Social Work Commons^™

Impacts Of Mental Health First Aid On Mental Health Literacy And Stigma, Junseon Hwang

Student Theses

Mental Health First Aid has been developed to train the general public to give initial support to those in mental health crisis and development. The effectiveness of Mental Health First Aid has been questioned due to its relatively short history of the course. Mental Health First Aid was recently widely-disseminated in New York City as part of the ThriveNYC initiative. While most studies were supportive of the training, there has been no study that specifically examines New York residents. We recruited 328 New York residents who self-reported whether or not they have participated in Mental Health First Aid via Amazon …

Job Satisfaction Among Peer Support Staff In Mental Health Treatment And Recovery-Oriented Settings, Jonathan P. Edwards

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction/Objective: Peer support practice in mental health treatment and recovery-oriented service settings has seen exponential growth during the past several decades. An estimated 25,000 certified peer specialists in the United States alone necessitates a deeper understanding of factors that are associated with job satisfaction. While there exists a body of research on this topic, many of these studies were conducted with limited sample sizes, within discrete practice settings and geographic regions, often focused on one facet of job satisfaction (e.g., compensation), and lacked racial diversity in the sample. The current study addresses these limitations by examining multiple factors associated with …

Facilitators And Barriers For Home Health Aides Detecting And Reporting Elder Abuse In New York City, Agnieszka K. Halarewicz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Elder abuse impacts close to 13 percent of older adults in the US. It exists in secret, with only about one in 24 cases becoming known to the systems that can provide intervention. As baby boomers age and the general population lives longer, for example New York City is expecting to have up to 1.3 million adults by year 2030, the number of people impacted by abuse is expected to drastically increase. A gap exists in the current span of knowledge and practice applications about the issue, particularly around homecare services. Home health aides, a rapidly growing profession, provide direct …

Truth Telling: Exploring Sexuality In Widowed And Single Older Black Women, Margaret A. Salisu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interest in older adults’ sexuality is reflected in the significant growth of literature on sexuality and aging, especially in the last few decades, and in growing media interest in this topic. Clinicians, researchers, educators, journalists, policymakers, and other stakeholders continue to highlight the importance of sexuality and sexual health in the older population. However, available studies in this area pertain to older married people almost exclusively and the few available studies on widows focus exclusively on White women. To address this gap in knowledge, this study focused on older widowed and single Black women aged 65 to 75 years. Feminist …

Holding Both: Witness Aid Workers' Experiences Supporting Intimate Partner Violence Survivors In District Attorney Offices, Ovita Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social workers and advocates practice in district attorney (DA) offices as witness or victim aid workers providing intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors counseling, advocacy, resources and information as they enter the criminal legal system (CLS). Their experiences, in particular how stress and vicarious trauma (VT) manifested for them in this unique setting within the criminal legal system, had not yet been examined. This phenomenological study sought to better understand (1) how social workers and advocates in a prosecutor’s office experience practice with intimate partner violence survivors, (2) their experiences of stress, secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, and supports, and (3) …

Mission Adrift: The Impact Of Managerialism On Graduate Social Work Education, Carolyn Hanesworth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Neoliberal policies have led to the installation of managerialism, or the application of business practices and principles in institutions of higher education. Although much is known about the impact of managerialism on faculty in the overall academy, very little is known about its impact in specific disciplines, particularly in the United States. Using semi-structured interviews, this dissertation investigates how social work faculty experience and negotiate managerialism in the traditional pillars of teaching, service, and scholarship.

This study found that managerialism leads universities to place new and increased demands for productivity, efficiency, and accountability on social work faculty. Respondents report major …

Scwk 410 Field Placement And Seminar I (Individuals And Families), Shirell Roeback

Open Educational Resources

Social Work 410 is the second of the three-course field practice sequence (SCWK 293, 410 & 492). Supervised field experience. On-site visits by Social Work faculty. Integration of field, classroom learning in a weekly on-campus seminar and professional preparation. Placements are from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on two weekdays for a minimum of 200 hours for the semester. Permission required for repeating the course.

Preliminary Efficacy Of Motivational Interviewing On Problem Drinkers 55 And Older Compared To Younger Counterparts, Alexis Kuerbis, Sijing Shao, Nehal Vadhan, Jon Morgenstern

Publications and Research

Background: Older adults who drink problematically are the largest group of substance users among those 55 and older. This group often chooses moderation as a goal instead of abstinence, and motivation and self-efficacy are found to have less of an impact on drinking compared to younger adults. No study has examined age effects (specifically 55 and older vs. younger counterparts) on motivational interviewing (MI) compared to brief advice with a sample that includes individuals over 65. Objective: To explore the moderating impact of age on heavy drinkers’ (aged M=50.7 years SD=11.6, range 23-73) response to MI. Methods: Data …

Exploring Vicarious Resilience Among Practitioners Working With Clients Who Have Experienced Traumatic Events, Adam Reynolds

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Vicarious Resilience is the positive impact that practitioners may experience when working with individuals who have lived through traumatic events. The effects of this phenomenon may be noticed as changes in life goals and perspective, client-inspired hope, increased recognition of clients’ spirituality as a therapeutic resource, increased capacity for resourcefulness, increased self-awareness and self-care practices, increased consciousness about power and privilege relative to clients’ social location, and increased capacity for remaining present while listening to trauma narratives.

While prior research into vicarious resilience has focused primarily on practitioners in trauma-specific settings, this quantitative dissertation studied the experiences of a convenience …

We Need A Loud And Fractious Poor, Jeff Maskovsky, Frances Fox Piven

Publications and Research

This article explores the political consequences of four decades of consistent humiliation of the poor by the most authoritative voices in the land, and offers insights into ways that new movements are creating spaces for poor people’s political voices to surface and become relevant again. Our specific concern is the challenge that the current humiliation regime poses to those who seek to revive radical, disruptive and fractious anti-poverty activism and politics. By humiliation regime, we mean a form of political violence that maltreats those classified popularly and politically as “the poor” by treating them as undeserving of citizenship, rights, public …