identify the area for intervention and to programme objectives alongside suitable intervention strategies will be assessed.

Assignment Task

The student`s ability to engage in a process of information gain to identify the area for intervention and to programme objectives alongside suitable intervention strategies will be assessed.

Description:

In this assignment, you will conduct a needs assessment to identify the key strengths, resources, and major stresses affecting a target population, and then use this information to develop an intervention plan to promote positive mental health outcomes.

For this assignment, I used my WIL placement at L.U.C.CA Special Needs school to conduct my needs assessment. L.U.C.C.A is a special needs school catering to children who have cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism, non-verbal and more. The staff is trained to work with these children as well as they have the tailored educational tools for their lessons as well as the children have access to therapeutic resources too. During week 2, the school had a parent-student picnic held on their premises and I used this time to engage in different conversations with the learners, staff and parents. I used this time to observe, listen to conversations amongst everyone as well as conduct informal interviews (Patton, 2015). I eventually had my focus more on the parents as this is where I identified a significant need. When speaking to the parents, some of them were kind enough to share some of their experiences throughout their years raising their children with special needs and some of their struggles along the way that they`ve encountered and how they have battled with some of them as there isn`t really a guideline on raising children with special needs. Amongst the emotional factor, there is a financial factor to consider too like the cost of therapy and treatments as well as the schools and machinery used (Shenaar, 2017). Further to that, some parents had mentioned how their families were not that involved with their children, some had mentioned their families do not even ask about their children, which was why I thought a support group could be a good thing for the parents to discuss some of the battles they face, in an environment without judgement and people who have experience similar things or just to speak about their unique challenges. Research has shown great benefits on having social support in parents of children with special needs (Kerr & McIntosh, 2000). This will basically be to help these parents from feeling alone as some studies have shown an increased risk of depression in parents of special needs children and raising special needs children causes high levels of stress (Shenaar, 2017). This support group will be a safe space for them to speak about challenges faced, ask questions they need clarity on from other parents who may have already experienced things that others haven`t and a space to vent what they need to with people who are able to relate to them.

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