6-2 Final Project Milestone 3 1 6-2 Final Project Milestone 3: Rough

6-2 Final Project Milestone 3: Rough Draft of Final Proposal

Stephanie Stokes 

Southern New Hampshire University 

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Problem Statement

In psychology, our minds are constantly undergoing a series of behaviors. These behaviors can be both positive and negative which can perceive how we view our world. The study of the mind allows our brain to process information, develop thoughts and emotions, and most of all decision making. Known fact is that there are billions of neurons that allows our brain to function and develop. (McBride & Cutting, 2018). Both of our chemical and electrical neurotransmitters send signals throughout our entire body in order to process our thoughts, motor skills, and how we store information and use it throughout life (McBride & Cutting, 2018). When our frontal lobe comes across unfortunate events such as abuse, drug addiction, malnutrition, or a disability can become a challenge for poor decision making. The unconscious thought is affected which impairs our ability to process complex situations (McBride & Cutting, 2018).

Contemporary Problem

Juvenile offenses often occur when there is a particular problem that needs to be addressed. These problems could be anywhere from unmet medical and physical treatment, substance and alcohol abuse, crime, malnutrition, or poor demographic areas that lack the ability to obtain good educational or youth resources. During adolescent development, it’s important that the mind is psychologically healthy. When their mental health is affected, it influences their problems and behaviors to respond more to stress rather than contentment.

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Selected Area

We all have the ability to pay attention and make appropriate decisions when our brain is functioning healthily. During infancy and adolescences, the mind is focused on obtaining and retaining information that will have either strengthen or weaken their cognitive functioning. Any cognitive impairments will put limitations on how to make appropriate decisions throughout their development.

There are some theories of thought processing and how to interact with society. Piaget’s Cognitive Theory focused on thought processing and that there are differences between a child and adult mind (Cherry, 2020). Piaget believed that there are several steps a child goes through that assist with cognitive functioning. Sensorimotor Stage is between birth and age two, and they have limited comprehension of what the world is. At the age of two through six, they enter into the Pre-Operational Stage where they learn language but do not know how to interpret it. Concrete Operational Stage is between the ages seven through eleven. The child is now able to think rationally. Lastly there is the Formal Operational Stage, twelve years and beyond, and this is decision making (Cherry, 2020).

Another theory to the development of thought processing is the Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory. This theory is that adolescences learn more through hands-on experiences. There needs to be a positive role model such as a parental figure, teacher at school, therapist, and peers so that their social process has a successful outlook of life (Cherry, 2020). The knowledge of others can be effective throughout their development.

Lastly, the unconscious inference theory was developed by a German researcher named Hermann von Helmholtz. His theory demonstrates that our perception allows us to deal with

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complex situations when thinking unconsciously in order to see things as whole (McBride & Cutting, 2018). A sharp perception and ability to handle complex situations increases awareness and constructive decision making.

Performance Issues and Limitations

With cognitive impairment during infancy to adolescences, failure to get treatment and improve development can lead to complications in their adulthood. Some complications would be developmentally delayed, mood swings, disruptive sleep patterns, or a permanent state of confusion of how behavior should be (Lloyd, 2021). The unconscious mind is impacted, and these complications can weaken social interactions, increase anger, stress, or violence (Cherry, 2020). Negative behavior and the inability to understand what is wrong from right results to poor decision making and severe problems adapting mentally and socially.

Potential Improvements

A productive and effective therapeutic intervention program at juvenile detention centers can improve the well-being of the client and provide strategies on how to conduct appropriate decision making. Programs can evolve around how to manage behavior, improve social skills, or self-awareness. Everyone deserves a chance of improving their lives whether they are in the detention centers or not; especially when they are young.

Contemporary Relevance

Any cognitive impairment during infancy to adolescences, can deter away from the theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Helmholtz’s thought processing development.

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Utility of Theories

Piaget’s Cognitive Theory goes through the series of stages a child’s thought processing development. Although these stages prove a strong perceptive, any impairment during these stages can cause complications to decision making. Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory on how adolescents obtain and retain information by learning hands-on can become affected when there is a disadvantage of a role model in their lives that can hinder their cognitive impairment. Helmholtz’s Unconscious Inference Theory demonstrates that we can unconsciously solve complex situations but when there is a cognitive impairment, the ability to be complex is challenging.

All of these theories that come across cognitive deficits develop complications such as the mood swings, irregular sleep, poor social engagements, anger, or violence. This creates performance issues that need to be taken care of before it is too late, and the child is directed towards a dark path.

Apply

One of theories that may be useful for a professional to use is Helmholtz’s theory. There needs to be constructive and complex scenarios used so that it gets the client’s mind actively working. With extensive therapy and skills that a professional is strongly dedicated to, can

potentially improve decision making. Also, this allows the client to take these strategies and use them in the real world. A professional need to center focus on the main issue and unraveling the issues they are dealing with slowly. Juveniles that land themselves in detention centers lack guidance. A positive adult figure is supposed to be the one they look up too. It is unfortunate

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when a child goes through challenges at such a young age, and it teaches them this is the way of life and there is no turning back. A professional is the one who can change that.

Interpretation of Research Findings

Question

Would appropriate and ethical treatment programs at juvenile detention centers provide hope for a juvenile offender to strengthen their decision making?

Support

The first article explains the importance of treatment program that involves around hope for South African male juvenile sex offenders , who ranged between 14 and 18 years of age, that committed severe acts of crime and violence. A mixed method design was used at a therapeutic intervention program that was developed to enlighten the offenders of their criminal activity and how to make appropriate decisions in their future (Marsay et. al., 2018). Principles and standards are followed in order for the offenders to become self-aware so that their decisions made are practicable. The research results apply to the research question due to the effectiveness of the program. The offenders were able to comprehend their actions with intense data collection and utilize their awareness to improve their future (Marsay et. al., 2018). The overall strength of this study is the extensive amount of data collecting over a period of time. The limitations were the sample size, male dominant, and the inconsistency of reliability. Future research would need an increase in sample size to have more accuracy. Also, expanding the location so that offenders could be more diverse and with a possibility of having female offenders.

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The second article describes the perspectives from professionals when they work with juveniles who are in more of an intensive care unit and the decision making techniques they use for treatment. The study’s participants were professionals from juvenile justice facilities in the Netherlands (Brummelaar et. al., 2018). The purpose of this study is obtain how professional therapists focus their divided attention on their client, developing strategies to make them feel safe, and to fully engage them in activities that improve their decision making. Their treatment is to prevent recurrences of criminal activity and be successful in their rehabilitation. The research results provide positive examples of successful treatment due to the professional’s dedication, intensive listening skills, and taking their clients serious (Brummelaar et. al., 2018). The major strength of the study is the engagement of professionals and gaining insight on their therapeutic approaches. Also, it allowed the interviews to be one on one with the therapist so that they can provide in great detail their perspectives of decision making. One limitation is working with two different facilities. One facility can differ in size of their staff, and another can differ in what type of profession roles are in each facility. Another limitation is how effective their approaches were (Brummelaar et. al., 2018). Was there much impact or

less of it? For future research, there would need to be involvement of the juveniles who committed crime to see if their treatment plans are being successful or not.

The third article was about child-parent violence (CPV) and how law enforcement responds to these cases. Law enforcement and how they handle abused parental figures, are typically a rash decision to arrest the child perpetrator. However, in order for the child to not undergo repetitive offenses, police need to make arrests but also ensure these offenses do not reoccur (Armstrong et. al., 2018). Social welfare programs are there to improve child-parent

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relationships and decision making of the child. The results of this study are comparable to the research question because it proves that unethical arrests with lack of interventions lead to repeated affairs. The only strength of this article is making it known that arrests are not the only solution which develops huge limitations of success. A limitation is the data collection. Information was collected through police calls and reports that had a large sample size, but these calls and reports could be personal or not reported properly (Armstrong et. al., 2018). Less serious abuse can be reported more often than serious abuse cases. Also, there was no proof of treatment in social welfare programs. For future research, there would need data on law enforcement and their training within their department (Armstrong et. al., 2018). Police need to be educated on how to diffuse situations with a positive outcome rather than a quick arrest.

The forth article focuses primarily on understanding how effective treatment programs are and how they influence motivation within the professionals, clients, and parental figures. Will the programs leave an impact on the client and their decision to stay or not stay and improve their substance abuse? Barriers are discussed with staff and client-parent strategies on how to improve the client’s decision making of doing substances and in hopes that they will stay in the program to get better (Landrum et. al., 2015). This article is different from the other articles in relation to the research question. The main strength is that the main focus is on treatment facilities rather than a juvenile detention center. This typically is the initial step of treatment so that the client does not commit any criminal offenses that land them in detention center. (Landrum et. al., 2015). A limitation of this study were the clients. Some were actively receiving treatment whereas others were in and out of treatment. Also, the sample size was not

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large and only focused on female clients. For future research, clinical examinations should ne notated during treatment so that their medical opinions do not influence negative thought processing. Also, focusing on clients that are actively in the treatment group would be more sufficient so that there is current information and not focusing on clients that come in and out of the program with past issues could hinder others improvement (Landrum et. al., 2015).

Methodological Principles

Strategies and Techniques

Strategy that would be a great tool during sessions is Galotti’s decision making model. Galotti developed five phases of successful decision making. The first phase is to initially set goals; what can the client look forward to at the end of their treatment (McBride & Cutting, 2018). Goals written out and reviewed assist with making future decisions and in hopes of a successful treatment, the future decisions would be present decisions. A professional would need to ensure that these goals are realistic too.

Second phase is gathering information after setting goals. Once the goals are set, the client and professional would need to obtain information that explains the goal and how it’s going to be achieved (McBride & Cutting, 2018). For example, if a client wants to improve or continue their education at a detention center, they will need to find out where in the facility has an educational system. Then once they found the department, they would have to decide what classes they need to take in order to graduate. After they find out what classes they need, the next step is getting in the program. There are steps needed to be made in order to complete the goals.

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One the information is gathered; professionals would need to organize with their client on how to see how this information could be useful by writing down the pros and cons of each (McBride & Cutting, 2018). Pros and cons are a great strategy for making appropriate decision makings because not only can both parties see the pros and cons, but they can go through each one and do a cross out elimination. This will assist with deciding which pros and cons would be useful and make decisions for the client simpler.

The fourth phase is making a final choice. After completing the first three phases, now it is time to choose what options are best in order to steer the client in the right direction (McBride & Cutting, 2018). The professional and client would need to go over the goals, information, and the pros and cons thoroughly. This phase is important because it gives the client an opportunity to decide what they would be useful or not but also, it’s a refresher of everything. For example, a client can sometimes forget what they went over with their therapist due to complications of the brain or a traumatic event happened that caused a distraction. So as a refresher, the client has the chance to go over their goals, information collected, pros and cons, in case they forgot.

Lastly, is the evaluation. Once the client successfully completed the phases, it is time to move on. The client by this phase should be able to move away from their past experiences and decision making and create a new life of positivity (McBride & Cutting, 2018). Not to say that this will always work, especially for clients who are serving life sentences. They wouldn’t be able to move out of the facility but at least they can continue to build a life within the facility and improve on their well-being. There is always hoped to be released on good behavior but they client needs to take these phases serious. The phases do not happen overnight; it takes time.

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Implications

For this strategy mentioned above, the appropriate applied setting would be the juveniles at a detention center as their decision makings in life need some assistance. This is also vital because of the age and the development process. During infancy to adolescence, the juveniles were cheated out of life; not knowing what is right from wrong. With proper goals and achievements for their goals, dedication, and developing a positive mind frame, Galotti’s method would be successful. It would improve their cognitive impairments and take some of their complications away too. Not all complications, such as being developmentally delayed, would be at 100%. However, their delay could improve to the best of their ability and hopefully keep them out of violence, strengthen their social interactions, and reduce anger issues.

Conclusion

For a future direction, juvenile detention centers need to be more of a retreatment. At times the offenders commit acts of crime so that they can be in a detention center to prove their worth but also feel needed. Detention centers are not a place where individuals need to be accepted. These are youthful individuals who did not have the proper guidance in life, so going to prison only continues the behavior. If these treatments were more of a retreatment center, it would eliminate the crime and direct them to a positive future outside of prison. Some offenses could land them in prison for life. Not saying that there is not improvement within the four walls but why would this be a place an adolescent would want to be?

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Now the treatment portion needs to have follow ups. For example, if a juvenile were to be released from the detention center, there needs to be a follow up on their well-being. They should not just be released and off they go into the real world where they have the potential to commit these acts again. They need to go to a structured treatment facility and continue working on improving.

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References

Armstrong, G. S., Muftic, L. R., & Bouffard, L. A. (2018). Factors Influencing Law Enforcement Responses to Child to Parent Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(9–10), NP4979–NP4997. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518794510

Brummelaar, M. D. C., Knorth, E. J., Post, W. J., Harder, A. T., & Kalverboer, M. E.

(2018). Space between the borders? Perception of professionals on the participation in decision-making of young people in coercive care. Qualitative Social Work, 17(5), 692-

711. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1177/1473325016681661

Cherry, K. (2020, July 20). Development Psychology Verywell Mind.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-unconscious-2796004.

Landrum, B., Knight, D. K., Becan, J. E., & Flynn, P. M. (2015). To Stay or Not to Stay: Adolescent Client, Parent, and Counselor Perspectives on Leaving Substance Abuse Treatment Early. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 24(6), 344–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/1067828x.2013.844088

Lloyd, W. C. (2021, January 3). Cognitive Impairment. Healthgrades.Com. https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/brain-and-nerves/cognitive-impairment

Marsay, G., Scioli, A., & Omar, S. (2018). A hope-infused future orientation intervention: a pilot study with juvenile offenders in South Africa. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 46(6), 709–721. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2018.1480011

McBride, D.M., Cutting, J.C. (2018). Interactive: Cognitive Psychology Interactive eBook,

2nd Edition. VitalSource Bookshelf Version. Retrieved from vbk://9781544324845.[supanova_question]