Advanced Abnormal Child Psychology by Hersen Michel. Ammerman Robert T

Author:Hersen, Michel.,Ammerman, Robert T. [MICHEL HERSEN AND ROBERT T. AMMERMAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2011-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

13

Community, Prevention, and Wellness

Raymond P.Lorion

Ohio University

In its original form (Lorion, Brodsky, Flaherty, & Holland, 1995), this chapter invited readers to think about community both as a locus and as a focus for efforts to prevent emotional and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents. Relevant to community as focus, conduct disorders in girls and affective disorders in boys were offered as counterintuitive examples of how contextual factors contribute to the etiology, maintenance, and remediation of psychological problems in youth. Relevant to community as locus, the value of incorporating preventive interventions within and across the natural settings and systems in which children live, learn, play, and relate to others was made clear.

Extending these prior themes, this chapter examines some mechanisms by which context influences development, critically reviews evidence of such influence and applies that evidence to the conceptualization of interventions to prevent disorder and promote wellness in youth and families. Effective preventive interventions offer strategies for reducing risks factors, righting existing wrongs, and, most importantly, actively shaping the future of youth. Targeted early in the life span, preventive interventions can have long-term positive social impacts by maximizing individual productivity and satisfaction (Haggerty & Mrazek, 1994; National Institute of Mental Health, 1996).

Avoidance of pathology should not be the only route taken by developmental scientists and practitioners to serve the needs of youth. Estimates obtained over nearly 3 decades indicate that approximately one quarter of youth suffer from an identifiable emotional or behavioral disorder prior to reaching adulthood (Glidewell & Swallow, 1967; Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994). The needs of these children must be addressed with the most effective preventive and early treatment strategies available. Attention, however, also must be paid to the remaining 75%. For these children, the challenge for parents, educators, and service providers is not to avoid pathology but to optimize development. Increasingly, this goal—the achievement and maintenance of wellness—is gaining the attention of health and mental health service providers (e.g., Cowen, 1991, 1994; Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994). For that reason, health and wellness promotion also is considered within this chapter. By appreciating the relative merits of, and combining, treatment, prevention, and health promotion efforts, providers of services to children gain access to a comprehensive strategy in support of children and adolescents.

Like its predecessor, this chapter has the dual focuses of prevention and community. The importance of contextual factors is not diminished with the addition of health promotion efforts. Effective preventive and health promotive interventions, we believe, must be based on an understanding of pathogenic and health-promotive processes inherent in the everyday settings in which children live, learn, play, and interact (Lorion, 1991, 1998a, 1998b, in press-b). If carefully designed, implemented, evaluated, and disseminated, the array of available interventions can increase the resistance of children and adolescents to psychologically toxic elements in their environments and even may reduce the toxic quality of those settings (Lorion, Brodsky, & Cooley-Quille, 1998; Wandersman & Hess, 1985). Including a focus on wellness increases the chances to enhance youths’ natural capacities to exploit positive elements of their everyday environments.

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