Introduction
The social support network is an association of people who have come together because of some common things. Whittaker and Garbarino (1983) define it as, “a set of interconnected relationships among a group of people that provides enduring patterns of nurturance (in any or all forms) and provides contingents reinforcement for efforts to cope with life on a day-to-day basis” (p. 222). The common aspects of bringing people together are family, hobbies, or jobs. This networking has a significant role in keeping people healthy as studies have shown. People do not have these connections through such network suffer a lot because of loneliness. They also lack one who would help them solve one or some of the problems facing them.
The health of an individual does not only depend on good nutrition and systematic modern medical care. The individual has to be healthy holistically. Mitchell and Maracle, (2005) put it that, “Health programs are most often disease-specific…rather than the emotional, cultural, mental, and spiritual (holistic) aspects of health” (p. 19). Good nutrition and modern medical care do not provide all these aspects. They only provide the physical dimension. Social networks will definitely provide the rest. This is by ensuring that these four main factors are in place. They are appraisal support, instrumental support, emotional support and informational support.
Informational support
Informational support gives people information about different situations. This comes in form of advice to the individual, suggestions and directive that makes the person take appropriate actions in specific or situational concerns. This goes a long way to help a person to keep healthy. This fact led to the formation of Takini Networks. Its main agenda was to provide information. This is through community education. Education is fundamental in the passage of Knowledge. The Network developed an expertise for conducting research and consequently providing education for the healing of historical trauma within the American Indians. Mitchell and Maracle, (2005), say that “The Takini Network in the United States has developed expertise relevant to phases two and three of community healing” (p. 20). Information will help transform people. It is always the best option for equipping people with information rather than fixing problems on their behalf. If the problems are recurrent, people will always need someone to be there. In most cases, one who offers such help will not always be there for them. It is then good that such social networks are well equipped to relay information to each other and have sustained solutions to their health problems.
Instrumental support
The other factor is the strong ability of a social support network to provide instrumental support. We have several cases where the government cannot fully offer financial support to individuals suffering from various types of problems. In many cases, governments do not give full support to the mentally ill people throughout the world. Martini holds the view that mental health care has the least priority among all other categories of health care funded by the government. He thinks that the reason for this is that mental health care is an invisible type of illness. A person may appear healthy even though he or she is mentally sick. On that Martini, (2006) says,
In the descending hierarchy of medical care practices funded by the government, mental health care falls very low indeed. Why? Mental illness is, in a sense, an invisible illness. A person can suffer from depression, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, and appear perfectly healthy, so it’s easy to ignore. (p. 42).
In that case, the care of such people should fall back to the community, where people provide instrumental support. This comes in form of time to be with the mentally sick people, assistance necessary, money, and other precise intervention suitable to the individual.
Appraisal support
Self-help groups come up to take up the responsibility that the individual would not accomplish by himself or herself while providing emotional aspects to the individual. The major importance of these groups is the way they work very hard to generate funds to develop and sustain programs to aid their members who are suffering from different kinds of problems. In the case of Martini, the mentally ill are the beneficiaries. “Consequently, Self Help must perform silent auctions, organize benefit dinners, run casinos and generally do whatever it takes to generate funding” (Martini, 2006, p. 42). That is the far they go to help the members of the network.
Emotional support
The other most fundamental form of social support is emotional support. It has its source from close friends and family members. These include love, caring, trust, concern, and empathy. These all are in social networks where there is cohesiveness in the way people live together. If there is no peaceful coexistence between members of such a social network, then individuals tend to develop problems that affect them for several days into their adulthood. This is a case of serious emotional illness. Dayson suffered for a long time with anger within himself. Dayson (2007) says, “The anger and damage from my parents were going to haunt me for years to come” (¶ 5). The parents never gave good care to themselves and consequently, they neglected him. His parents scared very much when they quarreled and shouted at themselves. This never gave the parents time to look at his progress of growth, both while with them and in School. This made him angry about his learning disability and the fact that he would not cope with some things.
Some years later, he met with friends that helped him a lot. He says that Jessica Colson a therapist made him feel that he was free from chains. Dayson (2007) says, “Through our friend I met Jessica Colson, a great lady, who did the documentation of my learning disability. I felt like chains were being cut off me. This eased some of my anger” (¶ 5). This is a typical example of a social support network that played a big role in healing an individual.
Apart from the three ways that community support networks help in improving individuals’ health, it also appraises the information that an individual has concerning an aspect of life. Euphix (2009) puts it that, “Appraisal support involves the transmission of information in the form of affirmation, feedback and social comparison” (¶ 4). This information is for affirmation, for feedback, and for comparison. It helps an individual to gauge oneself against a certain standard and so make a necessary change to improve on his or her health.
Conclusion
Social support networks are very important in improving the health of an individual. It is clear that provides individuals with vital information to keep themselves healthy. It also provides instrumental support that anyone needs at one time in life. The other thing that these networks do is to provide emotional support and finally appraisal support. It is therefore strongly recommended that a person should not stay as a lone ranger, but he or she should be a member of different social support networks.
References
Dayson, J (2008). How I Deal with Anger. Web.
Euphix, (2009). Social Support. Web.
Martini, C (2006). Pushed To the Edge. Aberta Views, 39 – 42. Web.
Mitchell, L.T, and Maracle, T. D (2005). Post-Traumatic Stress and the Health Status of Aboriginal Populations in Canada. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 19 -25. Web.
Whittaker, K. J and Garbarino, J (1983). Social support networks: Informal helping in the human services. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.