Vulnerable Populations: Child Abuse Social Sciences Coursework

Vulnerable Populations – Child Abuse
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Vulnerable Populations Worksheet
Describe some social problems of vulnerable populations (75-100 words)
Vulnerable populations are made up of ethnic minorities, pregnant women, children, and those who are economically disadvantaged. However, children are the most vulnerable because they don’t have the autonomy to consent to certain practices. Although there are numerous social problems that children experience, child abuse is the most common problem. Child abuse occurs when a guardian or parent causes serious harm to a child by failing to act or through inappropriate actions. In the US, child abuse is prevalent and approximately 700, 000 children are abused every year (Farell et al., 2017).

Explain how social problems of vulnerable populations have perpetuated or are affected by the social problem you selected on a micro and macro level (200-250 words).
Child abuse, combined with other social problems such as limited healthcare resources, has a wide range of short-term and long-term consequences. At the micro-level, children who witness or directly experience abuse suffer from emotional trauma while also struggling to form social bonds. The struggle to interact with others is not based on poor communication skills but rather on the fear of establishing trust and relationships, especially with adults (Kim and Maguire-Jack, 2015). As a result, such children tend to perform poorly in academics due to cagey relationships with their teachers. When the abuse is not addressed quickly, those who experienced physical abuse develop aggressive behavior and become less inclined to social norms (Milaniak and Widom, 2015).
Behavioral issues and modification in routines are common in children who have witnessed or experienced abuse. The modification in behavior, especially the adoption of silence, is undertaken as a means of managing the related pain (Cecil et al., 2017). This phenomenon is likely to be normalized in society due to inadequate healthcare resources. Therefore, at the macro level, limited healthcare resources are likely to ...