengthen service network to address community issues like child abuse (Radcliff et al., 2018)
Community participation and health promotion principle of primary health care guided the project in the video. Community participation is the process where a person or group members in the community take the responsibility for their own health and the health of the community (Talò, Mannarini & Rochira, 2014). It is one of principle of primary health care (PHC) that promotes equity, improves health outcome and contribute to responsiveness of the community. Due to this benefit, participatory mechanisms are embraced by PHC organization so that people are actively engaged to resolved the health issues in the community (Bath & Wakerman, 2015). In the ‘It Takes a Village’ video, the community participation principle guided the ‘Young’s mum’ project as it created a platform where teenage mothers could come together and learn about ways to solve parenting issues and stress. This was an effective approach because young maternal age is a common risk factor for child maltreatment (Scannapieco & Connell-Carrick, 2016). They failed to provide the right care to their children because of stress. However, the ‘Young Mum’s’ adopted the community participation approach to bring all young mothers together and help them to overcome parenting problem by interaction with other expert groups (Rural Health Channel 2018) .
Developing Social Environment for Young Mothers and Fathers
In the video, a program for fathers was also developed where fishing activities connected fathers with social care workers. This program utilized the principle of health promotion to understand ways to improve parenting skills of father and positively interact with their children instead of beating them. Health promotion is the principle of PHC that strengthens the socioeconomic conditions needed for good health. This is essential for early identification of risk factors and identifying preventive initiative to eliminate the risk factor of illness (McManus, 2013). Therefore, by the use of health promotion approach, PHC staffs can understand the need for providing tailored information to modifying behavior of an individual. Rural Health Channel (2018) implemented many projects to change parent’s behavior and treatment towards their children. For example, the health promotion approach became a source of guidance for the father’s project and it enable father to change the way they would interact with their children. Instead of raising their voice at children, they began to talk with their children. Realizing that some parents do not have the training and the education to become parent, the early intervention and prevention program targeted improving parenting skills to reduce rate of child abuse.
Identify one National Health Priority Area that will be impacted on as a result of the program. Explain how this has the potential to impact the health of children or adults in the community, now or in the future.
One National Health Priority Area (NHPA) that will be affected as a resulted of the program includes mental health area. The main goal of the National Mental Health Strategy was to promote mental health of the Australian community, prevent development of mental health problems, reduce adverse impact of mental disorder and fulfill all rights of people with mental problem. It emphasized on implementing activities at all levels from primary health care to tertiary care (Health.gov.au. 2018). The programs or strategies implemented in the video can fulfill these goals as it targeting reducing depression and stress level in parents to improve parent’s relationship with their children. It gave parents the right skills to become loving and caring parents. This can be said because all the three efforts depicted in the video targeted improving parenting skill of parents to reduce child abuse. The results of the program will strengthen community action towards health and well-being of children. When community members will have the right skills to protect their children, their stress level will decrease and this eventually contributes to positive mental health outcome.
By taking the approach to build strong social network, the program can decrease rate of depression in young parents and increase the likelihood of reducing the rate child abuse and neglect. Evidence has shown that depression is most commonly found in people due to adverse childhood experience and impact of child trauma. Patient with major depression were most likely to experience severe form of physical abuse and emotional neglect (Negele et al., 2015). Hence, when rate of child abuse case is reduced, the rate of adulthood depression can be controlled too. Therefore, by taking community building approach, the programs presented in the video has the potential to improve mental health of the community.
Community Participation and Health Promotion in Primary Health Care
Define cultural competence and cultural safety. Discuss why these concepts are important considerations when developing a program like the one in the video. Provide at least one example from the video where these concepts are demonstrated.
Cultural competence: Cultural competence is the set of behaviors, attitudes and skills that supports an individual to effectively work with people in a cross-cultural setting. Presence of such skills enables a person to meet socio–cultural needs of client while delivering care to them (Garneau & Pepin, 2015).
Cultural safety: Cultural safety is an environment or practice that is socially and spiritually safe for all people and does not interfere with identify and cultural practices of people coming from different cultural group (Garneau & Pepin, 2015).
The Rural Health Channel video depicted activities of three programs- one for young teenage mother, second for fathers and the third for a whole community who was ravaged by the incidence of child abuse. All the three programs focused on rebuilding a sense of community among people and rebuilding a strong and caring community to promote health and welfare of children (Rural Health Channel 2018). The first program called the Young Mum’s project demonstrated the concept of cultural competence and cultural safety by ensuring that young mothers get the right support to provide the right protection to their children. The program coordinator realized that as young mothers do not join old aged women program as they felt intimidated, their cultural safety was preserved by the implementation a program that enhanced skills and confidence of teenage mothers. Hence, it can be said that if cultural competence and cultural safety is maintained, then such health promotion programs are most likely to be acceptable by people.
Truong, Paradies and Priest (2014) emphasized that positive norms and shared behaviors are needed by health promotion staffs to promote cultural competence and reduce cases of prejudices and discrimination in people coming from different cultural background. This aspect is shown in the video by means of the Fishing Father’s project where program coordinator and support staffs inculcated positive parenting behavior in parents by encouraging them to talk with their children and build emotional bond with them instead of beating them or neglecting them. ). Secondly, the concept of cultural competence in the program for Kalumburu was maintained by ensuring that all education provided to the community centered around their strong cultural values (Rural Health Channel 2018). This concept can eventually improve participation rate and promote positive behavioral change in people. Jongen, McCalman & Bainbridge (2017) proved the fact that health promotion services and programs that implements cultural competency intervention for staffs have significant impact on health outcomes. Hence, while developing any health promotion program for a target community, adequate training should be given to improve cultural competency of health staffs as cultural competency training has direct relationship with improve patient outcomes (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014). The program content should also be developed in a way to address cultural needs of target population group and provide opportunities for skill development to address the needs of the family.
References:
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Health.gov.au. (2018). Department of Health | National mental health strategy. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/mental-strat
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Rural Health Channel. (2018). It Takes a Village. YouTube. Retrieved 13 April 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcXGuq_k2K8
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