Young Families
Introduction
Parents play the most fundamental role in their children’s lives, their respective families, and the wider society. Individuals transitioning into parenthood have mostly found it to be challenging. However, it can be specifically difficult for young parents below the age of 24 (CFRP Policy Brief, 2019). In contrast to the older parents, young parents are at a fundamental stage of their lives when transitioning into young adults from being children. Therefore, it is potentially possible that these individuals will have to face numerous challenges. This discussion seeks to look into the dynamics of young families made of young parents, the challenges they face, the different kinds of help available for them, and how they can access them.
The Dynamics on Young Parent Families
Generally, the young families are nurturing the next generation, and hence the latter will require an unshakeable foundation to grow to become conscious human beings. The statistics have shown that the number of young families has been fluctuating. For instance, in the United States in 2013, 3.6 million young parents were living with their children. In 2016, almost 210000 babies were born to women aged between 150 and 19, which was an 8% decrease in the birth rates within the same age group in 2015 (Youth.gov, n.d.). The existence of these young families has demonstrated that their needs are considered and catered for by both the local and federal programs.
It is prudent to note when young families, especially the parents, are provided the opportunity to awaken the awareness levels of their strengths compared to their weaknesses, they start a journey on the extensive possibilities attainable in their family life. These parents and even grandparents become cautious of how they lead their lives and the considerable impact they cause on each other, specifically the general development and happiness of young children. According to Poggenpoel et al. (2017), the young parents have acknowledged how important it is to be involved in the lives of their children and asserted working on ensuring they show love, compassion, and acceptance towards each other at parents and also their children their visions would widen as they increasingly became creative in establishing the developmentally attainable objectives that will enhance their loves holistically together with the healthy development of their children. To this effect, an understanding of the various challenges these young families face would be prudent so that the right help measures can be identified and recommended.
The Challenges Faced by Young Families
Young families, specifically young parents, have demonstrated unique needs and challenges, requiring the best individual practices that will serve them. It is essential to understand that when most of these challenges are not tackled appropriately, the young parents, whether teenagers or young adults, will transition into adulthood facing them, which comes with an increase in grievous consequences.
One of the challenges of being a young parent is a negatively affected mental health. Mental health is generally the state of well-being that allows the person to acknowledge their potential, handle everyday life stressors, work productively and contribute to social welfare. Family mental health is the ability of a family to live harmoniously in a dynamic internal and external environment and permit the healthy growth of each person to their most significant potential while emphasizing the children’s healthy development (Poggenpoel et al., 2017). However, these young families can be very demanding, primarily through the relationships that many resorts to divorce. The demands arising from different needs arising from the children, their personal goals, the financial situations, or even health conditions such that their minds cannot even wrap around the numerous problems they have to deal with.
Consequently, the young couple or parents and their children have experienced a negative effect on their mental health. Considering the young individuals are still transitioning into adulthood, many of them are still learning how to deal with their mental health. Some of the challenges presented by running a new family could easily result in anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Failure to cater to these mental health disorders poses numerous risks for these individuals and their children that sometimes become a generational challenge.
Another challenge for these young parents is that the responsibilities of having a family and children constantly impede their personal development education-wise and in their respective careers. Since many of these individuals are transitioning, it is evident that they are at the point where they are building their foundations for success in their education or within the labor market (Sick et al., 2018). However, with a young family, they are now dealing with complex demands such as having stable, affordable, and high-quality child care for their children, having to establish oneself for providing the basic living needs financially, and going through other life challenges with minimal support systems. It is prudent to note that a young parent is exceptional, especially when it comes to a generation focused on personal development over having families. Immediately, one begins a family. Most of their friends reduce their interactions, and the young parents are forced to let go of critical social support systems, especially when the latter is unwilling to help them. Ultimately, these complex demands of running a family become a significant impediment to one’s progress in education and professionally.
With the challenges faced by parents in having to finish school such that many choose to drop off, these young parents consequently have to fight for limited employment opportunities. Research has proven that educational attainment for a parent is the best predictor of economic mobility for their children (Mosle & Patel, 2012). Therefore, when young parents find it challenging to finish school, their children are at risk of experiencing poor health and cognitive development. Subsequently, these children could quickly become younger patients since they do not get a chance to know better. Concerning limited employment opportunities and specifically apart from education levels, these parents are limited in the kinds of employment opportunities they can take. In comparison, young individuals living their life have the opportunity of exploring all sorts of employment regardless of time. Place or intensity, the young parent needs a job that will cater for the time that one needs to spend with the children, consider the schools the children are learning in so they can quickly not move or even consider how demanding the jobs are since there is no help being obtained (Sick et al., 2018). Unfortunately, the young parents are left with limited employment opportunities that may even have minimal remuneration packages. This parent is forced either to take the job or remain jobless at the expense of the child’s growth.
The Help Required By the Young Families and Available Help Programs
With the burden of responsibilities for their children and an urge to attain personal goals, many young parents have a quest to succeed in various things they wish to engage in both personally and professionally (Ricks, 2016). However, the burden of responsibility that affects their mental health requires them to have a support system. In this case, social workers become instrumental in reminding the young parents of their exceptional abilities to succeed and commend them for their consistent efforts. This kind of support fosters a positive attitude among the individuals who constantly reassess their goals, strengths, and subsequent measures to handle any challenges that may impede the opportunities.
It is recommended that the strengths policy perspective be applied in the community to help the young parents. In these policies, the stakeholders seek to exploit the resources available within different environments and have supportive alternative programs (Ricks, 2016). These programs will provide comprehensive services such as child care in the school environments, transportation services, and mental health care services. For instance, in the school environment, apart from these tangible resources, a supportive environment that develops positive relationships between the teachers and students, the students and their peers, and even between the school and home is required. The schools should have present social workers that will emphasize self-efficacy and personal control by promoting academic self-determination and competence (Ricks, 2016). Generally, these social workers will capitalize on the parents; drive and motivation, then Help them in developing goals, implementing interventions that will help them attain the purposes, and Helping in obtaining required resources for rhythm to realize their aspirations. The resources would include having access to a tutor either at home or through digital platforms, childcare services, transport services, and life skills classes.
Child welfare programs are necessary for young parents, especially since most of them are still in the lower-income bracket. There is a need to establish child welfare systems that can collaborate with other intervening public systems and community-based organizations that will transform the standards of care given to these young families (Mishraky-Javier & Notkin, 2020). These systems play a huge role in mitigating the many challenges that young parents face when balancing their transition into adulthood while raising a child. Currently, several child welfare systems focus on offering support to young parents as they are taught to lead quality lives. One of them is the Teen Parent Connection program in Georgia headed by Molly Case that focuses on pregnant teens and young parents in conjunction with their children (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017). New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services, headed by Sabine Chery, actually provides child welfare, juvenile justice, and early care and education services to eligible young families and their children. Another one is the Center for the Study of Social Policy, headed by Sarah Morrison is a national nonprofit that focuses on securing equal opportunities and better futures for all children and their families (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017). This nonprofit has asserted support for the present child welfare systems to build multi-generational strategies to meet the development needs of young parents and their children. They are also working to change the dominant negative narrative of young parents, especially in foster care, and point out any racial inequities that have led to an overrepresentation of youth of color in the child welfare systems.
Considering that employment remains a huge problem for these young parents, which affects the region’s poverty levels, there is a need for various stakeholders to seek better ways of handling the jobless spells. One of them is implementing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the primary law governing workforce programs (Sick et al., 2018). This law seeks to expand services to young adults and parents where new opportunities are opened up locally with attention given to this vulnerable population. It is prudent to recognize that the employment services need to be provided together with other supports that have various needs which young parents and families are dealing with. The governments could hence invest in programs that aid the young parents in attaining financial stability and keeping more of their earnings during the earthly years of thesaurus children. This could start by ensuring that benefit programs exclude young patients. Congress should reduce the eligibility age for the childless workers’ Earned Income Tax Credit to 21, which uses the nonresident fathers to provide the child support requirements and contribute to the economic stability of that child. States are prompted to follow the California and Maryland strategies of expanding their EIRC to all workers between 18 and 25. The shape and the federal government should develop or increase the Child Tax Credit for families with young children since it would disproportionately aid the young parents.
Considering that young parents are less likely to have health insurance than older parents, states are required to improve efforts to make sure the young patients can access comprehensive health care, which also includes mental health services. Unexpected health expenses must not create a more profound financial crisis for young families (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2018). Currently, many young families are receiving public benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Helpance Program and Medicaid for health insurance (Sick et al., 2018). Young parents have received at least one primary public benefit more than twice. The children also have higher insurance coverage rates than the parents to suggest that the benefits from being covered by Medicaid and the expanded coverage provided by the Children’s Health insurance Program play a considerable role. Notably, more efforts could be improved considering that an estimated 17 states have still not expanded Medicaid coverage to include more low-income parents without implementation of work requirements or further restrictions. Research has proved that an increase in health insurance coverage for young parents will increase coverage for the children (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2018). However, work requirements bring in barriers that cause families to lose access to essential supports even when working. States also need to cover screening for maternal depression, especially in the home visit and the well-child visits under the health insurance plans for the children.
Conclusively, young parents will continue to be part of the society/ stakeholders need to acknowledge their existence and work on the different challenges faced so that their children grow to be productive individuals. Various support programs can be created and developed further that will go a long way in helping young parents.
References
Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2018). Opening doors for Young Families. Retrieved from https://assets.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-openingdoorsforyoungparents-2018.pdf
CFRP Policy Brief. (2019). Understanding the needs of young parents and the best approaches for serving them. Retrieved from https://childandfamilyresearch.utexas.edu/understanding-needs-young-parents-and-best-approaches-serving-them
Mishraky-Javier, L., & Notkin, N. (2020, September 8). Expectant & parenting youth in foster care. Retrieved from https://cssp.org/our-work/project/expectant-parenting-youth-epy-in-foster-care/
Mosle, A., & Patel, N. (2012). Two generations, one future: Moving parents and children beyond poverty together. The Aspen Institute.
Poggenpoel, M., Jacobs, F. E., Myburgh, C. P., & Temane, A. M. (2017). Young families become mindful of their possibilities through the appreciation of their family life. health sa gesondheid, 22, 1-8.
Ricks, N. (2016). The strengths perspective: providing opportunities for teen parents and their families to succeed. Journal of Family Strengths, 15(1), 11.
Sick, N., Spaulding, S., & Park, Y. (2018). Understanding young-parent families.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2017, October 16). Evidence-based programs for young parents in foster care. Retrieved from https://www.aecf.org/blog/evidence-based-programs-for-young-parents-in-foster-care
Youth.gov. (n.d.). Introduction. Retrieved from https://youth.gov/youth-topics/expectant-parenting-young-families
