Youth Work Assignment: Analyzing Youth Mental Health and Homelessness

This report, focusing on youth work, investigates the coexisting challenges of mental health issues, homelessness, and substance abuse among young individuals. The assessment includes case studies of clients with paranoid schizophrenia, severe depression, and acute psychotic disorder, exploring their needs and experiences. It delves into the barriers to treatment, such as hallucinations, lack of family support, and discrimination. The report also examines the experiences of homeless youth, discussing the impact of poverty, discrimination, and lack of shelter. It further explores the role of stakeholders like government agencies, health departments, and community support programs in addressing these issues. The assignment also highlights the importance of the AOD (Alcohol and Other Drugs) framework in supporting addicted youth, emphasizing the need for preventative health programs and systems thinking approaches. The report suggests various interventions, including strength-based approaches, collaborative work, and awareness campaigns, to improve outcomes for vulnerable youth and promote their well-being within the Australian context. The report concludes with a discussion of the role of youth workers in implementing these interventions and adhering to ethical protocols.

Running head: YOUTH WORK
Youth Work
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Topic 1- Assessment of co-existing needs
There are high rates of mental illness among people suffering from autism spectrum
disorders, intellectual disabilities, drug and alcohol abuse, physical disabilities, problematic
gambling and brain injuries. Therefore, coexisting disorders refers to clients who report mental
illness and substance abuse. This part of the assessment will focus on three clients who reported
mental disorders along with coexisting needs. The interviews will provide a gateway to the
health of the clients. There were three patients. Mr. Borgart was suffering from paranoid
schizophrenia. Mr. Sly was the second client who reported symptoms of severe depression and
had made several suicide attempts. Ms. Townsend was the third client suffering from acute
psychotic disorder. Mr. Borgart and Mr. Sly were questioned for the interview.
Interview 1 (Mr. Borgart)
Where are you from?
I am from the Logan village in Queensland and 55 years of age.
Are you employed?
I owned a flower shop. My recent mental illness worsened my condition and I was unable to
work properly. Presently, my son looks after my business.
Have you ever been to a psychiatric hospital?
Yes, I have been admitted to the hospital twice by my son and am currently under medications.
What symptoms do you generally manifest?

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I have become suspicious of my family members and think that my son is trying to poison me. I
feel social withdrawal and difficulty to sleep. I often hear strange sounds that instruct me to jump
off my terrace.
Do these sounds seem real?
Oh, yes.
Did you try to follow their instructions?
Yes, I tried to jump off the terrace but my son saved me.
Interview 2 (Mr. Sly)
Where are you from?
I am from Cabarlah, Queensland and have been living there since birth.
Are you employed?
I am working as an assistant at a childcare centre.
Tell me about the mental issues you face
I feel hopeless and irritable all the time. I do not feel the urge to go to work everyday and find it
difficult to concentrate and remember details. I often get suicidal ideation and have attempted
suicide thrice, but failed to succeed.
How is your relationship with family?

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My family thinks my behavior is normal and did not take any initiative for a doctor’s
appointment. My friends provided me assistance and support and helped me meet a doctor to
treat my condition.
On interviewing the two clients I realized that Mr. Borgart faces impaired awareness.
Although the client knew that he had a most disorder, he sought treatment for it. I found massive
denial of the reality of hallucinations to be a primary concern (Barcg and Ceaser 2012). On the
other hand, a person does not recovery from depression overnight. Encouragement from family
and leads a patient to a healthier lifestyle and assists them to maintain a positive outlook
(Levens, Elrahal and Sagui 2016). Family support helps in improving wellness of the patients.
Moreover, I realized that it is necessary for the family to recognize the warning signs of suicidal
thoughts among such patients to prevent adverse outcomes (Turecki and Brent 2016). Lack of
adequate family support worsened Mr. Sly’s condition.
My future actions to achieve the intended goals would be:
 Approach schools to support education among students with mental illness
 Create a befriending program with community support to assist patients
 Develop mass awareness through posters and pamphlets to reduce stigma and
discrimination
 Build collaboration between schools and communities to train peers for providing mental
support (Kawakami and Kobayashi 2015)
Strength based interventions depend on focusing that that humans have capacity for growth
and change. Often people have knowledge needed to define the problems of their situations. This

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helps in deciphering the potential solutions. Resilience plays another role. In spite of struggling
with the reactions of the society and family, mental patients continue with their life and face their
struggles. Moreover, people need to be responsible and valued members of a community or
group. Individual meetings establish trust and set treatment goals. Collaborative work identifies
the strengths and risks of a client and help in formulating therapeutic interventions.
Duty of care involves working in a way that will reduce the harm or injury to the patient. The
mental health workers are expected to abide by the legal and ethical protocols of the healthcare
setting to provide holistic treatment to the patients (Townsend 2014). I realized that one risk
factor is in the breakdown of employees in psychiatric treatment. Discrimination of mental
patients is another risk factor.
The stakeholders such as the government agencies, academic institutions, traditional health
workers, consumers, family groups, mental health workers and managers of health services will
be sent a written documentation of the data collected to illuminate them on the data that has been
collected (Keogh et al. 2017). They will be assured that informed consent had been taken from
all clients prior to the interview and their personal information will not be shared to the
authorities.
Case review
An interview was conducted for two clients suffering from schizophrenia and depression
disorder respectively. Upon questioning it was found that there were several barriers that
prevented improvement of their outcomes. The primary barrier n the first patient was the
presence of hallucinations and suspicion that made him mistrust his son and follow the auditory
instructions, which could lead to adverse outcomes. The second patient does not receive family

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support and this acts a major barrier to treatment compliance. The patients would require
extensive psychotherapy medications and collaboration between the community and health
organizations would improve their symptoms.
Topic 2
Homelessness is defined by an extreme stage of poverty where the individual is living
with the instability of housing and insufficiency of income (Chamberlain, Johnson and Robinson
2014). However, some of them are termed as ‘Under Houser’s’ or who are at the risk of
homelessness (Flatau et al. 2013). Here, in this assessment, interview with three of such people
were conducted where these people were at the risk of homelessness or were suffering from it.
These people are Yohana (23) who is a former worker of a cake factory in Sydney, Ryan
(25)Construction worker, and Will (30) unemployed and thrown out of his own house.
Interview 1 (Yohana)
Where are you from? How did you ended up been here?
Goulburn. I used to live there with my uncle untilI finished my high school.I came here in
Sydney and started working as a labour in the cake factory, because I did not had any higher
study degree. Further, due to peer pressure I started taking drugs. This hampered my work in the
factory and hence, my boss fired me from my job. My uncle also refused to accept me in his
house.
Do you feel safe on the streets of the Sydney?
Yes. However, I have been attacked several times violently; the Sydney police have helped me to
survive on the streets of the Sydney.

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Did you ever felt gender or cultural discrimination?
Yes, I feel it every day. People taunt me; tease me due to my gender. I have been attacked due to
my race or cultural background.
Why do not you go to the shelter housed provided by the government?
I went to that but the environment was not good for me. People were discriminating me because
of my gender and race. Therefore, I decided to stay in this central park Street.
Interview 2 (Ryan)
Where are you from? How did you ended up been here?
I am from Sydney and I am working in a construction place as a labour. I live on the streets of
the Sydney with my mother. We are poor and the daily wages I get from my job is not enough
for me to rent a house in Sydney.
Do you feel safe on the streets of the Sydney?
No. my mother and I live in fear on the streets of this city. Robbers have tried to steal our
belongings.
Did you ever felt gender or cultural discrimination?
Yes for my mother, it is difficult to stay alone on the streets. We are aboriginals and therefore
people discriminate with us.
Why do not you go to the shelter housed provided by the government?

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I went to that place, but people over there did not accepted us, therefore I left that place.
Currently I live nearby my construction site.
Interview 3 (Will)
Where are you from? How did you end up here?
I stay in Sydney in a rented place. I used to work in a garage but due to the death of the owner,
the garage has been closed. Now I am about to lose my rented place and therefore, I am on the
verge of homelessness.
Are you looking for other Jobs?
Yes. However, no one is ready to offer me a job because of my drinking habits and my race.
Can you afford another place?
No. I used to get very less wages. Therefore, I do not have any savings.
What will you do if you become homeless?
I am very afraid. I am trying to search a job as soon as possible. However, if I become homeless
I will go to the Shelter homes provided by the government. I hope people over there will be
friendly and genuine.
Assessment from these interviews
From the above three interviews, where two of them were homeless and one was about to
lost his shelter has mentioned several aspect of this homelessness (Tsemberis, Kent and Respress
2012). Each homeless people said that, they are facing gender, cultural and racial discrimination.

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The government shelters are not enough to provide them security and safety. It is quite evident
from the interview that poverty is the only reason of their homelessness. They were taught about
the rules and regulations that have been made by the government to fulfill their basic needs
(Krausz et al. 2013).
Role of the stakeholders
The stakeholders such as the local government, police, health department, shelter house
workers, their former employers and the existing family members will be informed about their
state in a written document (Berwick, Nolan and Whittington 2017). Their situations would not
be disclosed, however, they would be informed about the risk factors they are suffering from.
These informations will be stored securely and the Australian human rights will be informed
about the issue to provide these homeless people with their basic needs (Guerrero, Henwood and
Wenzel 2014).
Topic 3:
One of the greatest challenges that the youth of the current age is facing is the
unavoidable inclination of the youth to the substance and alcohol abuse. The rate of young adults
inclined to the substance abuse has spiked considerably in the past year and the number
continues to rise further. According to the recent statistics close to 500000 young adults of
Australia are living at the risk of addiction (Lea et al. 2015). That is the reason the Australian
department of health has taken into consideration the importance of preventative and
promotional health program for the addicted youth, and the division of AOD is devoted entirely
to promoting and facilitating the health and wellbeing of the Australian youth who have been
devoured by addiction (Hilarski 2013).

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As a youth worker myself, the policies and practice protocols of the AOD have been
extremely helpful in guiding me in the process of handling the clients and helping them towards
a better life path. For instance, the policy protocol of the AOD mandates opting for the systems
thinking approach while handling the clients. Now it has to be mentioned in this context that the
AOD sector considerably takes into account the problems of a addicted individual in the context
of homelessness. Drawing example from my own personal experience, two of my clients that I
have interviewed had been young and homeless along being addicted to alcohol and drugs
respectively. However, according to the framework of AOD, alcohol or drug abuse is a complex
behavior, and there are various internal and external risk factors associated with the issue of
homelessness and abuse, and while eliciting information about the clients one this sensitive
issues critical thinking skills need to employed like compassionate and persuasive questioning,
listening approach and complex risk assessment (Ewer et al. 2015).
As a youth worker, one of the greatest restrictive challenges that I have seen the young
addicts face is the shame and discrimination according to the practice standards of the AOD, the
assessment procedure needs to employ non-discriminating and non-judgmental approach.
Judgmental approach can often be interpreted as insulting or patronizing to the clients which in
turn can contribute to growing resilience and non-compliance. Hence, I ensured maintaining
professional boundaries while assessing or working with the clients so that my approach did not
appear as judgmental to the clients.
Another very important requirement for a youth worker is to make the client comfortable
in the care facility which will not only restore the mental health of the client but also
incorporates a sense of safety and wellbeing (Davis and Kelly 2012). In order to do so, I have
attempted to facilitate acceptance of the condition of client in my approach and have taken

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efforts to assess his situation without contradicting is personal beliefs or values. A key sector in
the AOD framework is promoting self determination of the client while motivating him to
recover from the addiction. In my own experience as a youth worker I have observed clients
investing higher efforts in trying to implement the preventative strategies to avoid alcohol or
drugs when they have actively participated in designing those strategies. Hence, I have tried to
involve my clients more into the decision making procedure of care planning so that they
understand the severity of their own issues and foresee the impact that the preventative strategies
can make.
Client centeredness is an extremely important aspect of youth work as the strategies
implemented for one person might not yield any result for another. For instance, one of my client
had been an orphan slum worker with alcohol addiction and anger management issues, while the
other had been a drug addict who had gone astray from a considerably good socio-economic
background. For both of them I have employed a client centered approach fr each of them taking
into account the specific needs and the specific triggers leading them, to the present condition
while planning their care (Health.gov.au. 2017).
The legislative guidelines of the AOD sector of Australia, client privacy and
confidentiality needs to be maintained at all circumstances. In my own practice I have attempted
to maintain the confidentially of the clients optimally while informing the key stakeholders about
their situation and the risk factors they are under. However, as some of the information shraed by
th client needs to be conveyed so that necessary care actions can be taken. Hence, I have also
ensured that the client signed a permission to exchange information consent form. Although I
have taken optimal care to ensure that minimal and unavoidable information is shared and the
private information are maintained in a secure manner (Brown et al. 2016).

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References
Barch, D.M. and Ceaser, A., 2012. Cognition in schizophrenia: core psychological and neural
mechanisms. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(1), pp.27-34.
Berwick, D.M., Nolan, T.W. and Whittington, J., 2017. The triple aim: care, health, and
cost. Health affairs.
Brown, A., Rice, S.M., Rickwood, D.J. and Parker, A.G., 2016. Systematic review of barriers
and facilitators to accessing and engaging with mental health care among at‐risk young
people. Asia
‐Pacific Psychiatry, 8(1), pp.3-22.
Chamberlain, C., Johnson, G. and Robinson, C. eds., 2014. Homelessness in Australia. UNSW
Press.https://books.google.co.in/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=gfKLBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=homelessness+in+australia&ots=k-
N_VG31wh&sig=4sybq1qQfqwgKMWWC9NnSlwE_bY#v=onepage&q=homelessness%20in
%20australia&f=false
Davis, C. and Kelly, J., 2012. Risk-taking, harm and help-seeking: Reported by young people in
treatment at a youth alcohol and drug counselling service. Youth Studies Australia, 31(4), p.35.
Ewer, P.L., Teesson, M., Sannibale, C., Roche, A. and Mills, K.L., 2015. The prevalence and
correlates of secondary traumatic stress among alcohol and other drug workers in
Australia. Drug and alcohol review, 34(3), pp.252-258.
Flatau, P., Conroy, E., Spooner, C., Edwards, R., Eardley, T. and Forbes, C., 2013. Lifetime and
intergenerational experiences of homelessness in Australia.