Question:
Identify one contemporary social policy debate and consider the theoretical underpinnings of the various positions within the debate. Critically analyse the impact of the policy in relation to one client group or population and identify the way that a human services professional can be involved with influencing the social policy.
The main aim of the assignment is to discuss the various social issues that the people face and what are the theories that affect the social issues. The author chooses one contemporary social policy debate and analyses the impact of the policy in relation to one client group or population. It further analyzes how the social policy issues can affect the professional services of the human being and the way that a human services professional can be involved with influencing the social policy. The author also discusses the usage of the social policy to positively influence the service provision and the society. The main idea of the assignment is to discuss the impact of social policies and the issues on human being and society. It also critically analyzes the theoretical aspects of the social policies (Graetz, 2016).
Social policy is a subject that combines various other subjects such as sociology, political science and economics to understand the influence of the policy on the society and human beings or a particular group of population. The main aim of the social policy is to discuss individual social well being and social justice and the policy impact the policies are having on society. It is an interdisciplinary subject that combines various subjects such as sociology, political science and economics (Smith, 2014). The main aim of studying social policy is to acquire theoretical knowledge and concepts so that people have the ability to think creatively. Contemporary social issues are the issues that the people at current scenario face. This includes topics such as crime, violence, abuse, racism and discrimination in society. Social issues are the problems that the society face that causes damage to society and people existing in the society. Contemporary social issues are the issues that present people face and the problems that exist currently. It is the problems that are most discussed such as girl child education in Africa and the peace in the Middle East. The author chooses to discuss the issue of increase in suicide rates in Australia that is linked to social crisis (Giddens, 2013).
The society face many issues social issues such as challenges regarding the education of girl child in Africa, rise in abortion of girl child, bullying, sexual harassment against women, and terrorism and violence. The top most social issues that Australia faces are treatment of asylum seekers, aboriginal imprisonment, disability rights, marriage inequality that is disallowing same sex marriage and the rise in terrorism. Recently the most common social issue that Australia faces is the rise in the suicide rate in Australia that has direct impact on the economic and social conditions of the economy. Suicides in Australia is the most studied because of the increase in the rate of suicide rate and its damaging impact on society and economy (Adinkrah, 2012).
The suicide rates in Australia have increased by twenty percent between 2004 and 2014. The next agenda of the parliament house in Australia is to take some preventive measures to reduce the number of suicide in the economy. The main reason for the rise in suicide rates in the worsening economic conditions that are hampering many families and communities. Though the economy is able to imply social safety net to the unemployed people and the ones with disability it has not been successful in controlling the suicide rates. The report presented by the datacenter suggested and examined that the average of 7.8 deaths occurs in Australia by suicides each day (Elliott, 2014). The most common reason for the rise in suicide rates is the worsening economic conditions. Rise in the unemployment rate was one of the major factors contributing to rise in the suicide rates in Australia. The other factors were loss of manufacturing that resulted in lay off many Australian workers. The second is rise in cost of the housing and education that was making it difficult for people to maintain the standard of living. The pressure to feed its family is rising due to which the only way people find it easy to escape is take away their life and die. It is essential for the Australian government to provide mental health benefits in order to decrease the psychological stress of people (Alston, 2012).
The social issues that the people are facing is rise in poverty, unemployment, decrease in funding of education and training sessions, and lack of social support regarding the housing crisis from the government. The factors contributing to rise in suicide is complex in nature. It is a major social problem in Australia. The main drawback is that the study of suicides is confined to morality of mental illness. Suicide is violence and damage to one self that is caused due to many social factors. Suicide may not only occur due to economic conditions, but there can be many other reasons (Beadnell, 2016). Problems in personal relationship, mental health problem, or other social factors such as inability to handle stress are some of the factors that contribute to suicides. Suicide has many implications to societies and communities all being negative implications. High rates in suicides are known as humanitarian crisis. In Australia suicides are more common in males than in females. The reason for higher male suicide rates are lower socio economic lifestyle and increase in social isolation. Alcohol and suicide rates also have positive correlation. Unemployment and suicide rates have a positive correlation. As the unemployment rate rises so does the suicide rates (Batterham et al., 2013).
Suicide is considered as one of the serious problem in not only Australia but globally. It is related to many social factors such as differences in sex, race and gender discrimination, differences in class and standards and age discrimination. It is greatly related to demographical and social changes. Suicides occurring due to personal reasons are divided into three categories that includes clinical, situational and rational. Suicides occurring due to depression are known as clinical suicide. Suicides occurring due to changes in the situation fall under the category of situational suicides. These include loss in job, financial problems, broken relationships, rise in stress and emotional pain. Suicides occurring due to political reasons and illness fall in the category of rational suicide where people lose hope to live. The main problem of suicides is found especially on teens and the younger section of society. The main relation of suicide is to stress and depression. It is essential to raise awareness among the youth that specifies the problems and challenges of suicides. Increase in suicide indicates social crisis. Suicide leads to rise in social tensions and crisis (De Leo, 2015).
Depression and aggression is the principal causes of suicide. Psychological theories usually concern some psychodynamic mechanism as the determining factor in suicide. Psycho biologists investigating aggressive, self-assertive and deviant behavior have suggested that somatic alterations may be an important factor. The concept of suicide was introduced by a French sociologist or social philosopher Emile Durkheim in the year 1897 (Van et al., 2013). His work was concerned with specifying how societies can maintain integrity and modernity in societies. The theoretical concept is used to explain the social environmental influences underlying suicide. There are different levels of suicides and various behaviors that influence suicides. According to Taylor there are four types of behavior that influences suicide. These include a term known as suicide where a person attempts to dies and does so. The second is attempted suicide where a person thinks of dying but does not. The fourth is suicidal gesture where a person has no intention of dying and does not. The last one is accident where a person does not intend to die but does so because of unforeseen events. The theories related to suicide are classified into three groups (Borgatti et al., 2014). These are:
Different suicide theories are competing in nature and they overlap in some way. Various authors have used many traditional psychological and social concepts that influence the suicide theories. Sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, economists, epidemiologists, demographers, historians, theologians and philosophers have all applied themselves to the problem of suicide. The theory of suicide is known as ‘Suicidology’ (Wellington, 2015). It is an interdisciplinary subject that combines various other subjects such as economics, sociology, psychology and culture. There are two primary theories that state the influence of the social environmental factors on suicide. The first one is the theories competing that suicide, is primarily a result of comprehensive conditions of social disturbance or incompetence and the way it is attractive in a collection or inhabitants. The second theory is that the suicide is the product of distinct social or cultural meanings and the way it is patterned in a group or population. One is a generalized concept while the other is the distinct and specialized concept (Douglas, 2015).
The main group or population that is influenced by suicide is men in Australia. Suicide does not only affect the economy but it also affects the family that is left behind. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in Australia. The research indicates that men account for 80 % of all suicides in Australia. Society has a cost to pay for suicide and it greatly affects partners, siblings, family members, friends and the clients, patients or customers. It has a negative impact on communities and society as well (Stanley et al., 2015). Suicides also have negative economic costs. There are two types of costs that suicide has that are direct and indirect costs. The direct costs are costs related to paying for ambulance charges, doctor service, counseling charges to family members and police service charge. The indirect cost is the cost related to the contribution that a person would have made on the economy and its activity. It is measured as income of people and its contribution to growth and GDP of the country. The indirect costs relates to productivity loss, low economic output and low national income (Haw et al., 2013).
Suicide has a negative impact in society. The teens get influenced in a wrong way and it also spreads wrong message in a community. Suicide also leads to more suicide as the ones who are affected due to suicide of theory loved ones attempt to die as they have no reason to live. The term used for this kind of suicide is known as copycat suicide. One suicide affects the entire society. It is not just one client that gets affected from suicide of one person but the entire population, society and community. The riskiest group in Australia attempting suicide is male members aged between 20 to 35 years of age. There are various strategies that can be adopted to control the suicide rates. Media also has a great impact on society as well as suicides. The major impact is not on the ones who die but on the ones who attempt to die but survive. The mental illness of those people increase and it becomes difficult for them to survive in the society that often does not accept the ones who are involved in such kind of act (Judd et al., 2012).
Human services professional can be involved with influencing the social policy and suicide. Proper formations of strategy and planning b the communities and the government can help reducing suicides across the world. Dealing with suicide is a complex process as it is difficult to judge that a person is about to commit suicide. In order to reduce the number of suicides it is essential to develop health care centers where the patients with mental illness are given proper treatment. It is very delicate to deal with the person who is depressed. The government and the communities should hire the psycatrists and psychologists that can effectively deal with the situation and help the person come out of depression. The family members of the suicidal person should be alert if a person is in depression. There are various helpline centers where the person can contact of the thought of suicide are striking in their minds. Avoiding the intake of drugs and alcohol can also reduce the number the suicides (Goldney, 2013).
National suicide prevention strategy is an organization that formulates policies with an emphasis on prevention and intervention on suicides. It provides a basic platform in Australia. The strategies formulated by the organization include formation of leadership groups at national level that presents its support and services to the ones depressed. It also includes formation of national health care that provides special assistance to ones who have attempted suicides (Loureiro et al., 2015).
There are various approaches that can be used to prevent suicide. The first approach is public health approach to suicide prevention. The public health approach is based on population, prevention, understanding and developing activities that helps in works across sectors. The second is strategic planning to prevent suicide. Those approaches help in understanding the community’s suicide problem, that prioritizes prevention efforts and implement, expand and prevent suicide activities in the suicide problems over time. The third approach is the comprehensive approach to prevent suicide. It is the most systematic approach that employs seven strategies. The first strategy is identifying people at risk. The second approach is seeking help. The third approach is providing access to mental health services. The forth strategy is establishing crisis management procedures. The fifth approach is restricting access to lethal means and the sixth approach is enhancing life skills. The last strategy is promoting social networks and connectedness (McNamara, 2013).
It is essential to identify the warning signs in order to prevent suicides. The ten important suicide warnings that should be noticed by the family members and siblings are that:
A person who feels that he is depressed should talk to a person and seek advice. Talking to a friend or family member helps reducing stress and depression. The listener or the family member should be quick in responding during the time of social crisis. Proper planes and resource should be executed in order to implement the strategy and set a time frame for intention. It is also essential to support help to get professional help. It is essential to seek professional help. Professional service will help the patient and the victim to deal with patient. Health professional helps in managing the health problems and mental illness that helps in dealing with the situation professionally (Robinson et al., 2015).
Social policies help in creating an environment that is healthy and ethical. There are various areas where the social policies are implied. These include well being, welfare, unemployment, insurance, justice, animal rights, education, criminal offence and urban development. Suicide as studies above does not have a positive influence but has a negative influence on society. It negatively influences the teens and adolescents residing in society as they think that suicide is an easy way to escape all problems and tensions (Parsons, 2013). The problem of copycat suicide adds on to the damage due to which the number of suicides keeps in increasing. The social policies are important in solving various social problems. Social policies helps in studying the reason for the social problems to rise and then helps in forming proper strategies to prevent it from the core. Then the problem identified is addressed using various social and political implications. Non governmental agencies that aim at increasing the social well being of the community try to bring the situation under control. The research agenda is a department that uses social policies to identify the problems to prevent risks. The main aim of the department is to identify the key questions to prevent suicide that are why do people commit suicide or how can risk be predicted. It also identifies the policies that help in reducing the risk and preventing the suicides helping the suicidal rates to fall. Identification of intervention policy to prevent suicides is necessary condition (Milner et al., 2012).
Conclusion
Hence, suicides are one of the emerging social problems that are on rise. The suicide rates in Australia are continually rising especially in Australia in case of male members. There are various strategies that can be used by professional service to prevent suicides. Rising suicide and its social issue is the most studied topic in Australia recently. It is essential for the organizations to understand the reasons that is urging people to die and try mitigating it by providing them proper security and benefit. There are various theories related to suicides that are competing in nature. The social problem has direct impact on society and community.
References
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Batterham, P. J., Calear, A. L., & Christensen, H. (2013). The stigma of suicide scale. Crisis.
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