The issue I decided to research is mental health among children and parents. Mental health is an
important topic to stay on top of and continuously find new strategies to help families and children
deal with these issues. The first journal article I found is called "Health and social relationships of
mothers of children in special education schools". This journal talks about how having a child in a
special education school affects the mother. I would say that this is a very eye-opening article.
Some of the outcomes and results were shocking but also makes a lot of sense. They did a study on
both special education schools as well as normal elementary schools. For the special education
schools, they found that mothers were more likely to have a higher BMI, poor mental health, and
lower social skills (Yamaoka 2022). As for the normal elementary school, they found that
whenever their child had high behavioral problems their BMI was high as well (Yamaoka 2022).
The second article I chose is "Screening for traumatic stress in children and adolescents with
congenital heart disease". In this journal article, they talk about how children undergoing cardiac
surgery have potential long-term implications relating to mental health (Konkel 2022). The
objective of this study was to find better practices to help assess children who may develop this
post-traumatic stress (Konkel 2022). The way that they did this was to adjust the care among
children as well as adopt changes to their outpatient clinic (Konkel 2022). I felt as though this was
a very intriguing article to read. This is such a huge procedure that can have a lasting effect on
children that most people never consider.
This issue impacts the work of human services agencies by giving them a purpose to help benefit
others. In these two articles, the topic of mental health is so significant. Human service
professionals have the opportunity to go in and help fix these issues to help avoid these lasting
mental health issues. Within the first article, a human service agency would be able to help
mothers by providing them with resources to help them take care of themselves while dealing with
a child in special education or a child with behavioral problems. As for the second article, a human
service professional would play a huge part in helping a child through the difficulty of surgery. A
specific job for this is a child life specialist who specializes in assisting children and families
through difficult procedures like this.
I look forward to seeing what other articles everybody else has found. I hope everyone is having a
great week so far.
The first article, “Addressing Food Insecurity in the United States During and After the COVID-
19 Pandemic: The Role of the Federal Nutrition Safety Net” addresses the issues of
unemployment, poverty, and food supply disruptions that were the result of the pandemic. The
USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) defines low food security as “…reports of reduced diet
quality, variety, or desirability of diet,” and defines very low food security as “…reports of
multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” (Fleischhacker &
Bleich, 2021) In 2019, the ERS estimated 10.5% of US households were food insecure sometime
within the year, and this estimate of food insecurity “doubled overall and tripled among household
with children.” (Fleischhacker & Bleich, 2021) This issue impacted the work of human services
agencies by increasing the need for assistance and need for networking within communities.
The second article, “Covid-19 & Food Insecurity: How the Covid-19 Pandemic Has Exacerbated
Food Insecurity and Will Disproportionally Affect Low Income and Minority Groups,” looks at
the link between food insecurity because of the Covid-19 pandemic and how low-income and
minority communities experience it at a higher rate. Black and Hispanic Americans and low-
income household are already disproportionately food insecure, so these populations experienced
higher food insecurities during the pandemic. (Rice, 2021) Food insecurity in these populations
also increase the risk of health effects from Covid-19. (Rice, 2021) Again, the Covid-19 pandemic
increased the need for assistance to access and afford food, which directly impacts human service
agencies.
References
Fleischhacker, S., & Bleich, S. N. (2021, March 15). Addressing Food Insecurity in the United
States During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of the Federal Nutrition Safety Net.
EBSCO. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.ebsco.com/products/ebscohost-
research-platform
Rice, G. (2021, March 15). Covid-19 & Food Insecurity: How the Covid-19 Pandemic Has
Exacerbated Food Insecurity and Will Disproportionally Affect Low Income and Minority Groups.
EBSCO. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.ebsco.com/products/ebscohost-
research-platform c
Konkel, T., Kroll, K. H., Goertz, M. T., Lavoie, J., Bagli, S. P., Kogutkiewicz, K., Kostroski, R.,
Scott, L., Stoll, P., Andres, J., Saudek, D., Handler, S. S., & Brosig, C. L. (2022, November 8).
Screening for traumatic stress in children and adolescents with congenital heart disease. Progress
in Pediatric Cardiology. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1058981322001011
Yamaoka, Y., Doi, S., Isumi, A., & Fujiwara, T. (2022, November 14). Health and social
relationships of mothers of children in special education schools. Research in Developmental
Disabilities. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0891422222002049
