User talk:William Kiadii

Introduction

The United States’ (U.S) juvenile justice system (JJS) was established in the late 1800s to reform policies that involve offenses carried out by youth. Immediately following the creation of the JJS, the state of Illinois established the first juvenile court in the U.S around April 1899. (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1963). This process later became a nationwide model that ultimately every state began adopting it in the U.S. as well as the District of Columbia (D.C) and Puerto Rico. The JJS is an established legal institution where juveniles are processed, adjudicated and corrected. It basically embodies children and youth between the ages of ten and twenty one (depending on which jurisdiction one is located). In D.C, and all federal districts, any person age 18 or younger is considered a juvenile (Whitehead & Lab, p. 2, 1999). The JJS operates on the pretext that youth are different from adults and therefore should not be treated as adults. The treatment, rehabilitation and successful reintegration of youth who have committed offenses, back into the normal society and providing public safety from these offenders at the same time are the primary goals of the JJS. In D.C, unlike other states, the JJS is handled by the Youth and Family Services Division of the Metropolitan Police Department. The Department of Human Services (DHS) is the organization charged with providing appropriate placement options and services for juvenile offenders (District of Columbia Board of Parole p.2, 1994). In the perspective of the law, a juvenile or a manor is considered as any person under the legal adult age. This age varies from state to state, but in most states, the D.C, and in all Federal Districts, any person aged 18 or younger is regarded as a juvenile (Whitehead & Steven, third edition, 1999). The major responsibility of counselors in the JJS is to provide services, especially in the areas of rehabilitation, protection of the public against juvenile offenders through clinical and case management activities. The nature of this task exposes them to both internal and external stressful conditions. Incidentally, they are not the only ones vulnerable to stress. According to the U.S Industries yearly report, approximately 550 million working days are losing due to absenteeism. It is estimated that 54% of these absences reported are either directly or indirectly related to stress (Elkin & Rosch p. 91, 1990). Stress activates the so-called 'fight, flight' response. Adrenaline and nor adrenaline elevate blood pressure and increase heart rate, blood flow to the skin is reduced and stomach activity drops. Cortical releases fat and sugar into the circulation but reduces the efficiency of the immune system (MacDonald, Vol. 32, Issue 6, 2006). For many years now, counseling juveniles in the JJS has always been characterized by stress. For the purpose of this paper, three basic external stressors would be discussed in detail. The motivation for this research is derived from the need for personnel management to get aggressively involve in managing counseling-related stresses within the JJS. Counseling-related stresses are varied, but for the purpose of this research, only three most common external stressors would be discussed in detail. Research Questions Extrapolating from the discussion of the problem and attendant issues of job-related counseling in the JJS, this research is guided by the following questions: 1.	How has the three most common stresses (family, financial challenges and workload) impacted counselors in the JJS? 2.	What is the role of personnel management in the JJS in managing counseling-related stress of counselors in the JJS?

Definition and Implications of Stress Stress is difficult to define because it is a highly subjective phenomenon that differs from individual to individual. Things that might be distressful for one individual can be pleasurable for another. Stress is usually the responses the bodies and minds have to the demands placed on them. It is an integral part of life and also an integral part of any job. Without stress, it might be very difficult for an individual to meet deadlines and achieve goals. Meeting the demands and challenges associated with a particular job is part of what makes work interesting and satisfying, and it’s often what allows people to cultivate new skills and advance in their careers. On the average, juveniles are involved in one-quarter of all serious violent victimizations (not including murder) committed annually. For the past decades, the natural response to crime in the U.S is incarceration (Tolan & Gorman-Smith, p. 405-415). The number of arrests has increased in the past three decades. The caseload is just alarming. For instance, in 2003, about 2.2 million juveniles were arrested, which accounted for 16% of all arrests and 15% of all violent crime arrests. Of all juvenile arrestees in 2003, 78% were European American, 16% African Americans, 4% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% American Indians; 29% were female (Snyder, 2005). Due to the increasing number of juveniles being brought into the system in D.C, the workload is cumbersome. A counselor could be assigned to a number of juveniles that he or she can handle and this potentially can become a stressor. Another stressor is, family hassles. Counselors get so overwhelm with caseloads at work to the detriment of their family. Before they get home from work, they are already exhausted and cannot spend quality time with their family. Unfortunately, most children of these counselors are never present in their home. Economic factors in another most common stressor because, particularly, in DC, counselors spend much time with their counselees (juveniles) in the JJS than the social workers, therapist and lawyer but yet are paid far less. Consequently, they have many unmet financial needs which are inevitably spilled over into their work and this culminates into stress. For the purpose of this research, counseling-related stress is simply described as, that which occurs to a counselor as the result of overwhelming challenges and demands. In other words, it is the amount of family demands; work caseloads, financial hardship and the commute from long distance to work that surpass the counselors’ abilities to handle.

Some Common Causes and Impacts of Counseling- related Stresses in the JJS Stress is a very serious phenomenon that can affect counselors in several ways to differing degrees, and consequently impede the overall performances. The causes of counseling-related stress in the JJS are many and varied. Some of the potentially important sources of counseling-related stress are external and internal, and each feed off and reinforce each other. Candidly speaking, stress is a major barrier to effective performances in the JJS. Counseling-related stress contributes to a number of outcomes that are critical to success in the JJS, including absenteeism; labor turnover and job performance (Dollard, p. 61 2000). There are numerous emotional and physical conditions that have been associated to stress. These include: depression, anxiety, heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, immune system disturbances that increase susceptibility to infections. More so, counseling-related stress, can contribute to insomnia and other serious medical conditions. As a matter of fact, it's almost very difficult to imagine any disease in which counseling-related stress cannot affect of contribute an aggravating role.

Three Most Common External Counseling-related Stresses One of the most common external counseling-related stresses in the JJS is counselor’s weighted caseloads. There are few counselors whose jobs are limited to a forty-hour work week. Most of them find it impossible, if not very difficult to say "no" to tasks that are not essential, pose enormous additional workload or to establish work priorities. Consequently, this becomes a potential source of stress. They violate caseload standards. For instance, if counseling puts him or her on calls, some counselors accept calls from counselees at all times. This can pose a serious stress risks to counselors. Secondly, family conflicts occurring from difficulty to balance the rigors of counseling with a healthy family life at home and the absence of a family friendly environment at workplace is another most common external stress factor. The burden of keeping the kind of daily exposure from negatively affecting counselors’ relationships with family members can be tremendous. Finally, financial hassles are another external stress issue, especially where counselors are unable to meet their financial demands, particularly at home. Counselors who are hard hit with financial hardship, most often than not, under-perform at work. As the result of this, the risk of stress becomes very overwhelming and soon overtakes them. The enormous human and economic costs associated with counseling-related stress suggest that initiatives designed to manage counselors stress should be high on the agenda of personnel management in the JJS in D.C. Job-related stress is quickly becoming the single greatest cause of disease (Leigh & Schnall, p. 21, 2000) and can have far-reaching consequences for both counselors and the counselees. Counseling-related stress most often occurs when external demands and conditions do not match a person’s needs, expectations or ideals or exceed the physical capacity, skills, or knowledge for comfortably handling them. Chronic exposures to stressful situations by counselors, such as work overload, financial hardship, family hassles have been associated to a wide range of debilitating health outcomes, including depression, anxiety etc. Stressful working conditions as mentioned above can also have an indirect impact on counselors’ well-being. (Schnall & Belkic p. 22, 1998).

Effect of Stress Chronic stress normally develops into burnout in counselors. In other words, burnout is the end result of chronic stress where, on some level, counselors start to shut down under the demands being placed on them from the externally. Burnout naturally occurs in an environment of competing demands, inability to set personal, family and work limits, and sometimes vague sense of not caring so much about the work or sometimes anything anymore. The signs may become more glaring, with changes in appetite or food intake, sleep disruptions, or the onset of health problems. It can take any number of forms: behavioral, relational, physical, or affective feeling-related. Severe mood problems, such as fluctuations or suicidal thinking, may become evident in more serious instances where maintaining oneself throughout the day is more of a tiring difficulty than a challenge or satisfaction (Goetz, p. 66, 1995).

Responsibilities of Personnel Management in Dealing with Counseling-related Stresses The whole new set of challenges to employer (personnel management) is how to respond to a new set of family-related issues in ways that meet the needs of both employer and employees (L. Nigro, F. Nigro & Kellough, p. 280). Given the costs of balancing family and work responsibilities and the inherent challenges on the other hand, counseling juveniles in the JJS in D.C, personnel management can be very instrumental in dealing with these three most common external counseling-related stresses. It can create a family friendly environment at work that embraces family and work responsibilities, provide family friendly benefits; provide an appreciable degree of flexibility where families may find convenient the possibility of working from home to save commuting time, or to have flexible schedules and assist counselors to reconcile the demands of work ( counseling) and family. According to Spiers (2003), organizations should do everything they can (within reason) to reduce and ultimately minimize its workplace stress. Personnel management can introduce different instruments to help counselors to deal with work-family conflict. These could be classified in facilitating leave from work for family reasons, making policies to include extensions to maternity leave, which may be paid, or unpaid, other forms of parental leave and the possibility of taking career breaks, facilitate changes in the work schedule to include all forms of work schedule reductions, like switching to part time, job sharing and reduced work week. In addition, these policies should accommodate family schedules by allowing, flextime or work from home, family support policies, which offer practical help with child and elder care assistance, including, access to services, referral services or financial aid is indeed a stress reliever. Personnel management needs to take into consideration the family responsibilities of employees and acknowledge that such responsibilities can impact employees’ counseling performance and ultimately their lives. Therefore, there is a need to facilitate the reconciliation between work and family responsibilities for staff in the JJS and make counselors feel supported in balancing their work and outside work commitments. Implementing family-friendly policies would go a long way to assist personnel management develop a strategy for achieving both organizational effectiveness and employee well-being. Family-friendly initiatives can make a significant big difference in the lives of counselors and ultimately in the JJS in D.C.

Conclusion The main purpose of the JJS is to provide services which include, rehabilitation, protection of the public against juvenile offenses through clinical and case management activities. Due to the nature of the counselees and work counselors have to work with, they are overwhelmed with external counseling-related stresses. This most often than not, have impaired their performance at work and home. For many years now, working in the JJS has always been characterized by stress. Stress has both positive and negative implications. Positively, counseling-related stress is normal and an integral part of any job and void of it can cause difficulties in achieving goals and meeting deadlines. Negatively, it can impair the judgment and performance of counselors. Counselors are almost all the time compelled by ethical obligation to sacrifice their own needs for the needs of their counselees. A devoted counselor would endeavor at all times to place their counselees’ interest above their own. Counseling-stress diminishes counselors’ ability and obligation to act in a manner that promotes effectiveness and efficiency. The organizational setting (lack of family-friendly environment), financial difficulties, commuting long distance to work and family hassles, as discussed earlier, pose very serious challenges to counselors. Consequently, stress may be a natural artifact of working in the JJS. This is why is it significant to develop healthy coping responses and strategies by personnel management that would lead to a management technique and decrease of stress. The professional risk-factors and the interplay between the counselors and the JJS that trigger stress could be disastrous. The few most common sources of counseling-related stress as discussed earlier, work caseloads, home, financial hardship and commuting from long distance daily for work can be very excruciating and overwhelming for counselors and no one is pruned to that. Therefore, counselors need to be mindful of responsibility syndrome. Some counselors believe they are responsible for everything because they alone are the only ones who can do it. They make their family life secondary and the work primary and most of them see their job as a means of expressing their benevolence. They try to meet all the financial needs of their counselees. For instance, some counselors create artificial financial problems for themselves when they become taxi drivers and automated transfer machine (ATMs). Whenever counselors get caught up in this syndrome and exhaust themselves of these all the time, they raise their vulnerability to counseling related-stress. Given the untold effects of these stressors on counselors work performance and on the system on the whole, personnel management has the task to be proactive and create necessary conditions that would manage stress in the JJS. Recommendations Personnel management in the JJS needs to organize training periodically to educate counselors on time management. Most of the problems counselor experience in terms of workload is derived from poor time management. Personnel management needs to also create family places where counselors can participate in activities. Create an environment that welcome families of counselors. It should plan events regularly to bring families of counselees and counselors together for positive interactions. Counselors need to get involve in support groups or team meeting for information sharing. This is very critical in the JJS because it will provide the forum where counselors can ventilate their experiences and find answers to unanswered questions. Personnel management needs to provide clinical supervision or mentoring to newly employed counselors. This must be directed towards the new counselors’ response to stress as it relates to counseling. It should enhance his mechanism for dealing with stress. Personnel management needs to decrease the number of workloads, for instance, time-consuming counselees. It should not turn over all the difficult job tasks to the new counselors as a means of justifying their inclusions. Rather, personnel management should balance workloads across other counselors.

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