Social Work Commons^™

Appreciation And Respect: Understanding The Decision To Join The Caf After Black Bear Program Using Four Directions And Mixed Methods, Anna Harpe

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The purpose of this study is to better understand the wholistic meaning that the Canadian Armed Forces embody for graduates of Black Bear Aboriginal Summer Training Program and the factors involved in the graduates’ decision to join the CAF after graduating Black Bear. This was done using an Indigenous Four Directions framework supported by a mixed methods cross-sectional online survey. Out of respect for the cultures involved, Elders and Cultural Advisors were consulted throughout all stages of the process. The findings suggest that perceptions formed within the Spiritual Direction are important indicators of CAF membership. Wholistically, the CAF maintains a …

Students' Experiences Of The Scent-Free Initiative At The Faculty Of Social Work, Tanya Marie Smith

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research project sought to explore how students experienced the introduction of a scent-free initiative within the Faculty of Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University. An intersectional, critical disability approach is used to understand participants' experiences and to identify gaps in implementation, as well as recommendations for future policy development. Working from a transformative paradigm, this study used a mixed methods design, including an online survey and in-person focus groups. Findings indicate that social work students felt well-informed about the initiative, however they did not feel adequately knowledgeable about how to embody the initiative via scent-free practices. Participants expressed stigmatizing …

"The Outside Of The Inside;" Experiences Of Discovering Home And Community Within Waterloo Region, Nicole Greig

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract: The primary purpose of this research study is to explore the narratives of individuals experiencing homelessness within Waterloo Region as well as the practices of those working with the homeless population. The experience of homelessness is often met with an intersection of complex issues including mental health, substance abuse, deteriorating physical health, trauma, etc. Within this study, the concept of “home” and “community” are explored through the lens of homeless men living with these complicated challenges within the context of Waterloo Region. This qualitative study consisted of semi-structured interviews with six service providers and twelve men who were currently …

Experiences Of Racialized Service Providers Who Work With Racialized Clients: Functions And Constraints Of Master And Counter-Narratives Of Helping, Racism, And Vicarious Racism, Prapti Giri

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

What are the experiences of racialized frontline workers? How do they experience vicarious racism? I interviewed 8 frontline workers who were involved in counseling racialized individuals. The narrative paradigm, constructivist self-development theory (CSDT), and critical race theory (CRT) were the theoretical frames that guided the interviews and data analysis in order to answer these questions. I conducted a structural narrative analysis, which revealed how participants utilized assumptions from master narratives and at other times countered them. Interviewees occasionally stepped outside of the master narrative entirely, for example, by rejecting the categorization of race. According to CSDT, our meanings are determined …

The Risk Of Risk: An Exploration Of The Impact Of “Risk” On Child Welfare Decision-Making, Jill K. Stoddart

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Objective: In this paper, child welfare decision-making is critically assessed in relation to Beck’s (1992) concept of ‘risk society’. Three key decisions made by child welfare workers during the initial investigation are examined in order to illustrate how risk influences the type of investigative approach used, the determinations about child maltreatment, and the services provided to children and families and to link theory with policy and practice.

Methods: The three exploratory studies all utilize secondary data from several cycles of the Ontario Incidence Study, which collects information directly from frontline child protection workers about incidence of reported maltreatment. Two studies …

Going Beyond The Best Insufficient Option: An Exploration Of Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives Within Two Non-Profit Social Welfare Organizations In Ontario, Amy Joyce Shuttleworth

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Facing a backdrop of decreased government funds and an increasing need for services, social service non-profit organizations are struggling to survive and provide services to their communities. One proposed solution to this financial struggle is to generate revenue through social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. Two non-profit organizations in Ontario have engaged in social enterprise and they form the basis for this case study. Adopting a hybrid social enterprise model, Organization X and Housing Corporation A receive revenue from three main sources: government funding, private donations, and profits created through social enterprise activities.

These organizations have managed to broaden their service …

Reflexivity And Organizational Culture: A Comparative Case Study, Chloe Frisina

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research explores how reflexive practices are shaped by organizational culture. For the purposes of this study reflexivity is defined as a self-critical approach that involves examining how knowledge is created, how one may be complicit in relations of knowledge and power, and the potential consequences for inequality and privilege (D’Cruz, Hemmingham, & Melendez, 2007, p. 86). Organizational culture is defined as the shared norms, beliefs, and expectations that often drive behavior and create the social milieu that shape the objectives of the work accomplished and communicate what is important within the organization (Hemmelgarn, Glisson, & James, 2006, p. 75). …

In The Trenches: Traditional Healers' Understanding Of Health And Healing, Gus Hill

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

This study explored understandings of traditional healing from the perspectives of traditional healers and helpers. The sample of sixteen individuals was initially identified by key informants, and then the sample snowballed by word of mouth. Among the sample are healers from a variety of cultures, including Anishnaabe, Mohawk, Oneida, Seneca, Paiute, Inuit, Innu, and Potawatomi. Traditional Indigenous protocols were followed by the researcher during the course of the study. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant. Interviews were audio-recorded and verbatim transcripts were analyzed qualitatively. These individuals shared their understanding of the work that they do, including ceremonies, use of …

The Curative Power Of Play: The Voices Of Therapists Around The World, Nancy Riedel Bowers, Winnie Pak Wan Yeung, Anna Lee Bowers

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

It is important for all therapists to be culturally sensitive to children and their eco-systems as well as to be aware of the current trends and the changing application of play as a healing agent. The focus of this study is on the development of a current description of play by therapists from a global perspective through a thematic analysis of focus groups resulting in an explanation of how play contributes to healing and the practice of therapy. In this study, the naturalistic method of qualitative research (Bowers, 2009; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was applied to the study of play …

Practice-Based Qualitative Research: Participant Experiences Of Walk-In Counselling And Traditional Counselling, Cheryl-Anne Cait, Michelle J. Skop, Jocelyn Booton, Carol Stalker, Susan Horton, Manuel Riemer

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

Walk-in single session counselling is becoming a more widely used model for delivering mental health services across Ontario. This paper reports findings from the qualitative phase of a mixed method study, exploring the experiences of those attending walk-in counselling (WIC) model compared to the traditional service delivery model employing a wait list. We used a comparative case study design for the qualitative phase. Findings reveal that participant outcomes of the walk-in counselling model is influenced by accessibility, how a participant makes sense of the service, and the degree to which a participant is motivated and able to engage in counselling. …

Wholistic And Ethical: Social Inclusion With Indigenous Peoples, Kathleen E. Absolon

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

This paper begins with a poem and is inclusive of my voice as Anishinaabekwe (Ojibway woman) and is authored from my spirit, heart, mind and body. The idea of social inclusion and Indigenous peoples leave more to the imagination and vision than what is the reality and actuality in Canada. This article begins with my location followed with skepticism and hope. Skepticism deals with the exclusion of Indigenous peoples since colonial contact and the subsequent challenges and impacts. Hope begins to affirm the possibilities, strengths and Indigenous knowledge that guides wholistic cultural frameworks and ethics of social inclusion. A wholistic …

Social Work Curriculum Review Case Study: Service Users Tell Us What Makes Effective Social Workers, Elizabeth C. Watters, Cheryl-Anne Cait, Funke Oba

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

This paper presents the findings from community focus groups, comprised of social service users, and explores the characteristics of effective social workers. Focus groups were conducted as part of a case study to inform a Master of Social Work (MSW) curriculum review at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Social Work. Wilfrid Laurier University has two MSW programs—the MSW Aboriginal Field of Study (AFS) and a non-Aboriginal program. The case for this study was the non-Aboriginal MSW program. Ongoing program evaluation that includes feedback from service users honours the knowledge of marginalized communities, and is an accreditation requirement of the Canadian …

Caring In Transition: Home Care Workers’ Experiences Of Care Relationships In Shanghai, China, Liu Hong

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation reports a qualitative study of 23 care workers in the home care program for older people in Shanghai, China. Using grounded theory methodology, a model was developed to account for care workers’ experiences of relationships with older clients. Care workers were found to resist the image of care work as demeaning labour performed by lowly migrant workers and re-construct care as valuable work for those in need accomplished by a caring self. As a mechanism of care relationship formation, care workers engage in tuning, a dynamic process of identity negotiation that shifts in between two contrasting states: …

Let's Talk About (Consensual) Sex!, Eleanor M. Mcgrath

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Legal, moral, and health-related issues around sexual consent have become prominent in the media in recent years. The public debate surrounding these news stories indicates a large discrepancy in people’s understanding of sexual consent and its legal implications. Motivated by the fact that university students are sexually victimized at rates exceeding the general population, this study explores factors that influence knowledge of legal aspects of sexual consent and confidence in using such knowledge of students/alumni, under 30 years old, from two southern Ontario universities. This quantitative study used an online survey design, and is grounded in a heuristic paradigm, with …

Exploring Women’S Perspectives Of Living With Mental Illness, Stigma, And Receiving Community Services, Alexa L. Stovold, Magnus Mfoafo-M'Carthy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) (2015), one in five individuals will experience mental illness personally, which means that all Canadians will be indirectly (or directly) influenced by mental illness at some point in their life. Unfortunately, due to historical trends and negative stereotypes mental illness has become heavily stigmatized (Camp, Finlay, and Lyons, 2002; Chernomas, Clarke, and Chisholm, 2000; Link, Struening, Neese-Todd, Asmussen, and Phelan, 2001; Sands, 2009; Szeto, Luong & Dobson, 2013). Although many studies have assessed the relationship between mental illness and stigma, little research has included a gender lens when exploring these topics. Therefore, …

Leadership Practice, Organizational Culture And New Managerialism: Strengths, Challenges, Variations And Contradictions In Three Children's Service Agencies, Rosemary E. Vito

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to explore how social work leaders conceptualized and practiced leadership and how their leadership practice influenced, and was shaped by, organizational culture. The relevance and viability of a participatory leadership approach and a collaborative learning culture were also explored. As well, leadership satisfaction and development and the impact of external changes were sought. A qualitative research approach, multiple case study and multi-method design were employed. Forty-one directors and supervisors in three children’s mental health and child welfare agencies in Ontario participated in this study. Research methods included interviews, focus groups, observations and …

Climate Change And Social Work: Our Roles And Barriers To Action, Tina Cumby

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative research project was conducted using a grounded theory research methodology and was approached with the theoretical underpinnings of social constructivism and pragmatism. The purpose of this research was to assess what role, if any, that social workers can play in dealing with environmental issues such as climate change and what barriers, if any, they will likely experience as they engage with these issues. It is important to explore these roles and barriers because social work is a profession that is well equipped to mitigate environmental issues like climate change, yet there is virtually no social work presence in …

Social Justice And Worker Cooperatives, Gurveer Shaan Dhillon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Social Justice (SJ) is an organizing principle of contemporary community psychology (CP); however, the concept and understanding of social justice in community psychology is undertheorized and narrow. Specifically, the concept of distributive justice, which has been a popular notion of social justice in community psychology discourse, does not translate well into transformative action. In order to address this issue, the research uses a qualitative approach to explore the understanding of social justice from the perspectives of worker-members of 5 worker cooperatives in Ontario, with the aim to contribute to an understanding of SJ that has transformative implications. A worker cooperative …

Host Community Narratives Of Volunteer Tourism In Ghana: From Developmentalism To Social Justice, Danielle E. Lediard

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

It is evident from the research around volunteer tourism that local perspectives are sorely lacking. Instead of the focus of research being on the communities that volunteer tourism is meant to help, the emphasis remains on the experiences of the volunteers. Although many researchers identify the lack of attention directed towards host communities as a problem, there remains a lack of research in this area. The importance in the existing research, then, remains on the ‘us’ in developed countries instead of the those in developing countries that volunteer tourism is meant to help. The primary objective of this research is …

A Comparison Of Walk-In Counselling And The Wait List Model For Delivering Counselling Services, Carol Stalker, Manuel Riemer, Cheryl-Anne Cait, Susan Horton, Jocelyn Booton, Leslie Josling, Joanna Bedggood, Margaret Zaczek

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

Background: Walk-in counselling has been used to reduce wait times but there are few controlled studies to compare outcomes between walk-in and the traditional model of service delivery.

Aims: To compare change in psychological distress by clients receiving services from two models of service delivery, a walk-in counselling model and a traditional counselling model involving a wait list

Method: Mixed methods sequential explanatory design including quantitative comparison of groups with one pre-test and two follow ups, and qualitative analysis of interviews with a subsample. 524 participants 16 years and older were recruited from two Family Counselling Agencies; the General Health …

Sugar For Sale: Constructions Of Intimacy In The Sugar Bowl, Emily Zimmermann

The Partisan

No abstract provided.

The Lives Of Young Adults Who Have Graduated From Residential Children's Mental Health Programs (Summary Report), Gary Cameron, Karen Frensch

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

What happens to children and youth after they leave residential mental health treatment? How do these youth navigate normative developmental transitions like finishing school, getting a job, and finding a place to live? What types of assistance might facilitate these transitions? Despite the critical importance of these questions for youth themselves, for the educational, justice, and mental health systems, and for the development of more appropriate transitions to community programming, surprisingly little is known about what happens to these children and youth over time.

This report presents the results of a research process in which 59 young adults who had …

The Lives Of Young Adults Who Have Graduated From Residential Children's Mental Health Programs (Full Report), Gary Cameron, Karen Frensch

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This report presents the results of a research process in which 59 young adults who had received residential mental health treatment in the past were sorted into descriptive profiles based on the information they shared about their lives and personal functioning with researchers. Five different groups of young adults emerged from this process and represent the clearest categorizations for understanding this particular sample of young adults from across Southern Ontario who received residential treatment.

Sorting young adults into distinct groups based on their functioning within key life domains (like education, employment, social connections, personal functioning) is useful to understanding the …

Do Cyberbullies Really Want To Hurt Others?, Danielle Law

Clear Language Summaries

Cyberbullying occurs when computer and mobile technologies are used to intentionally harm others. When communicating online there are two basic motivations for online aggression: whether they are posting mean things with intention to harm, or whether they are engaging in these behaviours to defend themselves. This research found that the majority of teenagers are not intentionally mean; rather, they are navigating a world of miscommunication that lends itself to retaliation that spirals out of control in aggressive ways. A small percentage of teens are deliberately malicious and require special intervention. When educating teens about cyberbullying it is important to understand …

Perceptions Of Determining Factors: A Case Study Of Eviction Risks Of People Who Hoard In Waterloo Region, Emily J. Gibson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Recently distinguished as a distinct disorder in the DSM-V, hoarding remains a behaviour about which we have only a cursory understanding. Hoarding behaviours can lead to a variety of health and safety risks, not only for the person who hoards, but for others who live with them, and their neighbouring community. Many studies make reference to the vulnerability of people who hoard as a result of these health and safety risks However, there has been little written about eviction specifically due to hoarding. This study explores the research question: what factors enable individuals who hoard to maintain their housing when …

"It's Not Written In Stone": A Narrative Analysis Of The Mothering Experiences Of Women Who Experienced Childhood Sexual Abuse By A Family Member, Eva L.P. Burrill

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Within the existing body of literature on women survivors of intrafamilial childhood sexual abuse (CSA), there is extant literature that indicates that survivors will experience mothering challenges later in life. However, little research has focused on the possibility that mothering might also function as a site of healing. Addressing this gap, this thesis explores the mothering experiences of six women who experienced childhood sexual abuse by a family member. Working within a narrative methodology, data was gathered through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, and analyzed using a combination of categorical-content and holistic-content analysis. Three overarching themes were identified: 1) The Impact of …

"Where's The Support?": An Exploratory Study Of Supports For Primary Caregivers Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In The Toronto Region, Nicole H. Siron

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The experience of being a caregiver of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is complicated and fraught with obstacles. Presently, we do not know how to support caregivers adequately. In this thesis, I explore the supports that exist for primary caregivers of children with ASD in the Toronto region, with the goal of examining caregiver experience when accessing supports. The literature that I reviewed highlighted the importance of examining the caregiver experience by acknowledging that caregivers of children with ASD experience elevated levels of stress. This review made it clear that by not addressing how to support caregivers, the …

Maps Of Marginalization: Exploring The Healthcare Experiences Of Men And Women With Fibromyalgia, Michelle J. Skop

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative study explored the retrospective and ongoing healthcare experiences of men and women who have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia (FM), a contested, chronic, and gendered condition of unknown origin. The research question was: "How do men and women who have a diagnosis of FM experience interactions with healthcare providers?" The study, which was epistemologically rooted in the critical theories of feminist poststructuralism and intersectionality, blended constructivist grounded theory with a participatory component, an arts-based research methodology called body-map storytelling. Thirty-five participants were recruited from the Greater Toronto Area and Kitchener-Waterloo. Ten participants completed in-depth interviews while 25 participants completed …

The Felt Sense Of Interconnectedness: A Qualitative Analysis Of Perceptions On Finding Resilience In The Aftermath Of Trauma Using The Mind-Body Connections Of Yoga, Ashley Collette

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Members and veterans of the military are at an increased risk of exposure to traumatic experiences due to the very nature of their occupation. The most recent statistics on Canada’s deployment to Afghanistan show that 13.2% of the (Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members deployed have been diagnosed with a mental injury within a five year follow up period of redeployment from the theatre of operations. The present preliminary study was designed to examine Yoga as a therapeutic intervention for trauma in a population of CAF members and veterans. The author interviewed 4 service providers and 2 service users of Yoga-based …

"It's A Very Silent Pain": A Phenomenological Study Of Women Who Are In A Relationship With A Sexually Addicted Spouse, Jacqueline S. Thibodeau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Being in a relationship with someone who is sexually addicted has been recognized as disorienting and painful. What is lacking in the literature is inclusion of the voices of those individuals who have been affected by his behaviour. This study attempts to capture the phenomenon experienced by those individuals who are in a relationship with a person who is sexually addicted. Twelve women, who identified being in a current or past relationship with a person who is sexually addicted, participated in qualitative interviews where they were encouraged to share their experiences. The interviews were analyzed within the transcendental phenomenological framework. …