Living With Disabled Children

For this blog I decided to look at the recent problem of children with disabilities and how it affects families in today’s society. Today many families face the difficulty of getting by and being able to support their disabled child. It’s hard for some families that don’t make enough money or have the resources to take care of the child properly. This has been a problem faced for a long time now but since cost of things go up and jobs are harder to find it’s become a harder problem to face. 

            We already know from learning in our social work course that many people and families rely on programs and welfare assistance to get by in life with just the basic essentials. But then image adding thousands of more dollars into that just to take care of one disabled child. Many families do have to face this. Tons of children are born with disabilities or are premature now have a higher chance of survival due to today’s technology, but this also means that there will be more children that are disabled and need to be cared for (Anderson, 2007). This is bad for society because now these mothers or parents potentially have to quit their job so that they can take care of their child, which is important but then society needs to find another person to fill that job. (Stablie, 2012).Also this child won’t be able to get a job for themselves either because of their disability, which in the long run means that more people who have disabled children and aren’t getting the support they need will be putting more strain on the welfare system, “..the needs of children with disabilities [has] evolved.”(Halfon, 2012). 

            When we take a look at this social issue we see that it is affected by a few of the different approaches to social work. It is covered under the economic theory approach and the welfare regimes approach. In the economic approach there is the Keynes idea or fiscal policy that without employment there is no spending and therefore goods can’t be sold. And when we take a look at the welfare regimes approach we see that there’s usually minimal government participation in giving money and more benefits for people, which is important for families that need the extra support.

            So when we take a look at families facing the hardships of life already, then tacking on another expensive problem, that isn’t their fault it becomes very easy to feel pity for them and feel the need to help them out. There should be more social assistance for families living in poverty or on welfare that have kids with serve disabilities, ones where the parent(s) or caregiver can’t hold a job because they need to look after the child, or the child itself can’t ever hold their own job. Even if more social assistance isn’t able to be given out, programs that can help look after these kids and make progress with them and their disability depending on if it can be helped or not. 

By: Chelsea L

 

Anderson, D., Dumont, S., Jacobs, P., & Azzaria, L. (2007). Public health reports. The Personal Costs of Caring for a Child with a Disability: A Review of the Literature, 122(1), 3-16. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057086

Halfon, N., Houtrow, A., Larson, K., & Newacheck, P. W. (2012). The changing landscape of disability in childhood. The Future of Children, 22(1), 13-42. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41475645

Stabile, M., & Allin, S. (2012). The Economic Costs of Childhood Disability. The Future of Children, 22(1), 65-96. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41475647