The roles of women have been evolving for the last 100 years. Many women have shattered the stereotype that a women’s role is to be in charge of the family and have become leaders in a walks of life. Women have proved that they can be effective as business and government leaders. Although there are still gender biases that can exist, it is much move covert then it was 40 years ago.
Oddly enough, some of the characteristics that have been viewed as the most necessary for leadership in roles of men, those same traits were viewed as negative characteristics of women in leadership roles. The role of the women has been evolving for many decades. In times, way before my own, a woman’s role was to be the caregiver for her family. Although women, many have sought out an education, their main lifetime focus to be to support her husband and raise her children.
Many women still choose this role today, but the point is that now they are allowed to choose a specific pathway in life rather than being forced to carry out established roles. This change of women’s roles has been occurring in the United States for the last hundred years. Although this may seem like a long period of time, it is not. When roles are changed or reversed, this does not necessarily mean that everyone instantly converts to the new ideas and philosophies demonstrated by a group.
Often times, there is a great deal of protest both within the changing group as well as those outside of the group. Despite the evolved roles of women in society, women still face many challenges in leadership positions. There are qualities that women possess that seem to help them rise to the top echelon of leadership positions, but there are still biases that exist that may inhibit women from reaching their goals. Women won the right to vote in the 1920’s; however, it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the “Women’s Movement” began.
Granted women’s roles had been changing for 40 years prior to the Women’s Movement, it was clear that this was not a natural evolution. Many people, both men and women, challenged the idea of a woman as an independent, productive citizen. Many women were ready to be seen and valued differently, but just because a group wants to be seen differently, does not mean that that is going to happen. This is usually the pivotal moment for most movements in History. A group seeks changes that others are adverse to seeing happen. The women’s movement called for fundamental changes in the roles of women.
No longer did women want to be seen as the caregiver of the home, they wanted to be seen as independent people who could make important decisions and choose their educational and professional pathways. Today, in the United States of America, women are on a more equal footing with men in most cases: often by necessity, where women cannot complete in the workplace for jobs that were one traditionally held my men, also in light of two –parent working households. Although most career and professional opportunities are open to women in this country, there are still major discrepancies in the leadership positions that women hold.
Among the US population 25 and above, 34 percent of women have obtained a Bachelor’s degree compared with 30 percent of men. Of Graduate degree’s held, women dominate that group with 39 percent of Graduate Degrees being held by men. Versus 21% percent, which are held by men. It would be appropriate after viewing these statistics, that one could assume that women hold the same, if not more, of the top leadership positions in business and politics, but this, in fact, is not the case.
Forbes Magazine (2011) created and published a study with an emphasis breakdown on women’s roles in top leadership positions. Only 6 percent of Fortune 100 CEO’s are women • Only 8 percent of technology startup companies are lead by women • Only 9 percent of contributors on Wikipedia are women • Women account for only a tenth of the voting power on the words’ key interest rates • Only 13 percent of the top 100 billionaires worldwide are women • Only 15 percent of senior industry management positions belong to women. • Less than 18 percent of Congressional seats are held by women. Clearly, this poses a question about why women are still not sharing equal roles with men in the top leadership positions in this country.
There are many different reasons for these statistics. One reason for this “leadership gap” is that women just don’t ask. This idea is explored by Babcock and Laschever (2007) in the book Women Don’t Ask by Babcock and Laschever. When Babcock questioned many graduate male students were teaching their own course while women were taking on the roles of assistants, her dean stated, ” More men ask. The women just don’t ask. ” It turns out, that women are just more likely than men to ask for promotions or raises. This may be due to the facts that some women aren’t aware they should be asking and other women are fearful or damaging relationships.
One interesting point to note is that a leadership characteristic that is identified differently in men and women is aggression. Many people positively define aggression as a positive leadership trait in men, but that exact same trait is viewed as negative in a women. Therefore, a women many sense that being aggressive may cause more harm than good when trying to obtain a high level position. Research published by Northhouse in his book Leadership, has also shown that women are more likely to take a passive role in obtaining leadership positions.
They are more reluctant to be assertive in asking for positions, and try to obtain those roles through relationships and opportunity. (p. 357) In essence, it is a “double edged sword for a woman”. There is also no question that gender stereotypes still exist. Oddly enough, these stereotypes may produce more harm in the 21st century because they are more covert and hard to recognize. The show, Mad Men, shows how women were treated in the workplace. The sexual harassment and belittlement of women was obvious and apparent.
Women were expected to fill certain roles in the workplace and men had no issues openly expressing their ideas on women’s roles. Now, there is to be no such divide between genders. In fact, gender discrimination is breaking the law, so no longer can discrimination exist in any work place. However, this does not mean that these biases and feelings don’t exist. On the contrary, there may be many people who feel like women are not capable of performing certain tasks, but because gender discrimination is illegal, these ideas are not openly shared, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Despite these things, many women have found success in the political and work setting. Interestingly, Dominance, aggression and assertiveness are not viewed as positive traits in women leaders, but these are the traits most people would identify with the top echelon leaders of the world, both politically and financially. So, what are some of the attributes that are seen in successful women? Five characteristics that most successful women share are: determination, resourcefulness, ambition, confidence, and the ability to create a maintain relationships. A successful woman is determined to have it all and make things work.
At www. Successful Women. com, a guest writer describes the attributes of successful women… determination, resourcefulness, engagement, ambition and confidence. Determination means having a strategic plan to accomplish a goal and now allowing anything or anyone to get in the way of that goal. True leaders know their best resource is in the hearts and minds of the people they are leading. There’s not much more that causes distrust then a leader who claims to know everything about everything. A good leader must be able to be resourceful and find answers and solutions quickly.
There is no question that ambition plays a large role in the making of a successful female leader. Women without ambition rarely achieve greatness. Queen Elizabeth I gave up the chance at a family (and had her own sister imprisoned) in order to rule England. Susan B. Anthony and many other suffragettes risked being ostracized and thrown in jail in order to spread the message of women’s equality. Throughout history, the most successful women have been willing to take control of their own lives and do whatever was necessary to reach their goals.
Probably the most important character trait of a female leader is confidence. Of course, it is imperative for someone to have the skills, but most people will argue that confidence is the key to becoming a successful leader. Imagine trying to get a group to follow someone who lacks self-confidence and shows fear for a task. A leader with confidence acts with decisiveness and passion, which cause subordinates to feel like they can count on their leader. Another key trait is the ability to create and maintain appropriate professional relationships.
Women must show enough empathy so that their subordinates feel supported, but not too much emotion as to get over involved with ones co workers, colleagues or subordinates. This is the “make it or break it” trait for many female leaders. People seem to be more conscious of the relationship that a women has with her subordinates. If a woman is seen as too empathetic, these may be seen as a weakness. If a women seems void of emotion, people may not feel comfortable or like they are able to “fit in”. Women’s roles have been evolving for over 100 years.
The road has been paved for a woman to make decisions about the course she chooses to live her life. The roadblocks for women have been moved out of the way. Regardless of gender biases that may still exist, a woman can be whatever she chooses to be. This does not meet that the leadership role is easy. For men and women alike, begin an effective leader is challenging ad requires special and specific characteristics to be effective.
COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 15 Running Head: COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 1 Community Health
COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 15
Running Head: COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT 1
Community Health Assessment
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Community Health Assessment
Introduction
Drug abuse and addictions constantly finds a way of sneaking in to people’s lives. It is very easy for an individual to quickly become addicted after trying a drug, even though most likely he or she had no plans on it. Addictions at first always do not seem to be harmful, but when it reaches a point where the addiction overtakes a person’s life, it therefore becomes a very serious problem. In order for a person to treat the harmful addiction, he or she either needs to attend a rehabilitation program, or be forced to at least try it by his or her loved ones.
Drug abuse and overdose deaths in the United States have been on rise, primarily due to the increased rates of prescription opioid painkiller abuse and misuse. In past, the prescribed painkillers were even responsible for many deaths compared to the cocaine and heroin combined. In Ohio, for duration of less than six months, almost over 400 people lost their lives as a result of drug overdose. The conducted research and predictions suggest that even more of these deaths related to drug abuse and overdoses are likely to increase during the year 2017 compared with the year 2016.
Substance abuse continues to be an important issue when it comes to the public health and which has greatly contributed to morbidity and mortality rates both globally and the United States of America. A very well established pattern of the progression and beginning of drug usage and abuse at the youth periods contributes to most of many alternatives for the adults and adolescents, as many of the adult addicts begin to abuse drugs at heir adolescent stage (Ahmed, 2017).
Heroin, cocaine, marijuana and sedative hypnotics remain to be highly available in the Dayton region. This availability changes likely include the increased availability of powdered cocaine, suboxone and methamphetamine, including the decrease of synthetic marijuana and bath salts.
Nationally, it is reported that four times prescription painkillers have been sold to hospitals, pharmacies and doctor’s offices in 2017 as compared to last year. Once these drugs are prescribed and dispensed, most of the drugs are diverted to non-prescribed usage.
This research intents to inform the state lawmakers about the promising and effective policy strategies which can be applied to reduce the mortality rate as a result of drug abuse and overdoses in Dayton, Ohio. It will state and list some of the policies which the state may take in to consideration in reducing the epidemic. Although most of the interventions have promising evidence base, much evaluation is required for ensuring that the policies serve their intended impact. As such, the implementers together with the policy makers may consider including the evaluation to be part of the implementation process (Cicero, Ellis, Surratt & Kurtz, 2014).
According to community professionals and participants, reports suggest that there is a drastic increase of the powdered cocaine and this increase has been due to the popularity of mixing heroin with powdered cocaine and which is commonly identified as “Speedballing”. The most affected individuals are the young persons and this has been contributed by the popular culture factors like the lyrics contained in today’s music which glorify and promote the usage of drugs. Community professionals note that among the typical powdered cocaine users are often white and added that the usage of the powdered cocaine has also been increasing among the young generation. A debate has also emerged between the participants on the believed strong connection between the alcohol users and the powdered cocaine users by explaining that this drug allows more consumption of alcohol.
Reports from the law enforcers and other interested participants show that there has been an increase in the availability of methamphetamine and the cases related to methamphetamine have been significantly on rise. Report show that most of the methamphetamine types and which are available within the region include the crystalline and powdered tan, white and brown. Dayton treatment providers also have reported that the drug in Dayton is not as available as it is in other parts of Ohio, although its availability is on rise. Methamphetamine has been described as male, rural and white and it is commonly used in small social circles.
A decrease in the availability of bath salts has also been reported by the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab, a report which was processed during the recent reporting period, although the overall participants reported that the bath salts was not their drug of choice and did not pursue them.
Although there are enacted legislations and laws governing the issue of drug abuse, synthetic marijuana has been available in the streets from dealers to the head shops. However, health professionals and participants reported ea decrease in the availability of the synthetic marijuana and an increase in the availability of the powdered MDMA commonly known as “molly”. Reports show that this drug is more abused by individuals within the college community (Compton, Jones & Baldwin, 2016).
The knowledge gained from the reports together with the research is very important and aid in identifying and developing effective preventions and treatment approaches. Varying from an individual to another, great variability exists in their patterns of drug use and abuse as some of persons face life-time struggles from addictions while others live without experiencing any substance abuse.
However, from the population perspective, the epidemiologic pattern is consistence and predictable. Officials in the Ohio health, addiction and public safety agencies and its pharmacy board have been working together to curb the problem of drug overdoses and abuse together with its related deaths through implementing various strategies.
Emergency Response
This will require provision of resources which will help in expanding their awareness campaigns related to substance abuse and overdoses reversal drugs, and also to make sufficient naloxone available.
Law Enforcement
This will require to work together with the authorities and law enforcers in stiffening the penalties for person illegally selling fentanyl, stepping up the drug seizure efforts and supporting the local drug task force.
Treatment
There is a need of expanding the addiction treatment programs which are offered by drug courts in the areas where large number of fatal overdoses have been reported and coming up with a tool kit which the hospital emergency departments use to help the direct overdose patients to the community treatment and resources (Rudd, Aleshire, Zibbell & Matthew, 2016).
Community Health Assessment plan
The fundamental purpose of Dayton public health will be based on the three core functions which include; assessment, developing policy and assurance. It will provide information on the asset and problem identification and come up with a policy, implement the policy and evaluate. It will also measure how good is the public health system fulfills its assurance function.
The Dayton public health officials and community leader have actively engaged in the planning process and helped in defining the scope, the sequence and the content of the project. The active engagement of the members of community throughout the planning process is an essential step in completing a valid assessment.
In the light of the ongoing epidemic in the Dayton community, the Public Health & Montgomery County released a horrifying data on the unintentional drug overdose deaths and Montgomery County Poisoning Deaths. The report has highlighted the continued devastating and epidemic consequences of the illegal drug consumption in the region. Over 259 people have died in the previous year due to unintentional drug overdoses. The public health representatives and the law enforcement agree that the increased number of deaths as a result of unintentional drug overdoses will remain to be an urgent public health crisis which calls for increased community collaboration intervention and efforts in providing help for those in need in order to save lives.
The data reviewed has shown that a significant problem of drug abuse and overdose death is increasing at a very high rate with illicit fentanyl and heroin having a sustained impact. There has been an increase in the number of emergency department visits, hospital inpatients and emergency response calls resulting from drug overdoses.
The Dayton Police Department after they began to use Naloxone (Narcan) to reverse the overdose effects from September 2014, by 2015 it had revived almost 90 percent of the overdose victims who were administered Narcan. It is evident that the number of deaths could be higher at the moment without the naloxone substantial application.
Developing Assessment Goals
The project objective is to help in reducing the rate of drug abuse together with unintentional drug prescription overdoses related deaths in Dayton – Ohio. The current data shows that many people continue to lose their lives each and every day as a result of drug abuse and overdoses. The County Sheriff deputies have been responding too many of the cases and have always been equipped with either Narcan or Naloxone; which is a nasal spray used to counter react the effects of the drug overdoses. It is a research which aims at making progress in fighting drug abuse together with heroin epidemic which has been responsible for large number of reported deaths related to drug abuse in the State.
Addiction Services
The public health – Dayton and Montgomery Addiction service gives treatment for substance abuse treatment, intervention services, and gambling problem treatment. This is done through helping the addicts together with their families in responding to the devastation of gambling, alcohol and chemical dependency.
These treatment services include; screening and assessment, outpatient counseling, family counseling, intensive outpatient counseling and medicated assisted treatment.
Prevention services include; the home based and school parenting education for children and their families, home visit and school parenting education for adults and helping parents together with their kids in understanding on how to improve their decision making processing in situations which are high risky.
The specialty care groups include; The Women Trauma Group, which give support to women who have gone through trauma, The Young People’s Group, which assists in a day to day challenges of coping substance use and life, Male Awareness Group, which deals with substance issues unique to men and their lifestyle and lastly, The MAT Awareness Group, which helps those using the Medication Assistance Treatment when they are recovering.
The Emergency intervention and assessment services include the 24 hour crisis counseling hotline and a suicide prevention service and which offer emergency-walk-in care, evaluates the crisis needs, crisis counseling, pre-hospital screening, Emergency Psychiatric care/medication, drug/alcohol assessment, care coordination, Severely Mentally Disabled (SMD) and the Medicated Assisted Treatment (MAT) services for the opioid addiction.
The assessment aims to stabilize the amount of deaths and also reduce the number of fatal overdoses. In addition, it identifies the services which are offered, looking in to the gaps which exist in these services while exploring potential, new and expanded ways for combating the drug abuse and overdoses epidemic.
As part of this collaborative approach, more than 100 leaders from the community together with public and private organizations throughout the Ohio region are members of the assessment team and will guide the project, all towards putting the necessary effort to ensure that the cases of deaths as a result of substance abuse are reduced to zero. Every specific team will work on prevention, treatment, the law enforcement, and guidelines to opioid prescription, education, outreach and the court system.
To provide the overview, specific objectives of the assessment are;
The patterns of the multiple drug usage both non-current and concurrent
The extents of direct exposure to different forms of drug use
The existing beliefs over the harmfulness of various drug types at different levels of usage
The perceived availability of the illicit drugs
Description of the current treatment practices
Study of the consequences and the causes of the substance abuse and overdose
Assessing the impact of all the intervention tactics
Densely populated towns traditionally have been associated with drug abuse, although mounting evidence proof that this is becoming a significant issue in rural areas as well. Young generation comprising of men and women aging between 18 years to 65 years being the most affected. They abuse not only alcohol, marijuana and tobacco but also heavy drugs such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. They use heroin injections and also the plethora of issues which it has been associated with possesses a threat to the Ohio public health.
This assessment bases upon the qualitative data collected through a number of interviews conducted with the focus groups. The included participants are those who are recovering from drug addictions and also other active drug users and who were recruited from alcohol and other drug treatment programs within the region of Dayton – Ohio. The data triangulation will be obtained by the comparison between the qualitative data already collected from the regional professionals and who include the treatment providers and law enforcers and the participant data obtained through the focus group interviews together with the data fr4om the authorities.
The secondary data represents the summaries of all the cases processed within the time period of one year. In addition to the sources of data, media outlets provide the most recent information regarding the drug abuse epidemic. In an effort to clearly understand the current situation, the assessment summarizes drug related data collected from different related organizations in to a single format report.
The assessment involves the in-patient and emergency department accidental overdose records, the drug overdose responses by Dayton city first responders, the criminal justice data, and the unintentional drug overdose reports.
This assessment will benefit the general public, the leadership as well as the state organizations as to the severity of substance abuse and drug overdoses cases. The report will be available and will offer all the information required for developing new programs and grant applications which pertain the issue or informing policy decisions.
A qualitative interviewing technique will be applied, and which will range from semi-structured interviews to informal interviews and life histories. The interviewing technique will ensures that interaction and conversation is allowed and flows freely in reference to the topic, especially when the open-ended interview format is used.
In contrast, an interview which is more structured can serve a set of pre-designed discussion sets of topics offered for one to respond to. Through interviewing technique, it generally serves as a mean of determining how the participant will engage, perceive or talk about the different aspects of his or her personal life or how they categorize things. At the end of the preliminary analysis, this data will be applied to create a more focused set of questions which involves a particular set of topic or problem.
The focus group questions
At any given time, have you ever used drugs for a reason other than medication purpose_________?
Can you go for a week without using any type of drugs __________?
Have you ever abuse subscription drugs ________?
Do you ever feel bad or guilty about your drug use _________?
Have you ever abused more than one drug at any given moment ________?
Have you ever engaged into any illegal activities in order to obtain drugs ________?
Recruiting participants
Participants in an interview plays a very crucial role of getting familiarity of dhow persons express and perceive various dimensions in regard to their lives. In specific cases, group discussions or the focus groups, which comprise of four to six respondents, will be used in the individual open-ended interviewing.
Both techniques to be used during the interview sessions will facilitate the general discussion to the research questions. The aim of the focus groups is to explore the research topics, refine interventions, evaluate the quantitative survey instruments, obtain the design feedback, guide the refinement of more structured interviews and obtain feedback on the preliminary analysis.
At least more than eight individuals in Ohio lose their lives daily as a result of substance abuse and drug overdoses. Schools together with the community at large are at the frontline of the crisis and the efforts to educate the young individuals on the dangers related to the drug abuse will help to build a better future. This assessment also includes several recommendations which can assist to build a strong drug free generation.
Through eliminating the risk factors and the protective factors, young individuals will resilience and make positive life decisions.
Screening for substance use and mental issues will require to be followed by an effective interventions and treatments.
A community wide, comprehensive program on drug abuse prevention program should engage parents, caregivers, schools, parents, before and after school efforts, law enforcers, community coalition and other bodies for it to be effective.
Focus group consent form
This document will provide the data overview which is necessary both in the consent form and other optional sections. Participant’s information may be disclosed but only when a person has given an informed consent, for the disclosure and it should be in writing. The consent form must conform to all the requirements to which it has been designed and its procedures clarified in concern to the usage of the form.
Consent for the Release of Confidential Information;
I_______ authorizes ________ to receive _________ from/disclose to __________ for the purpose of _________, the following information; I understand that my information is protected under the Federal and State Confidentiality Regulations, and thus this will not be disclosed in absence of my properly written consent unless provided in these regulations. I am also the consent at any given time accept the extent which actions will be taken at any event relying on it. The consent will expire automatically on _________ unless specified otherwise below.
Other specifications for the expiration: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Date executed: _________________________
Client signature: ________________________
Parent/Guardian signature: _____________________
Final synthesis of the problem and potential solutions
Substance abuse in Dayton – Ohio is epidemic, tragic and it needs many solutions. The government should provide the residents with physicians together with facilities for dedication to the wellness and addiction free living. However, the region should go further in addressing the community requirements at the local level and ensure that campaigns are conducted to ensure that every community member is educated, especially the young generation so that they can make healthy and responsible decisions regarding their lives and avoid the risks involved in engaging in to drugs and other substance abuse. If families and individuals have no knowledge on the powerful substances in their medical cabinets, more addictions and misuse may occur (Gonzales, Ang, Murphy, Glik & Anglin, 2014).
Deploying preventive programs in schools
Although most of the schools currently use the evidence based prevention programs, the State should get involved in the education board in every learning institution for healthy curriculum selection which involves instructions on the risks of engaging in to substance abuse. Colleges and universities also have the mandate to promote the awareness.
Helping parents and caregivers to start conversations with kids
This will reduce the drug use among children; a simple tool can help like parents talking to their children at early age on dangers of getting involved with drugs.
Staying informed with prescribing guidelines
It involves processes to avoid opioid contributed addiction through pain management formularies adjustment mostly applied in prisons and the Bureau of works compensation.
Promoting best practices and continuing education
Medication related science has always been evolving and the provider may keep his knowledge on current on evidence based practices on opioid abuse for pain management as well as various steps to manage and prevent opioid overdoses.
Setting up local prevention coalition programs with the youth-led focus
Dayton residents should come up with an effective drug prevention coalition and have a youth peer to peer component necessary to show the kids that they in the majority if they chose a drug free life.
Developing a culturally relevant, age-appropriate communications
The community has a need to reach the rural families, the urban youth and the returning veterans, where a population segment should be identified and the need of reaching and tailoring messages and incorporating the audience values and beliefs.
Conclusion
The Dayton community needs to make a decision and act on what possibly can be done to contain the epidemic of substance abuse and drug overdoses. Unnecessary loss of lives can be averted and every community member should do his or her best in protecting the community, economic and personal devastation where addiction wreaks. For these to happen, easy access to naloxone should be made available and public educated on the dangers and risks of drug addictions. Drug dealers must be identified and cracked down and those providing large amounts of narcotics in pill mills.
Persons going through heroin and other drug abuse can recover, but this will take hard work, support and good treatment. People with addictions do get on recovery path. For some it may be early, for just a single rehabilitation program and for others it may take even ten rehabilitation programs. The affected, their families and clinical providers need to sustain hope of recovery to the victims (Lovins & Latessa, 2013).
References
Ahmed, T. (2017). Measurable Predictors of Birth Outcomes: Community Health Needs Assessment Objectives.
Cicero, T. J., Ellis, M. S., Surratt, H. L., & Kurtz, S. P. (2014). The changing face of heroin use in the United States: a retrospective analysis of the past 50 years. JAMA psychiatry, 71(7), 821-826.
Compton, W. M., Jones, C. M., & Baldwin, G. T. (2016). Relationship between nonmedical prescription-opioid use and heroin use. N Engl J Med, 2016(374), 154-163.
Gonzales, R., Ang, A., Murphy, D. A., Glik, D. C., & Anglin, M. D. (2014). Substance use recovery outcomes among a cohort of youth participating in a mobile-based texting aftercare pilot program. Journal of substance abuse treatment, 47(1), 20-26.
Lovins, B., & Latessa, E. (2013). Creation and validation of the Ohio Youth Assessment System (OYAS) and strategies for successful implementation. Justice Research and Policy, 15(1), 67-93.
Rudd, R. A., Aleshire, N., Zibbell, J. E., & Matthew Gladden, R. (2016). Increases in drug and opioid overdose deaths—United States, 2000–2014. American Journal of Transplantation, 16(4), 1323-1327.