Amuse Social Community Group Project's Video

X-Factor Test for Venture Capital Investor

There are eight factors we need to consider in the end of this project, and when all these factors were overcome and solve, we are ready in our business plan. 

1. Quality of Management

• Key partner
• Social media experiences
• Sponsors
• Finance

2. Size of Market

• This factor is to show that are the amount of target market we will have based on our project.
• Percentage of college students population 
• Malaysia 29%
• Philippines 29%
• Thailand 41%
• Singapore 46%
• Japan 41%

3. Product Qualities (Uniqueness, Brands, Patterns)

• Please refer to our “Uniqueness and Value Diagram” for further information.

4. Intensity of Competition

• Befirenders
• SPILL

5. Market Growth Rate
6. Barriers to Entry

• Social media platform Android-based
• The platform that we have created has successfully blocked the new entries of the market to involve in to our market as we created a new service in Malaysia which is Online Chat Counseling. 

7. Company’s Stage of Development

• We are in the feasibility stage. 
• Feasibility = capable of being accomplished or brought about; possible: a feasible plan.

8. Industry Where Company Is

• Our service is located in the Health Care Industry

• Healthcare began as a purely reactionary, medicinal practice, in which people learned the medicinal properties of plants through trial and error, and then passed on that knowledge to others. 

• The current industry leaders by revenue in the product segment of the industry are Merck and Co., Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
• The United States’ healthcare system is the largest in the world, worth around $1.7 trillion, as compared to $700 billion in Europe.
• In the United States, around 76 percent of establishments are practitioners' offices, from dentist to doctor to optometrist. Hospitals make up approximately two percent of establishments, but account for around 59 percent of revenues earned.

Overall Cost Structure

Above is the cost structure that we have calculated. Further explanation will be shown in our video. Looking forward for our video! :) 

Problematic Teens’ Elephants

There are few problematic teens’ elephants that affect the buyer segmentation in our project. We will set our target into six characteristics that can be found within them.

So what is the first thought of yours when you found out that a person owns the above characteristics? Let us explain why we choose to use such keywords to represent the problematic teens. 

Smoker, what obviously has stated smoker group can be said is either been practice to smoke when young or influences by others including family members. Not to said that all smokers are consider problematic teen but what we wanted to point out that this practice will lead us more to the group of problematic teens. And clearly seen is smoking is not a good habit!

Second, golden hair is one of their outlooks when we have the 1st impression of problematic teens. But nowadays golden hair no longer the symbolic of problematic teens, it also symbolize trendy look. But none the less this characteristic will lead us to our third point, tattoo gangster. Tattoo is obviously a symbol of rebel while added in the gangster characteristics. And what if we added in the foul behavior into teens that match above characteristics? Bad behavior, bad habit, bad attitude, bad in a way they were which shown most of the problematic teens’ elephant to us. Normally we will found them in snooker center, or even in a club. These are the places that drag an angel to the hell with all these seduction.

Where do you mainly found them?

On the right side of the diagram...............
which is clearly stated that most of the problematic teens that fits the above elephants can be found easily at the places we mention above in the diagram.

What we have stated above are just our opinion based on our project for study purpose. We apologies if there were any misuse of content. 

Uniqueness and Value

This diagram is to test the uniqueness and value of the competitors with our team.

High in uniqueness, High in value

First, our team Amuse is clearly a unique way to conduct a counseling which we create this service where in Malaysia there are still none strategies to get into the counseling market. Therefore we consider high in uniqueness and high in value.  

One of our competitors is Befrienders that locate in the same rank with us. Their service is maily conducted by email, telephone and letter but they haven’t strike into the online counseling market yet. 

High in uniqueness, Low in value

As shown on the diagram above, Home for Mentally Disturbed and Malaysia Mental Health Association are listed in. These two groups have the same characteristics which their services are unique but not showing out the value in an obvious way. 

Low in uniqueness, Low in value

Rehabilitations, School Counseling, Psychiatrists and Letter-based Counseling in Newspaper are the groups that stay in the rank of low in uniqueness and not much value to be shown in their services.  

The 6’s P Diagram

Price

In Team Amuse, we are using the FOC (Free of Charges) based were 70% of our funds will be sponsors by others companies. There are three more competitor that we listed out in the diagram is to show the possibilities threats that the competitors bring to us and we analyze for further development. Out of the three competitors, the most common way to get counseling is from the School Counseling. But fortunately, the school counseling is the same charges with our team which is FOC where their funds are mainly sponsored by PIBG, Teachers and Parents Association.

Other than that, looking for the help of psychiatrist is one of the common way too but it may cost you a higher charges as they were giving professional therapy for their patients. The cost is in between Malaysia Ringgit 100 to 300 and the charges of therapy are mainly counted based on time. For the uncommon way to get counseling, we found that serious-ill patients are to be found in the Home for Mentally Disturbed which we always mention as “Tanjung Rambutan” among Malaysian’s terms. Their charges are FOC too because they are mainly supported by the government.

Product

Online Chat Counseling is the service that we provided to the public as we will use the help of Internet and conduct the counseling on an immediate response chat room.  We choose to create this service is to show the seriousness of the problematic teens nowadays. We have calculated that approximately 7 million of teens are needed to be counseling and yet to be increase if we didn’t pay attention to this phenomena now.
School Counseling and Home for Mentally Disturbed was using the face-to-face method to counsel their patients whereas psychiatrist is multi-function counseling which consists of face-to-face or by email.

Promotion

Team Amuse will bring their service to the public by the based on Internet where obviously their promotions are to be send by internet too. The promotion for the other three competitors, School Counseling and Psychiatrist are mainly based on promotional advertising items such as flyer and newspaper. Home for Mentally Disturbed which what we discuss that normally people won’t pay much attention on it where only serious-ill patients will be send in there for further therapy.

Place

Our service are based on internet, in conclude the best place to use our service is mainly in website. For school counseling, it is clearly shown that their services will be conduct in school whereas psychiatrist will conduct their services in the counseling center in either private, semi-government or fully-government based medical center. Last, home for mentally disturbed only will be found at psychiatric nursing home as their patients might need to quarantine from ordinary people.

Philanthropy & People

Amuse’s service brought to you by 100 volunteers in the same time where you problems will not be “hold on for a second”! Our target is focusing on teenagers in between 12 to 21 years old. As what we mentioned above, our target market has more than seven billion teens in the world.
School counseling will mainly held charity campaign for counseling to help those needed but their target group are mainly focused to students. For the counseling case that needed more help from the professionals, Psychiatrist is the common choice for any group of people to seek therapy where their patients are mostly slightly-ill and slightly mentally disturbed in mainly their emotion. The uncommon way and we thinks that no one are willing to seek help from this competitor, Home for Mentally Disturbed will be the last choice for serious-ill and mentally disturbed patients that will take a longer time for medical treatment.

Who we are? We are Amuse!

Our mission is to build a brighter future for youths.

So now we are in the promise stage that we will show the audiences that we will fulfill the above promises with our passion in helping those problematic teens.

We ensure that with the help from Amuse, problematic teens will be:

Live on the Brighter Side of Life which is obviously to Make a Smarter Choice while Your Future Await. The Guideline For Future was Don’t take a wrong path and always remember that We Are Loving You so Step Up and Think Positive and that will help Your Dream Become Reality in the Direction we guide you which all these will be not be an end when you are facing the problem. It’s just a beginning and all these, is what we promise to give you!

Final Outcome of Amuse Brain Storming

Based on our research and brainstorming, we found out that there are a few factors that causes problems among teenagers. The causes are from the social, family, youths themselves and the media. Due to the factors that causes the problem, we came up with some solutions as mentioned in the graph above. As a solution for their problems.

What is Five Forces Model?

Five Forces Model consist of five subject titles.
Potential Entrants, Buyers, Suppliers, Substitutes and the Rivalry among Existing Firms. 

Potential Entrants

This part of the model contains the threats of the new entrants. Our threats have been filter into four association or communities: PLKN, Salvation Army, Uniform, including SPILL which is a counselling website from United State of America. We will offer them our service and collaborate with these four association or communities. As what we have research, these associations did not have the online chat counselling service to counsel their students or members. And what we have found out that most of the problematic teenagers will rehabilitations when they join these types of associations as they got a chance to prove to others that they can follow instructions and are able to discipline themselves.

Buyers

The bargaining power of buyers is the most important part of all. What we are focusing on is how to make our service more attractive to make the buyers willing to BUY. In terms of solving that problem, we must find out that who is the group which willing to pay or sponsor the fees of maintaining our online chat counselling system. As what our Amuse Group has been discussed last week, we have sort out five categories of the sponsors.

First is the parents group. Parents are mostly involved in the causing of the problematic teenagers too, so why don’t they sponsor to help these poor teens to get themselves out of these chaos situations? Since they are the first contact of every teenager and yet they as parents do not play their role well to lead their children to a better future, so why not let us instead to help them to assist their children on the right path?

Second, government should be focusing on these problematic teenagers since they are the future of the country. Government should help them to build up their own confidence and assist them on their rehabilitation. In return, the society will grow to a better place which benefits to the government too.

Next, our group has been discussing on the School Counselling Association. They have play their role as a counselor in studying but why not they help those who need helps too? Moreover, this kind of association can have the nearest contact to the students. They can help the problematic teens once they found out their abnormal behavior and counsel them to find the right way in their life.

Fourth, teenager themselves are the main focus target of our project. They are our final target consumer. Although teenagers is the group that will used our system, but the sponsorship are mainly from parents or associations.

Substitutes

The threats of substitute product or services we found out are smart phone devices and email counselling. These two threats are mainly based on electronic devices to bring out the actions. These devices are consider threats to our online chat counselling system as they can contact by email, short messaging system (SMS), multimedia messaging system (MMS). These threats have not been promoted in Malaysia before and we believe that it will threaten our system once it has been out in the public.

Suppliers

Bargaining power of suppliers is one of the five forces that we need to consider on who will supplies material for our system. As what have been shown in the chart, book publishers are one of the suppliers that we have listed out. The technologies nowadays are becoming more high tech and we believe that book publishers can supplies us the related books in either technologically (E-Books) or materially (brochures, books, flyers). 

Other than that, medication supplies will be needed when certain teenagers are in serious case such as bad anger managing or depression. Therefore, the helps and sponsorship from the drug store will be needed as well.


Most importantly, the helps from the counselor themselves was most appreciated. They can either consult teenagers voluntarily or by payment. 

Rivalry among Existing Firms

Last but not least, the question of rivals. There are thousands of counselling firms in Malaysia and we will need to stand out among them. Here are some examples of the counselling firms:

• Malaysia Mental Health Association
• Befrienders
• School Counselling Department
• Prisons
• Newspaper (Based On Letter)
• Psychiatrists
• Home For The Mentally Disturbed A.K.A. Tanjung Rambutan 

We can be either rivals or we can collaborate each other in a good way. For example, prisons will need our help on conducting those criminals and lead them into the right pathway. Some of the counselor might not want to consult them face-to-face as they were fear with them. Therefore, we suggest that we can counsel them by using online chat counselling to conduct them. Moreover, they will feel better not to face the counselor face-to-face when consulting process as they wanted to keep the privacy of their own secret. They might not want others to know their identity whenever they wanted to tells a secret or a problem. 

And with that, this is the end of our explanations of Five Forces Model for Amuse Group. For more information, please do visit our webpage and Facebook page.

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amuse-social-community/392790877428711

Amuse Webpage:
http://amusesocialcommunity.weebly.com/index.html

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/Amuse16

P.E.S.T.E.L. Diagram

The PESTEL diagram is based on one solution which is the 

Online Chat Counselling. 

Let's start with Politics. Politics is one of the way how the Online Chat Counselling works. With the support from schools, we are indirectly getting supports from the government where funds and money will come in with the support from the government.

Secondly, Economics, this is to create job opportunity for the people who want to participate and take part in this Online Chat Counselling. With the job opportunity, we can either hire professional counselor or counselors who are willing to help these younger generations in going through their miserable lives.

Coming to the third part, Sociodemographic. This involves the teenagers who are in need. We are targeting the teenagers who are already our subject of matter. As we mentioned, "Building A Brighter Future For Youths".

And next, we are using technology as our communication tool. For some of the teenagers, the feel shy confronting counselors and they might be afraid that they are considered as having a 'mental problem' when they do see counselors. So, they can secretly express themselves via technology without letting anyone else know about it. Using communication tools like Facebook, Twitter, Skype or other online services can help us provide this Online Chat Counselling programme more.

Environment does not really matter much in our subject matter, as suggested by Mr. Stephan Ong, we leave it aside.

Legal based, as for Online Chat Counselling, we do not need much of a legal authorization, all we need to do is just for teenagers or youth to sign up and to simply to "tick" the agreement that we would not be held responsible for any actions taken by the youths. That is all for our PESTEL diagram.

Segmentation

Continue from last week post.....

Let’s revise on the key words:

• Online system
• Internet
• Professional counselor
• Chat
• Parents & Youth
• Expressing Feelings
• Lonely
• Struggle and more...


_________________________________________________________________________________

Through the keywords above, we have come out with a Segmentation based on our project. 

What we are aiming is to build up a counseling chat room with the help of online system nowadays. We used through the channel of internet nowadays, 3G, broadband, dialup and wi-fi are few examples that you can found on mostly everyone in either their phones, tablets, or even computers. We have chosen our two main customer segments which is youth and parents.

Let’s just focus first on one of the customer segments, Youth.

Based on the chart above, you can see that the relationship of youth and parents are unbreakable. No matter on the family relationship or the DNA related, it will always be stick together. What we wanted to show out in the customer relationship segment is that we can use the online chat counseling system to relate those two segments. Parents are always the lead for their children. The idiom “Monkey see Monkey do!” did state out the fact in this point.

Therefore, we will build up an online system by the help of key partners from either volunteer technical engineer or technology schools technical engineer. It will be next affect on the key resources segment where we will need to hire programmer to build up the system, which after the system build up, we will need to hire professional counselor or recruit volunteer counselor as our chat counseling helper. By that, we’ll need to get our finance balanced up in order to run this system to operate this online chat counseling project.


For the cost structure of our team, we will need to build up our system which need a lot of technically based. We also need to hire professional counselor for handling the service part.

As stated in the revenue stream, our funds will be gathering by the help of sponsor and donation. 70% is sponsor based and 30% is donor-based is what we will do in our finance that we will come out the financial solutions in no time. Other than that, charity and pay per message click advertisement is two of the solutions we get that will help in our funding.

Next week we will discuss more on the next customer segmentation, Parents. As what our slogan “Build a Brighter Future for Youth” shows, the future of youth can be only better with the help start with youth’s 1st exposure to the population, the influences of parents. 

2nd Refinement of the Maslow’s Hierarchy

From the chart below, the left side of the pyramid has represent the categories of the problems and the right side of the pyramid represent the solution we provided based on the form of programs or solutions.


The hierarchy has been change where only one main solution we will focus based on our topic, Online Chat Counseling. As what we have discuss on our previous post, we discuss about the main problem that teenagers are facing and we found out that four out of eight of the levels are mainly the problems that faced by teens.

1) Safety and Security
2) Belonginess
3) Self-esteem 
4) Cognitive

The section that we highlighted out based on the chart below is the part that our teenagers’ problems are mainly focused on.

Safety and security, a word to explain is feeling. What teens needs is the feeling of safe and secure from family. The lack of this element will cause teens to feel that they don’t belong to any of the part of society.

Belonginess, the next element that will be affected. To show that they do belong to the society, we must help the problematic teens to get their self-esteem pump up as to let them feel that they are worth to belonging.

Self-esteem is the hardest part to be solved. This is because self-esteem is based on the feelings and characteristics of the teens themselves. What we can help is to cure them from the insides, which mean their thoughts and attitude towards life and more.

We also can provide a chance to let them prove themselves to the public that they are to be respected and belongingness. For an example, a working chance might help them to prove to others that “I am needed!” And this is what cognitive mean in the hierarchy above.

To conclude all that into one solution, we choose Online Chat Counseling. Let’s make a brief explanation on this solution into few keywords.

• Online system
• Internet
• Professional counselor
• Chat
• Parents & Youth
• Expressing Feelings
• Lonely
• Struggle and more...

We stop until here for this week's post. To know more about the explanation of the keywords of our Online Chat Counseling System, please be sure to look out for our next post on next week. 

Progression Photos

Chin Siew Chee & Goay Shinro
- Concentrating on the lecture....

     

Leader, Cheah Soon Yang &
committee member Ang Mei Chee
was having discussion on the hierarchy.

Committee member, Goay Shinro was
searching for more references while discussion.

Maslow's Hierarchy Refinement

We have discussion session  during our break time between classes in TTSS, 
and here is the outcome of our discussion...... :)

Before we start the discussion

Explanation:

The Final Outcome of the Hierarchy

A discussion is held today by our group leader to discuss and suggest the solution for the Maslow’s Hierarchy based on our topic, Social Problems among Teenager. From the picture above, the left side of the pyramid has represent the categories of the problems and the right side of the pyramid represent the solution we provided based on the form of programs or solutions. 
The basic problems that lie on the bottom of the hierarchy, Mentality, represent the thinking and behavior of teenager. As the thinking or behaviors of teenager nowadays are beginning to become negative ideology and they need to be purifies and re-educates. Therefore, we suggested that counseling is needed to be implemented toward the teens.

The 2nd level in the hierarchy, the safety and security which we emphasize on are the feels to be safe and secure of the teenager. What we provided are the ideal environment for teens. Ideal environment is access to enriching activities and a good education for teens. The 3rd level in the hierarchy is belonginess.  We figure out that to let the teens feel their presence and belonging as a group of students is in the co-curriculum activities. This is where the teenager will release their excess energy into these schools activities. Other than that, self-esteem of teenagers is important too. It can be overcome by only the help from the teenager themselves as this is a personal feelings and reactions. What we can do is to persuade them to have more social interaction with others such as making more friends and having an eye on the world outside.

Cognitive is placed on the 5th level of the hierarchy as the meaning of it was being recognized by the society or certain subject such as their parents. Therefore, we suggested to conduct an identified expertise program to lead the teens on what they are capable of doing and how does they demonstrate their skills into related field in their future. This would provide them a pathway to realize their skills and provide their service to the society in future. For the 6th level in the hierarchy, aesthetic brings out the sense of art in related of the working fields or industries. The art Society can be build up as teenagers can apply their creative skills into the subject they like such as designs, idea developments and more.

Self-actualization comes in the 2nd last level in the hierarchy, which means that the feeling of being satisfaction are composed in the teenagers as they have reach the level that they almost fulfills every wants and expectation of themselves. We offered a higher level of solutions to them which is the scholarships.
In the last and highest of the level, self-transcendence are what the successor doing to challenge them as they have reached the point where they are satisfied with what they wanted. We provide them a pathway which is programs to leads other as counselor or lecturer.

Process During Discussion: 

Our committee member, Chan Yan Theng
jot down the solutions
based on the  opinions of other members.

One of our committee member, Chan Foong Ai
 was creating the pyramid before we start the discussion.

A group discussion (from left to right) Cheah Soon Yang, Ang Mei Chee, Chan Yan Theng -
Research ideas gathered from the helps of Internet. 

Today Topic: Maslow's Hierarchy

The basic structure of the hierarchy.
Rather than drawing 2 pyramid, we choose to make it half. :)

Tutor are teaching our members on how to focus on the problems
and solve it based on the categories that provided as guidelines.

Team members are in progressing the Maslow's Hierarchy
to find out the 8 categories of solutions based on the problems we faced.

Teens and the Media

A very good video example for our topic, Social Problems Among Teenager. This show how does the media influences teenager. 

People all over the world use the media everyday. Whether it's using a computer, watching TV, reading a newspaper, talking on the phone or listening to the radio, media is a way to communicate. Through the media, you can find out about important news, listen to your favorite music or watch your favorite TV show. But there are also negative sides of the media that can be especially harmful to teens.


This video is for study purpose only.

Gather around and WORK! :)

Group photo- (from left to right) Ang Mei Chee, Cheah Soon Yang, Chin Siew Chee, Chan Yan Theng, Goay Shinro and Chan Foong Ai. 

Concern over teenagers hanging out late at night

Sunday May 2, 2010
By HARIATI AZIZAN and WONG PEK MEI
Photo by GLENN GUAN
( The Star Newspaper) 



KUALA LUMPUR: They have become a common sight in the wee hours of the morning – youngsters hanging out with friends in various spots in the city.

The fatal shooting of 15-year-old Aminulrasyid Amzah by police has now put in the limelight this growing phenomenon of teens staying out late.

Parents, educators and activists are concerned that many teens are disobeying their parents by hanging out with friends all night.

Data in the Malaysia Community and Family Study 2004 by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) – conducted every 10 years – reveals that staying out late at night is the top activity disapproved of by parents that teenagers love to indulge in (13.5%).

Teenagers hanging out in the Bukit Bintang area late at night. With plenty of entertainment available, many can be seen in the area until the wee hours of the morning.







Taking drugs (1.3%) and illegal racing (2.9%) ranked much lower.

For this section of the study, the LPPKN spoke to over 1,000 youth separately from the rest of their family members.

“We compiled 10 activities on parents’ No-No list and asked the respondents to rank their likelihood of participating in activity against their parents’ wishes,” said LPPKN director-general Datuk Aminah Abdul Rahman.

“Teens staying out late at night are a common thing. Six years ago, it was the top disapproved activity and now, although we don’t have the actual figure, it seems to be growing.

“It may not be critical yet to cause panic but we should be aware of the dangers,” she said.

She attributed this trend to the change in the lifestyle of the young today as well as the many 24-hour eateries, cybercafes and increased late-night activities.

“Now we have various programmes that encourage them to go out and stay out late like midnight movies, night futsal matches, concerts and live football games,” she added.

Aminah said parents must be responsible for their children’s whereabouts.

Assoc Prof Datuk Mohamad Ali Hasan, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association Collaborative Council, agrees that the tragic incident in Shah Alam should be a wake-up call for parents and guardians on the importance of knowing where and what their children are doing late at night.

“Some parents are being hoodwinked by their children who come up with various excuses, saying they are doing schoolwork with others when in truth, they are hanging out with friends and getting up to no good,” he said, proposing that Malaysia implement a national curfew to safeguard our children as practised in countries like Japan, Britain, Iceland, Germany and Singapore.

“I think no minor should be out after 11pm. To help ensure this rule is followed, we can recruit some social workers or police to check their ID after 11pm.”

Arfidah Abdul Latiff, manager and outreach worker with youth shelter Sinar Salam concurred.

“Having a curfew might help curb the problem. From what my fellow activists in Singapore say, it has been effective in reducing the crime rate among the young there.

Aminah, however, does not think that having a national curfew will help.

“Sometimes we cannot talk about punitive action or enforcement. It should be the last measure. The more important thing is to instil responsibility and good character in our young,” she said.

Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation Vice-Chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye agrees that parents have the biggest responsibility in disciplining their children. A curfew by the government would deny youths their basic rights, he said.

“To be fair, not all teenagers who are out late are involved in crime. Some just hang out with their friends and are able to differentiate between right and wrong,” he said.

THEY need our HELP!

A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. 

Everyone would agree about some social problems, such as murders and DWI traffic deaths. Other social problems may be viewed as such by certain groups of people. Teenagers who play loud music in a public park obviously do not view it as a problem, but some other people may consider it an undesirable social condition. Some nonsmokers view smoking as an undesirable social condition that should be banned or restricted in public buildings.

      Every newspaper is filled with stories about undesirable social conditions. Examples include crime, violence, drug abuse, and environmental problems. Such social problems can be found at the local, state, national and international levels.

      There are many social problems that teenagers go threw.  Drugs and Teenagers Drug use is the increasing problem among teenagers in today’s high schools. Most drug use begins in the preteen and teenage years, these years most crucial in the maturation process. During these years adolescents are faced with difficult tasks of discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independence, learning to cope with authority and searching for goals that would give their lives meaning. Drugs are readily, adolescents are curious and venerable, and there is peer pressure to experiment, and there us a temptation to escape from conflicts. The use of drugs by teenagers is the result of a combination of factors such as peer pressure, curiosity, and availability. Drugs addiction among adolescents in turn leads to depression and suicide.

      One of the most important reasons of teenage drug usage is peer pressure. Peer pressure represents social influences that effect adolescents, it can have a positive or a negative effect, depending on person’s social group and one can follow one path of the other. We are greatly influenced by the people around us.

      According to the lecturer from Faculty of Leadership and Management (FKP), Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM), Madam Marina Muneera Abdul Muttalib said that, in today’s schools drugs are very common, peer pressure usually is the reason for their usage. If the people in the social group use drugs there will be pressure a direct or indirect pressure from them. A person may be offered to try drugs, which is direct pressure. Indirect pressure is when someone sees everyone around him using drugs and he might think that there is nothing wrong with using drugs. Person might try drugs just to fit in the social norms, even if a person had no intentions of using drugs one might do it just to be considered “cool” by his friends.

      Today drugs are considered to be an acceptable social phenomenon by many teenagers. Here is a personal example of drug use from a teenager, “When I started using, was only on weekends, at parties. I used drugs ‘recreationally’ and therefore thought I had no addiction problem. I used drugs like nicotine, marijuana or LSD to be happy or to have fun. I needed drugs. I kept using drugs, I used drugs like marijuana to fit socially. I had problems in my life, emotionally, that drugs only seemed to solve. Drugs made my problems worse. I started snorting cocaine. I injected heroin into my veins. I almost died. I was addicted.”

      In today’s highs schools the availability and variety of drugs is widespread. There is a demand for drugs and the supply is plentiful. Since drugs are so easy accessible, a natural interest in them may develop. Many teenagers today believe that the first use of drugs is safe. However even though there is no instant addiction with the first try, youngsters tend to experiment further. Soon a person could actively seek the euphoric effects of drugs. Drug addiction is the result of intense preoccupation with the dicer to experience the mental and bodily changes with drug use. The final and the most disastrous stage are when a person needs drugs in order to function adequately. Therefore availability, curiosity and experimentation could result in drug addiction among teenagers.

      According to the staff of government, Mohd Azuan Hussin, 26, said that, one of the most devastating side effects of drug addiction and abuse is depression. Depression is the result of chemical imbalance, environmental influence, or a combination of both. Using heavy and very highly addictive drugs as heroin, cocaine, opium and many others will cause sudden mood changes, deterioration of the immune system, nervous breakdowns, unusual flares of temper and many other side effects. Besides physical side effects, drug addiction can create problems in a person’s social circles. The person may run into many conflicts with his family and friends, resulting in desire for isolation. This in turn will create more problems since the person will have no social support. Furthermore, drug addiction is a financial strain especially for teenagers. When a person is addicted to drugs he will do anything to obtain money to fulfill his needs.  Drug addiction is the results of 3 “I’s”. Teenagers may think of their problems as Inescapable, Interminable and Intolerable. Life may seem bleak and miserable. Seeing no way out feeling lonely and no prospects for improvement leads to depression. This can further lead to attempted suicide.

      Many studies have found that drugs are a contributing factor to suicide. Using drugs may reduce inhibitions and impair judgments, suicide is a possibility. As one statistic illustrates 70% of all young people who attempted suicide used drugs. Illegal drugs, for example, weed, speed, acid, or ecstasy has always been a problem among the younger folks, the problems gets even more serious if it involves additive substances such as cocaine. The most common seen illegal drug around teens in BC is Ecstasy, or generally called “E”. E’s are usually involved in rave parties; people take E’s and dance overnight. The academic name for E is hallucinogenic stimulant, it generally affects the concentration of the brain, and it can change one’s mood, sleep, sexual behavior, body temperature and appetite. The sensation sight, sound and touch are enhanced, that’s why it’s usually used at discos and parties. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes to “get high” and about three to four hours to wear off. Side effects include heart and blood pressure problems, blurred vision, chills and sweating. The tablet changes every week and counterfeits are always around, it is not addictive. It is illegal to buy, sell, produce or posses any amount of E.

      The problems of teenage drug use, depression and suicide are evident in our society. These are very real and threatening issues that have to be dealt with. Going into the 21st century we have to face to problems of our future generations. There are many non-profitable organizations that help teenagers to cope with drug use. There are help lines, community services that offer information about drugs, and individual counseling is available almost in every education institution. There is help available to those who seek it.

      Unplanned pregnancy and the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases continue to be prevalent problems among adolescents. These problems often result in adverse health, social, and economic consequences for teenagers and their families.

      Currently, there is little practice-based information concerning interventions designed to improve communication comfort about sexually related issues within families, especially between parents and their adolescents. Adolescents often engage in a wide range of high-risk sexual behaviors that can result in adverse health, social, and economic consequences for themselves and their families. Many of the programs serving teens and their families do not utilize social learning or other similar approaches to facilitate effective communication about sex between parents and their adolescents. In addition, many programs do not emphasize effective familial communication about adolescent sexuality, specifically the prevention of pregnancy and STIs, and this lack of attention may explain why changes in adolescents’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills have not always resulted in corresponding changes in their risk-taking sexual behaviors.

      According to the student from Faculty of Syariah and Law (FSU), Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM), Nur Nabihah Johari,22, said that parents need accurate information and support to feel more comfortable and confident that they possess the necessary communication skills to be effective in discussing risk-taking sexual behaviors with their adolescents. Although effective familial sex communication can lead to decreased adolescent risk-taking sexual behaviors, discomfort experienced by parents and their adolescents in speaking about adolescent sexuality can prevent effective sex education from occurring.

      In terms of communication an emphasis on comfort needs to be given to helping parents increase communication skills while strengthening relationships. Adolescents who are sexually active are more likely to report poor communication with their parents.  Sex education that provides skills training based on social-learning principles can be an important type of practice-based educational approach.  Social-learning theory suggests that the norms and behavior of the people around teenagers, particularly parents, influence their behavior. Most sex education programs communicate that it is desirable to postpone sexual intercourse and that unprotected sex should be avoided. These programs may take place in school or community settings such as hospitals. They usually combine information on human sexuality with specific, concrete skills-building sessions on how to resist influences encouraging sexual activity. Some of these programs also work to increase parent–child communication on sexuality and sexual choices. Although evaluations of these programs have not provided conclusive evidence, they do appear to be effective in postponing sexual activity among virgins. It is important to note that while they do not appear to influence the level of sexual activity of those already sexually active, these programs may help these teens use contraceptives more effectively.  Teens not only need information about their sexuality, but they also need to know how to apply this information in daily life. For most people, including adolescents, there is usually a gap between what people know and what they do. Therefore, sex education programs need to place emphasis on teaching decision-making skills, life skills, and life planning.

      Social workers and other helping professionals need to take leadership roles in designing, implementing, directing, and evaluating comprehensive and effective practice interventions in all areas of practice, including those that involve familial sex education approaches and programs. However, practitioners must first recognize and then acknowledge that parents have a vital role to play in prevention efforts. Preventative sex education efforts of most programs still largely exclude parents as agents of change in agency-based interventions intended to reduce adolescent risk-taking sexual behaviors. Sex education information has been shown to be more effective when combined with familial sex communication. It seems reasonable to believe that parental involvement could be successfully incorporated into existing sex education programs. Doing so may result in both reduced risk-taking sexual behaviors by adolescents and increased levels of comfort during familial sex communication.

      For the conclusion, one of the most important goals is to prevent children from violating any further so they can become responsible and successful adults. The second most important goal is to protect society from the criminal acts of children. Parents need to teach children self-control by monitoring the child’s behavior, recognizing the different behaviors when they occur, and punishing those which are unacceptable. Through education, treatment, and affection, prevention of criminal acts reaches juveniles and assists them into a healthier and better life. To be able to use these components at the earliest stage possible is to keep these teenagers away from ever entering the juvenile justice system in the first place. With the help of education, training, and support for the staff, probation officers can be better prepared to take on diverse cases of all types. The juvenile justice system needs improvement. Probation officers, judges, and family members need to make effective decisions about who should really be incarcerated and/or receive probation. If an offense made is not extremely serious and the client and officer can agree on a punishment, the child does not need to present himself upon a judge. If either the client or officer wants to make an appearance in court, an agreement cannot be reached, or threats have been made involving either parties or others, a court decision is most suggested.  In addition, to making the correct choices, good community programs are also necessary to place delinquents in a better environment to be able to succeed. Though juveniles tend to steal, trespass, fight, drink, take drugs, use profanity, run away from home, and miss school, many solutions were being thought about to prevent these flaws. The first has already been mentioned and deals with “toughening up” and placing juveniles in adult courts. The removing offenders from society for longer periods of time will reduce crime. Those who have not committed a serious crime will come to the realization of the possible punishments such as life in prison, the death penalty, and others. Violent offenders would be less likely to repeat their crimes by learning from their first lesson.

( credits to fizyaa, http://wsyukriah.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/social-problems-among-teenagers/ )

Hierarchy

How do we create the hierarchy based on our topic: Social Problems Among Teenagers by using the Maslow's Hierarchy(problems) and Example Program(Solutions).

1/6/2012 lecturer

Brainstorming Session

We are trying to sort out the problems into 4 main groups: Social, Media, Families and  Self. 

These are the solutions we brainstorming during the lecture.

All these sticky notes brings out certain issues, and what we do is to find out the best solution for it. 

The 1st trial of our basic structure for brainstorming.

Think! Think! Think!

The segmentation map that helps us to sort out what is our target, key words, and lots more. 

Paying fully attention to the lecturer's briefing. 

The Emerge of Amuse Social Community Group!

We are the AMUSE SOCIAL COMMUNITY GROUP that helps teenager to solve their social problems and provide counselling to them.