Covid 19 Pandemic Midterm Project

Covid 19 Pandemic Continues To Threaten the Survival of Human Service Organizations

Covid 19 has impacted the physical, mental, and social lives of human beings from all dimensions. Despite the growing needs of social services firms or community-based organizations (CBOs), they struggle to fulfill those needs (Tsega et al., 2020). They have dwindling resources to meet the requirements of such individuals. Government and funding agencies are also out of techniques and funds to meet the demands of these contracts or the costs of delivering pertinent services.

There are three main challenges that CBOs are facing in times of crisis: long-term financial survival, staff availability for being active even on low salaries, and delivery concerns to meet the clients’ needs (Tsega et al., 2020). Some of the ethical challenges that the social work employees were not aware of or were not prepared for beforehand when Covid struck the world are building a relationship of trust over the phone or internet connections with the clients so that confidentiality could be made a priority, assessments of the needs and risks of the client for maintaining a balance for better social work need fulfillment, with limited resources minimizing the differences between the services delivered and the need amplification, making wise defections whether to follow national or regional policies so that confusions about professionalism in critical circumstances in upheld, self-caring and managing with staff’s fatigue while handling the clients, and rethinking social directions while working during Covid-affected situations and people (Banks et al., 2020).

The population segments highly affected by Covid were the elderly, women, children, and youth (OECD, 2020). Their physical and mental well-being are undoubtedly the concerns, but income stability is another prominent issue that needs to be addressed to alleviate growing anxiety and depression. Older people have less social support, and young people struggling to keep their families protected through their income are finding it hard to work at home and keep their sanity and work-life balance intact. Since the population categories are large, enormous resources are in need by the human service organizations, and that too, immediately. On such short notice, meeting the deadlines, following the policies, and keeping their staff driven to create action for the affected societies are crucial tasks.

The proactive recommendations to the employers of health service organizations can include taking into account the government policies that are specifically designed to address small business challenges and their workers that are highly vulnerable to Covid effects, coordinated governance settlements within the organizational culture that should strengthen the human service employees to work as a team and boost collaboration to reach a large part of the population, using digital tools and educating the population for using them to magnify the reach of social services for better screening of underserved individuals, organizing the supply of needed resources to socially isolated groups particularly for quarantine, treatment or hospitalization needs, and above all, empowering the coordination with the society so that other city workers could be instigated to come forward and coordinate in terms of funds and resource provision (OECD, 2020).

The Impact Youth Are Experiencing Related to Mental Health Problems

Youth were already affected by prominent problems such as coping with educational challenges and college dropouts that led to difficulties in gaining employment opportunities (OECD, 2020). Covid 19 aggravated these impacts as the number of pathways youth could look for or be positive about diminished within no time. Loss of motivation and below-par performance were inevitable outcomes that directly affected their mental health. The youth was also a victim of loss of social support as they were confined to home due to social isolation and mainly online medium of study. Although social media connectivity with friends kept some of the youth individuals within their mental sanity boundaries, some were still sensitive ones who had the burden of eliminating household poverty and income stress for their families (OECD, 2020).

It has been estimated that more than 40% of the youth were affected by a four-year loss of employment opportunities, directing them to face discouragement and being overstrained by a sense of exclusion (OECD, 2020). This is a chief economic cost for the government as a large part of the GDO had to be allocated to help the youth manage stress and come out of depression stemming from these reasons. The youth with the least education levels were bound to be subjected to inactivity and negative influences on psychological progress and adulthood. The visibility of psychological difficulties encompassed mood disorders, low focus and attention, sleep disorders, hyperactivity disorders, and in some severe cases, attempts to suicide or a larger exhibition of self-harming behaviors in the first few months of Covid (Chadi et al., 2022).

Currently, the available services for such individuals comprise additional mental health support at their schools and college. Even though online medium, education for youth about mental disruptions and how to avoid them, encouraging them to keep themselves engaged in-home routine and mingle more with families so that coping with stress could become easier, the labor market outcomes are shared by the social service providers pertinent to employment, and prompting social service managers to keep their teams motivated for becoming active agents for youth to whom they could contact for economic, social and emotional support, leading to positive public mental health outcomes amidst Covid 19 (OECD, 2021).

Role of Funders and Policymakers to Ensure Community-Based Organizations Provide Mental Health Services to Youth during and Beyond Covid 19 Crisis

The policymakers have taken several initiatives to protect youth mental health, such as instigating medical health providers to give special attention to this population segment. They should be reached easily and provided ways to have access to physicians or community nurses who are the first touch points. The impacts of social distancing and confinements should be taught to the young minds so that community health service firms could instantaneously respond to loneliness and enforced stress by the pandemic. E-health has been one of the significant health initiatives that have helped immensely in this regard since the screening, detection, treatment, monitoring, and prevention strategies. Since, as mentioned earlier, the intention to commit suicide has been one of the severe behavior exhibition of stress, anxiety, and depression among youth, schools and universities are now using e-health mechanisms, with the support of social service organizations, to identify youth at risk of such behavioral complications (Exner-Cortens et al., 2021). E-health risk assessments are conducted for specific remote areas as remote education and connection have been vital parts of the Covid-imposed lifestyle. Human service organizations have guided tackling e-health tools that are encouraged by the policymakers from the back.

Policymakers have been active enough to open call lines or online portals through which youth could seek support and connect promptly whenever they found themselves on the verge of collapsing. For this purpose, several websites and phone line helplines have been opened to cater to the emergency needs of the youth, even when they fear a life-threatening situation at their end (Region of Peel, 2022). For severe cases where suicidal attempts could be a risk, the availability of such service is a sigh of relief for the parents and the families of such youth.

Substance abuse and resulting mental health intricacies were two main health problems in adolescence that the US has been endeavoring to eradicate from its state for a long time now. However, the pandemic has posed new challenges regarding the psychological well-being of the youth in a new manner. The fund providers, such as The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), have $30 million for the project named “The American Rescue Plan,” through which school-based activities were launched to save school children and adolescents from stress and anxiety during Covid (White House.gov, 2021). The training was provided in schools to be aware of the complexities that Covid could pose and how young people could cope with them. No race or gender discrimination was kept within this program or its funding to ensure mental healthcare provision for all based on equity terms.

Funds also have been allocated for schools across states that are upon the schools’ discretion on how to spend it. The decision-making authority has been assigned to the schools completely with guidance on how to make the most out of it. Adolescents have been prioritized with the funds provided by the agencies so that addressing academic loss and organizing healthy summer school activities along with after-school programs could bring value to youth (Vestal, 2021). The benefits were expected to be innumerable since mental health has been in the limelight alongside physical health during Covid, which is only possible with federal relief money.

Youth action plans were designed vigorously as soon as Covid hit the countries. Within its circle of resources and fund granters, each government has been trying its best to enact a fully-supported mental health system for the youth. Cross-sectoral policies have been devised in all areas in response to the emerging need of the crisis times for which social service organizations recognize youth health as a priority.