The exposition intellectual impairment refers to a form of disability that is widely characterized by limitations in adaptive behaviors and intellectual functioning. According to scientific research and results, this form of disability originates before one is 18 years of age. On the other hand, cultural competence refers to the ability to appreciate, interact and understand with people from diverse belief systems/cultures.
Predominantly, this essay is aimed at discussing intellectual impairment and cultural competence in youth residential care. In a lay man’s language, a youth residential care refers to a center that provides young people and children with a safe home environment. Most of these children are removed from living situations and conditions that are unsafe and not standard for human growth, development and survival.
Intellectual impairment in youth residential care
Intellectual impairment also known as intellectual disability is mainly attributed by several causes. These causes encircle; fragile X syndrome, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and down syndrome. Other major causes related with this form of impairment include; pregnancy issues, problems right after birth, cultural and poverty factors (Crocker " Prokić " Morin " Reyes, 2014). A majority of the young people who live in youth residential care are intellectually impaired reason being the palpability that they come from cultural and family backgrounds that are broken down in terms of bonding relationships and finance respectively. Based on a survey and research that was recently concluded, it was established that children who hail from poor backgrounds facing extreme poverty are a higher risks of being intellectually impaired since they are exposed to diseases and toxins that affect the normal functioning of the brain.
Children who hail from backgrounds that are well – off have lower risks of being intellectually impaired since they receive timely and proper health treatments (Cuellar, 2015). This treatments are essential since they help in fighting the diseases and toxins that are associated with intellectual impairment. Children from poor backgrounds have higher risks of being intellectually impaired since they are experiencing malnutrition. A poor diet or failure to consume foods that are good for mental growth is likely to cause intellectual impairment. Lack of information, knowledge, educational and cultural experiences is another intellectual impairment contributing factor (Emerson " Hatton , 2014). In regards to the contributing factors mentioned above, it is arguably safe to conclude that most children and young people at youth centers are intellectually impaired since they hail from backgrounds that are hard – hit by poverty, they lack medication, cultural and any form of educational experiences.
As a result of experiencing a lack of the factors discussed in the latter paragraphs, most of the children and young people living in youth residential care centers tend to portray characteristics and behaviors that are often said to be complex. The most prevailing characteristics, attitudes and behaviors portrayed by intellectually impaired children and young people include; lack of any form of impulse control, depression, ignorance of details, poor tolerance to frustration levels and stress, low self-esteem and lack of developed problem solving skills (Crocker " Prokić " Morin " Reyes, 2014). From a conventional perspective, most impaired children and young people are stressed about life, they feel like they are a burden and hopeless. However, it is paramount to apprehend that individuals who are content and happy about life may also be suffering from intellectual impairment only that they have a stronger self – esteem and focus than other victims of the disorder.
When it comes to improving the characteristics and behavior of the youth and children, there is nothing much that can be done as Intellectual impairment is a permanent disorder. A majority of doctors and health professionals only suppress the disorder to reduce the odds of a victim being succumbed by it. In a bid to ensure that youths and children living in youth residential care do not face extreme frustrating and stress levels, correspondents can offer them education and expose them to cultural experiences. As mentioned earlier on, lack of education and cultural experience is a leading cause to intellectual disorder. Workers at a residential care center ought to consider offering a variety of foods that have a balanced nutrition.
Malnutrition contributes to intellectual impairment, for purposes of avoiding more damage, the youth and children at the care center are supposed to be offered foods that are rich in a variety of nutrients that are good for jogging and improving the state of the mind. In summary, intellectual impairment can be monitored and improved by exposing intellectually impaired individuals at the facility to cultural experiences, education and proper nutrition. Other activities that can be offered to improve on a particular character, issue or behavior are day and vocational programs, case management and transitional services.
Cultural competency in youth residential care
In remarks to the introductory part, cultural competency refers to the ability to appreciate, interact and understand with people from diverse belief systems/cultures. After conducting a critical and detailed research, it is evidently clear that cultural competence is very important when it comes to administering care for the young children and youth at residential care centers. Lack of cultural competency is very dangerous on the grounds that workers at a residential care center may fail in improving the behaviors and characters of individuals suffering from intellectual impairment (Napier " Ancarno " Butler " Calabrese " Chater " Chatterjee " Macdonald,, 2014). Conventionally, health professionals and experts working at residential care centers are supposed to be endowed with qualities, skills and knowledge that will help in improving the behaviors or issues being faced by the youth or children identified with intellectual impairment.
According to my research, it was easily proven that cultural competency in youth residential centers heavily depends on whether the workers and health professionals are culturally competent or not. If by any chance they are not competent, it means that they do not appreciate, interact and understand people from diverse belief cultures and systems. Consequently, the issues and behaviors that the children and youth are facing are likely to heighten. Cultural competency in a youth residential care is very important in that health professionals and workers can be able to fully relate with individuals from different multicultural backgrounds (Holland, 2017). The act of caring and offering medical services to such groups of people is a challenging affair that requires a lot of time and commitment. Most health workers and professionals who are not culturally competent end up stereotyping and misapplying scientific and medicinal knowledge that further affects the health and intellectual levels of the individuals receiving treatment.
Cultural competency is very effective especially when it comes to controlling stress and frustration levels of individuals suffering from intellectual impairment (Jeffreys, 2015). Through this form of competency, patients can be able to express themselves which will subsequently result to reduced stress and frustration levels. Inherently, most patients at youth residential are not able to express themselves since they do not trust their care givers and health professionals. As a result of suppressing the information within them, most of this patients never get any form of healing or improvement in terms of reducing or alleviating stress and high levels of frustration. Cultural competency is also effective on improving levels of intellectual impairment at youth residential centers since the workers and health professionals will be able to detect on whether patients are making any form of health improvements or deterioration (Napier " Ancarno " Butler " Calabrese " Chater " Chatterjee " Macdonald,, 2014). Failure to understand and relate with them only means that health professionals cannot be able to keep a medical track of whether the issues and behaviors are being resolved.
Intellectually impaired youth and children need to be given a lot of care time. Failure to this will result to dire consequences such as experiencing full – blown intellectual forms of impairment. Personally, I believe that without cultural competence, it is hard to treat and tame the behaviors and issues faced by intellectually impaired children. Nurses, doctors and other health practitioners who are not cultural competent are supposed to be re – trained on the advantages and disadvantages of being culturally competent (Toney, 2017). Failure to implement this objective measure, residential centers will be packed and full of youth and children who are not showing any signs of progress and improvement when it comes to behavior, characters and issues. From a general point of view, intellectually impaired children and youth have to be administered and taken care by culturally competent professionals.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, resolving and taking care of behaviors and issues attributed to intellectual impairment requires a team of culturally competent health workers and professionals. Most patients who end up developing negative, complex behaviors and issues instead of showing some form of improvement are usually subjected to forms of treatment and care by practitioners who are not competent to multiculturalism. Based on this essay, it is easy to conclude the idea that intellectually impaired youth and children require standard care, utter most understanding and interaction for them to overcome the hurdles they keep on facing day in day out. In summary, intellectually impaired youth at residential centers should be provided with proper care, education and exposed to different cultural experiences in order to show signs of improvement or progress mentally. It is also vital to comprehend that attending to intellectual impairment goes hand in hand with multicultural competency.
References
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Cuellar, A. (2015). Preventing and treating child mental health problems. The future of children, 111-134.
Emerson, E., " Hatton, C. (2014). Health inequalities and people with intellectual disabilities. Cambridge University Press.
Holland, K. (2017). Cultural awareness in nursing and health care: an introductory text. Routledge.
Jeffreys, M. R. (2015). Teaching cultural competence in nursing and health care: Inquiry, action, and innovation. Springer Publishing Company.
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Napier, A. D., Ancarno, C., Butler, B., Calabrese, J., Chater, A., Chatterjee, H., ... " Macdonald, A. (2014). Culture and health. The Lancet, 384(9954), 1607-1639.
Toney, M. P. (2017). Cultural Competence in Nursing School Curricula (Doctoral dissertation, Carlow University).
Vissers, L. E., Gilissen, C., " Veltman, J. A. (2016). Genetic studies in intellectual disability and related disorders. Nature Reviews Genetics, 17(1), 9.
