I enjoyed reading ch 1, Webb’s article on the case of Jacob and Damien. This section helps me to understand how the kids who passed through ACEs (poverty, substance abuse family, absence of a father, witnessing parental abuse, exposure to substance abuse, and chaotic environment) have effects on children’s later life. Family and social factors lead these youths to commit tragic murder. How can we help these children to overcome this trauma? How can we support them? What kind of intervention and treatment can help these kids? To address these questions, clinicians must go above and beyond during assessment to investigate whether youths are exposed to ACEs.
The other reading section that caught my attention in Webb’s article is “how children and adolescents in immigrant families are often in conflict between two competing sets of values and norms.” I could be a living witness to this. This is the current problem that the immigrant community faces: When they move to the U.S., it is easy for children to adopt U.S. culture, but they have a hard time integrating with their own. It is a challenge for the parents, or some parents are rigid and do not even try to integrate the two cultures and help children overcome this problem. Therefore, this section helps the school’s SW to understand immigrant students' cultural norms and values.