Social Work Commons^™

Early Life Stress And The Resulting Effects On Behavior Of Children Under The Age Of Five In A Domestic Violence Shelter, Jordan Singleton

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

It is an unfortunate reality that domestic violence affects people across the world, men, women, and children. When men or women leave a domestic violence situation, they often take their children with them but are often unaware of the damage that has already been done. Even if the children have not suffered physical abuse, there are many changes going on in the brain just from either witnessing or hearing abuse take place. With domestic violence often going unreported, it can be incredibly difficult to reach the children who are affected. However, when a parent enters a domestic violence shelter with …

Young Adult Early Childhood Home Visitors’ Perceptions Of Fan (Facilitating Attuned Interactions) And Its Potential Protection To Burnout, Lee Mackinnon

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT YOUNG ADULT EARLY CHILDHOOD HOME VISITORS’ PERCEPTIONS OF FAN (FACILITATING ATTUNED INTERACTIONS) AND ITS POTENTIAL PROTECTION TO BURNOUT FEBRUARY 2019 LEE MACKINNON, B.A., WILLIAMS COLLEGE Ed.M., HARVARD UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Claire E. Hamilton This qualitative study investigated the experience of young adult early childhood home visitors in the training and implementation of a family engagement tool, Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) (Gilkerson, 2015). Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the case study explored how 5 home visitors, who were under 30 years of age, viewed their training and use of FAN in three components of their …

Launch-Ing Minnesota Early Childhood Mental Health Into The Future, Molly Abdo, Alyssa Baker, Elizabeth Holz

Master of Social Work Student Policy Advocacy Briefs

What is Social-Emotional Development? The foundation for lifelong mental health, including social and emotional development, is established early in life and shaped by children's relationships with parents, caregivers, and peers. This foundation is critical to all aspects of healthy development and growth in early childhood. Social-emotional development can be defined as "the capacity to form secure relationships; experience, express, and manage a range of emotions; and learn and explore one's environment."

Why is it Important? When children fail to develop social-emotionally, mental health symptoms begin to emerge and can "cause distress, interfere with relationships, limit the child's participation in daily …

{Ace}Ing Early Childhood In Minnesota, Bailey Alston, Casie Devos, Alisha Field, Renee Gasner

Master of Social Work Student Policy Advocacy Briefs

Too many young children are facing ACEs that are detrimentally impacting their development and contributing to negative outcomes that persist into adulthood. There are no current policies using the ACE questions to drive mental health interventions. The Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health made nine recommendations that, if implemented, will greatly improve the mental health and well-being of children and their parents. Improving early childhood prevention and intervention programs helps ALL Minnesota’s families build healthy and rich experiences for their children.

1. Expand the Early Childhood Mental Health Grant program statewide to increase early childhood mental health specialists.
2. Create a Governor’s …

Temporal Effects Of Distressed Housing On Early Childhood Risk Factors And Kindergarten Readiness, Claudia J. Coulton, Francisca García Cobián Richter, Robert L. Fischer, Youngmin Cho

Faculty Scholarship

Poor housing quality and housing crises have been linked to adverse outcomes for children. However, few studies have focused on the early childhood period or been able to pinpoint how the timing and duration of housing problems contributes to early educational success. This longitudinal study draws on linked administrative records from housing, education, social service and health agencies to examine the influence of exposure to housing neighborhood conditions since birth on school readiness of all children entering kindergarten over a four-year period in a big city school system. Using marginal structural models that properly account for dynamic housing and neighborhood …

Significant Emotional And Behavioral Problems In Early Childhood, Samantha Johnson

Master of Social Work Clinical Research Papers

Significant emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood are a growing concern for social workers, mental health professionals, teachers, day care providers and others involved in the care of children ranging in age from 18 months to six years old. The purpose of this research study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the professional experience and perspective of mental health professionals in meeting the mental health needs of children with significant emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood. A semi-structured interview was used with the six mental health professionals that participated in the study. Three major themes from the …

Caring For The Caregivers : The Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Support And Teacher-Child Interactions In Head Start Classrooms, Mariel R. Stadick

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The purpose ofthis study was to examine whether there is a correlation between Head Start preschool teachers’ perceived agency support and the quality of their interactions with children in their programs. This study utilized a mixed methods design with both observational and self-report measures to examine the correlation between two measures as administered in Head Start preschools programs: The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS). A national sample of 69 Head Start preschool teachers responded to a modified version of the SPOS that included demographic items and agreed to release their CLASS scores. …

Growing Ideas - Whack! Slam! Bang! - Aggression, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Aggressive behavior - hitting, pinching, biting, and other acts through which children may hurt themselves or others - is a way children communicate by using their bodies. Children behave aggressively for a variety of reasons.

Growing Ideas - Partnering With An Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) is a collaborative relationship between a mental health consultant and families, care and education professionals, and/or early care and education teachers. ECMHC strives to improve the ability of families, teachers, and care and education professionals to promote, sustain and restore healthy social and emotional development for all children. Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation approaches challenging situations with children from a problem solving perspective. ECMHC is not a therapeutic intervention: it occurs in the children's natural settings - child care, home, and school.

Growing Ideas - Ouch! That Hurts! - Biting, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Children bite for a variety of reasons. Biting behavior provides clues to how children are feeling, their stage of development and what they need from their environment to be successful. Understanding what the young child needs is the first step in developing an effective response. For some children, biting may be related to their stage of development. Biting can be very common, for example, at the toddler stage. When young children lack skills and strategies to communicate their feelings and needs effectively, they may feel overwhelmed. Biting then becomes a child's way of expressing frustration.

Preschool Bullying: Does It Exist, What Does It Look Like, And What Can Be Done?, Laura Humphrey

Master of Social Work Clinical Research Papers

Bullying is a nationwide problem happening in our schools, homes, and workplaces. There have been numerous studies conducted to find out causes of bullying, prevention methods, and effects of bullying in children and adults. All of these studies have looked at children in kindergarten or older. This qualitative study had the goal of determining if bullying was happening in the preschool-age group, and if so, what was currently being done about it. In-person interviews and focus groups were done with seven preschool teachers. Through these interviews it was determined that bullying does happen as early as preschool and that there …

Timing And Influence Of Early Experiences Of Child Maltreatment And Homelessness On Children's Educational Well-Being, Staci M. Perlman, John W. Fantuzzo

Staci Perlman

Major national reports have highlighted the deleterious influence of early childhood familial risk factors that adversely influence young children's educational well-being. Guided by a developmental epidemiology framework, the purpose of the present population-based study was to examine the timing and influence of first experiences of substantiated child maltreatment and homelessness on children's academic achievement and attendance at the end of second grade for an entire cohort of 12,045 second grade students in a large, urban school district. Information on first experiences of substantiated child maltreatment and homelessness, birth risks, demographics, and academic achievement and attendance outcomes was obtained and linked …

Sexual Abuse In Preschool Aged Children: Teaching Childcare Professionals To Identify Signs And Symptoms, Kristin Pleines

Social Work Theses

Identifying sexual abuse in young children is difficult, but crucial to a child’s immediate well-being and long-term well-being. Because many children spend a large percentage of their day in childcare settings, the aim of this study was to help teach early childhood educators to identify and report sexual abuse. To accomplish this, the researcher designed a training program about sexual abuse and how to report it. The training program was then forwarded via e-mail to ten experts in the childcare field who had previously expressed interest in the study. These experts responded to a survey and provided many other suggestions. …

Introduction To The Early Childhood Issue, Leslie A. Forstadt, Sheryl Peavey

Maine Policy Review

Guest editors Leslie Forstadt and Sheryl Peavey introduce the articles in this special issue of Maine Policy Review on early childhood by highlighting the myriad of programs and policies affecting Maine’s young children and their families. To illus­trate the challenges faced by parents, they present the fictional account of a young woman facing an unexpected pregnancy. The story illustrates the sometimes confusing array of services, programs, and funding for young children and their parents. The authors argue “it is time to make every door into the system of early childhood services the right door for every parent.”

Exploring Training To Equip Early Years Professionals For Addressing The Issue Of Diversity In Their Work: A Qualitative Study Of The Diploma In Early Childhood Care And Education At The Technological University Dublin, Miranda Cooke

Masters

Diversity is increasingly a theme for publ ic discussion in Ireland to-day due to the rapidly changing socia and cultural structure of Irish society. These changes have important implications for providers of early years services particularly as it has been recognised that the rol e of the early years professional is crucial in promoti ng equality. Research highlights the negative attitudes chi ldren can learn at a very young age. However, there is an absence of research both in Ireland and internationally regarding training models for addressing diversity with early years students. This study aims to contribute to the development …

Early Childhood Education: A Meta-Analytic Affirmation Of The Short- And Long-Term Benefits Of Educational Opportunity, Kevin M. Gorey

Social Work Publications

Some scholars who emphasize the heritability of intelligence have suggested that compensatory preschool programs, designed to ameliorate the plight of socioeconomically or otherwise environmentally impoverished children, are wasteful. They have hypothesized that cognitive abilities result primarily from genetic causes and that such environmental manipulations are ineffective. Alternatively, based on the theory that intelligence and related complex human behaviors are probably always determined by myriad complex interactions of genes and environments, the present meta-analytic study is based on the assumption that such behaviors can be both highly heritable and highly malleable. Integrating results across 35 preschool experiments and quasi-experiments, the primary …