Mental Health
Prior to being placed into your home, the child may have experienced: a lack of mutual attachment and nurturing with parents or other caregivers, ineffective parenting, a chaotic home environment, childhood trauma, and/or a prior caregiver who abused substances, suffered from mental illness, or engaged in criminal behavior.
Children who are cared for by relatives are often the victims of physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse. Some of these children have been neglected in the homes of their parents and therefore are labeled as “troubled or at risk children.” At-risk children are emotionally fragile and developmentally compromised because they have experienced trauma and disruption in the attachment process. They are at-risk for developing emotional and behavioral disorders, learning difficulties, and developmental delays. Quite often these children exhibit some of the following behaviors:
- An inability to self-regulate
- Difficulty linking cause and effect
- An inability to understand their own emotional world
- Difficulty in trusting that adults will help them
- A high need to control. They want to be in charge, have a generalized sense of anxiety, or are hyper-vigilant (paying attention to everything).
If the child has been the victim of abuse and neglect, they may have a mental illness that requires professional help. Disorders that are seen in abused and neglected children are:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Reactive Attachment Disorder
- Attention Deficit Disorder
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Bonding Issues
- Depression
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Trauma Response
- Exposure to Domestic Violence
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Exposure to inappropriate sexual behavior of adults
Children’s Service Society runs a clinical program with free in-person and telehealth options for kinship families enrolled in the GRANDfamilies program. For more information, please reach out to our staff at 801-326-4409 or Grandfamilies@cssutah.org
