single mother parenting and depression in US rev

Single Mother Parenting and Depression in the United States
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]

Single Mother Parenting and Depression in the United States
Introduction
This paper will discuss different aspects of depression in single mothers during the past few decades. This concern has been increasing at quite an alarming pace thereby leading to different intervention options available to them at hand. Hence, an Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) would serve in the best interest of serving the clients suffering from the very same problem.
Client Characteristics, Context and Practical Issue
Elsa Miles is a 34 years old single mother and has two children James and Kate. The client is living her life in the very depressed way. Her aim is to fulfill the needs of their children (pay fees in time, living expenditures, managing expenses, parenting, and deal with health stresses that are quite commonly associated with depression. Her goals are to solve all problem occurred on her way to gives a better life for her children, but there are so many hurdles to achieve that. It includes doing double shifts jobs and trying to make more money to secure their children’s future but sometimes she is not succeeding, and this is responsible for her depression.
While she is depressed, she used to drink and smoke quite much as compared to normal days. Her husband war died of cancer on May 25th, 2009, and it has been around six years. Currently, she is working as a sales girl in a local mall.

Both of her children attends public school. James is very intelligent and famous in his school and always comes first in class. On the other hand, Kate has a problem socializing with people and her performance in school is not good. Her school teacher shows concern to Elsa because of her rude behavior. Elsa got more depressed because of this news from the school and she also told that she takes drugs to calm herself down. Her depression is growing fast, and she has to solve her problem; otherwise, it may damage her body and then she can never recover from her ailment. Also, on societal grounds, she would not be able to help her children out under those conditions. Elsa already know about her depression is very serious. However, she can only survive it provided that she had better plans to deal with this issue. It’s her only goal to make her children well educated and most importantly, good persons.
According per Vespa, Lewis, and Kreider, (2011), there are 56 million couple families and 5 million male and 15 million female householders having no spouse present. Also, a more generalized outlook of it forms single mothers about 15 to 24 years are around 900. However, single mother belonging to age groups of 25-34 age group accounts for 314,195. For the age group of 35-44 years old single mothers are around 379,854, and 45-54 years old single mothers are around 333,374. However, considering the distribution based on ethnic grounds, white single mothers amounts to as much as 9,000,000 whereas Black & Asian mothers are more than 7,000,000. Single mothers with children are 8,549,771. Single mothers with children fewer than 12 and less than 6 years of age are 5,968,013 and 3,334,712. Based on the house owned by single mothers, around 6,890,463 mothers live in owned homes whereas 8,000,000 live in rented houses.
Sources and Research
The research interventions considering single mother depression comprises of a number of sources from various scholarly journals. While considering the scenario of Elsa and her children, a limited number of keywords are researched for finding the most targeted intervention under the current scenario. It includes, “single mother depression intervention”, “American living arrangements AND family demographics”, “single mother parenting issues” and “social intervention depression”. While searching for these terms, more than 500 articles have been available based on different topics. It has also included a more generalized including, “American living arrangements and family demographics” for getting a more diversified range of articles. However, for getting a more targeted answer to different intervention options, “social intervention depression” and “social practice intervention drug abuse” are used for getting results around 60. Results were largely based on different scholarly journals including APA Psycnet, Cambridge University Press, Wiley Online Library and BMJ. These articles were dedicated to finding out answers to different social intervention techniques and approaches that can help in providing the better outlook for parents as well as their children. For that, “The impact of parent training on marital functioning: A comparison of two group versions of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program for parents of children with early-onset conduct problems” by Ireland (2003); “Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: implications for substance abuse prevention” by Hawkins et al. (1992); and “A family resilience framework: Innovative practice applications” by Walsh (2002), were selected as part of pinpointing different intervention means based on social aspects.
EBP Interventions
A total of three interventions is considered as part of the current scenario of Elsa and her children, Kate, and James. For the loss of her husband, Elsa along with her children requires a much better approach to living their lives. For that, Walsh (2002) has provided an outlook of the current problem. Elsa’s husband has been diagnosed with cancer, and they all know about the potential outcome of that because of high cancer mortality rates. For that, a more vibrant approach includes sharing the experience of dying, death and subsequently, the loss via acknowledgment of the reality of life. Also, it demands open representation of feelings as part of a family is considered quite a vital step for that. The second step includes the reorganization of family reconstruction by dedicating time to development of new relationships and other common life pursuits.
Another intervention that can be included under this domain includes substance abuse. Clearly, Elsa is not making a constructive effort by indulging in different substances including alcohol, smoking and taking drugs. Hawkins et al. (1992) have given some approaches for reducing these sinister habits that can in turn harm her very own children in the long term perspective. For that, different interactions sessions should have to be conducted in which the children, as well as the mother, would openly express their grievances. By open discussions, the family would become much more open towards ideas and makes their bonding stronger; more specifically, of Elsa and Kate.
Third intervention by Ireland et al. (2003) includes a framework of 3-Ps of positive parenting that is related to parental training. Kate behavior as a child is surely quite disturbing and requires immediate attention. The intervention of a development of effective parenting and assessing children’s needs and determination of conflict behaviors constitutes the core essence of childhood dysfunctional traits (Dumka et al., 1997). The total time that would be taken for current intervention approaches last around 4-5 months based on face-to-face and telephonic interactions.
Conclusion
All in all, the single mother suffering from depression can lead to more detrimental changes in their lives instead of constructive changes. Elsa has faced the death of her husband and after that; the financial and social issues have proven difficult to manage for her. To prevent such circumstances, some social interventions were provided by the light of current scenario of her life. Hence, can be proved useful for further research and/or development of much better case study for other single mothers.
References
Dumka, L. E., Garza, C. A., Roosa, M. W., & Stoerzinger, H. D. (1997). Recruitment and retention of high-risk families into a preventive parent-training intervention. Journal of Primary Prevention, 18(1), 25-39.
Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. Y. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 64.
Ireland, J. L., Sanders, M. R., & Markie-Dodds, C. (2003). The impact of parent training on marital functioning: A comparison of two group versions of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program for parents of children with early-onset conduct problems. Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 31(02), 127-142.
Vespa, J., Lewis, J. M., &Kreider, R. M. (2013). America’s families and living arrangements: 2012. Current Population Reports, 20-570.
Walsh, F. (2002). A family resilience framework: Innovative practice applications. Family relations, 51(2), 130-137.