Social Work Commons^™

The Coordination Status Of The Children's Mental Health Services In Minnesota, Carrie S. Johnson

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of the present study is to describe what services children with severe emotional disturbance (SED) have received before acute care hospitalization. According to the Minnesota children's Mental Health Act of 1989, children should be receiving a comprehensive set of services. This means that the children's mental health system is to be integrated and coordinated with all child-serving systems at the state, local and individual levels . This study examines the following three research questions: a) Is coordination of services being provided across disciplines?, b) Are children receiving case-management services?, and c) Are children receiving services in the least …

Evaluation Of School Social Worker Tasks And Activities, Patti A. Hartwig

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of this study was to ascertain school social workers’ perception of how frequent they provide the activities of the school social workers job description. It was hypothesized that if school social worker is in one school building 100% of the time, they are able to provide all of the services required in the job description. Thirteen schools social workers indicated how frequent they provide services by percentage of time spent on each task. Overall, school social workers provided indirect social work services such as consultation with school personnel and crisis intervention. Those assigned to one building more individual …

Open Adoption: Its Impact On Grief And Loss Issues For Birthmothers, Theresa A. Skretvedt

Theses and Graduate Projects

The qualitative study explores the impact of openness in the adoption experience has on grief and loss issues for four birthmothers who voluntarily relinquished their infants. Stage and paradoxical phenomena of grief and loss comparable to parental loss of child through death are addressed through three stages of the adoption experience: during pregnancy, during delivery and relinquishment and post-relinquishment. Theoretical framework around attachment, the learned helplessness model of depression and self-determination as a client-centered outcome in social work practice enhance the understanding of some of the special grief issues related to loss through adoption. Discussion focuses on how openness in …

Optional Motherhood: A Description Of Psycho-Social Issues Within The Lesbian Parenting Process, Julie A. Nohner

Theses and Graduate Projects

The study explored the psych+social issues of five lesbian-identified couples as they decided to parent. 'What are the emotional needs, from their perspectives, of lesbian couples as they experience the process of choosing motherhood? The central research question provided descriptive data of the women's experiences from their support networks: their partners, families-of-origin or self-defined families, the lesbian community, their friendship group, professional clinicians, and religious institutions. A common theme emerging within these areas was the need for validation of the women's choice to parent and acknowledgement of this family creation. This demands confronting myths that lesbians should not have children. …

Child Abuse Reporting In A Local Hospital, Lisa A. Lovlien

Theses and Graduate Projects

This thesis explores what effect educational efforts and other interventions had on the detection and reporting of child abuse by emergency room personnel at a local hospital. This was accomplished by examining a random sample of children's medical records prior to and after hospital educational efforts. It was hypothesized that all children seen in the emergency room after the in-service whose condition or circumstance were reportable as child maltreatment, were reported to the appropriate child protection agency. In the sample records, it appeared that the most obvious cases of child abuse were identified and reported. However, lack of documentation on …

Adolescent Family Survivors Of Sexual Trauma: Program Development, Cara Lynn Carlson

Theses and Graduate Projects

This thesis will explore theory and propose a program specific to the needs of a particular population of adolescent female survivors of child sexual trauma. This population of adolescent and young adult females are the runaway, throwaway, and homeless survivors of child sexual trauma that i have had the opportunity to work with for the past three years as an outreach worker. These survivors have had a history of sexual violence and too little support to enable them to heal from these experiences. This thesis focuses on expanding current outreach services to this population of young women grounded in the …

Social Work At An Area Learning Center, Brenda Hubers

Theses and Graduate Projects

This is a thesis for Augsburg College of Social Work. It presents a social work model and a research design for an Area Learning Center. The model emphasizes systems theory, Murrey Bowen's theory and task-centered social work. The task-centered social worker could provide at-risk students with community and school resource linkage.

At-risk students will benefit from support services provided by the Area Learning Center task-oriented school social worker. The proposal includes, and independent and dependent variable, the conceptualization of at-risk, benefit, and task-centered social worker, and the characteristics of the study population, possible data analysis and protection of subjects. The …

Establishing New Norms For Stepfamilies, Chris Christianson

Theses and Graduate Projects

Stepfamilies will make up over one-half of all families in the United States by the year 2000. Family therapy theories are based on norms for nuclear families which may not fit for stepfamilies. Stepfamilies usually have more complex structures and issues due to the additional number of members. Stepfamilies need to develop their own norms, norms which reflect the complexities of stepfamilies. Most of the literature on stepfamilies has been written in the last 10 years. It suggests that there are five basic issues which stepfamilies need to address. This paper explores three of those issues: 1) Defining the role …

Workshop Using Myth, Storytelling, And Ritual In The Human Services, Justine Swain-Smith

Theses and Graduate Projects

The study of workshops using myth, storytelling and ritual shows how these workshops can be helpful to adolescents. This paper examines a training workshop of the "Hero's Journey" for human service professionals who work with adolescents and a workshop for adolescents using myth, storytelling and ritual. An analysis and discussion of surveys done with participants is included in the text.

Implications Of Family Preservation Services When Working With Parents Who Are Developmentally Disabled, Laurel B. Zoet

Theses and Graduate Projects

This study examines the success of the Iowa family preservation program when working with parents who are mentally retarded or considered to be low functioning by the referring social worker. The Iowa family preservation program is an intensive 45-day program designed to prevent out-of-home placement. The program works with parents to teach them skills to parent effectively while addressing therapeutic issues to form healthy family relationships. The data was collected by reviewing case fires at a private agency that provides family preservation services. Through program evaluation design, I have analyzed data corrected by the agency since 1987. A total of …

Caregivers: Reasons For Support Group Attendance, Nancy Jean Coryell

Theses and Graduate Projects

This study examined the self-reported reasons informal caregivers of frail persons 65-+ attend time-limited psychoeducational support groups. Results indicated that caregivers in this study attended support groups for practical information (community resources), relief of emotional stress, and skill development. Results also indicated that caregivers of spouses attended the support groups for different reasons than did caregivers of non-spouses. Caregivers of non-spouses tended to be experiencing more emotional strain and anger, and were receiving less emotional support from friends and relatives. Limitations of this study included small sample size, lack of variance in geographic location of the support groups, and lack …

Design Of A Research Program To Gather New Information For Further Research, William Inthisone

Theses and Graduate Projects

This document is a design of a research program to gather new information for further research. The purpose of this research design is to explore the use of alcohol and drugs among the Laotian Students at Roosevelt High School and Sanford Junior High. These students may use alcohol and drugs because of difficulties of adjustment to new culture in the United States or they may have experienced traumatic events during their escape from their homecountry and during their time living at the refugee camp in Thailand.

The document has five sections. Section one is the Introduction, Background and Purpose. Section …

Using Collaboration In The Development Of A Special Services Parent Group, Linda Zachow

Theses and Graduate Projects

Collaboration between parents and schools is a concept that is being explored among large, statewide agencies, community based resources, and parent advocacy groups. This paper discusses the issues involved in developing a support group for parents for children receiving special education services. Several collaborative models are compared and a curriculum is designed on the basis of five elements necessary to meet the needs of the Special Services Parents Group.

Cocaine And Maternal Addiction, Susan Ann Clauson

Theses and Graduate Projects

Cocaine use during pregnancy is a problem that has been increasing steadily over recent years. For this thesis, eleven women who gave a history of cocaine abuse during their pregnancy and were currently receiving services at Haymarket House's Maternal Addiction Center (MAC) in Chicago, a drug addiction treatment center for pregnant women, were interviewed. This study found that although the women interviewed knew the potential dangers of cocaine use to their unborn child, they were uncertain whether or not they would be able to abstain from cocaine use after the birth of their child. This speaks to the highly addictive …