Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Humility: Racial Disparity And Disproportionality How It Relates To Child Welfare And Mandated Reporter Training And Preparedness, Jennifer A. Perry, Ashley L. Castro

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The research problem was mandated reporters’ in a public assistance setting and child welfare social workers’ perception of cultural humility and cultural training. The research proposed that the lack of cultural humility training for both mandated reporters in public social service sectors and child welfare social workers has an impact of on the disparity and disproportionality in child welfare cases. A critical theory approach was adopted, and qualitative data was collected via face-to-face interviews. A snowball sampling strategy was used to select study participants. Study findings suggested that there is a cultural humility training provided to child welfare social workers, …

Removing Barriers To Mental Health Service Utilization For Individuals With Sensory Impairments, Kery Silva

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The present study explored common themes and barriers associated with mental health service utilization among people with sensory impairments. The ultimate goal is to promote social workers’ preparedness to serve individuals with sensory disabilities. This study is significant considering that (1) a large proportion of people with sensory disabilities do not receive mental health services and (2) there is a paucity of studies within the field of social work that examine barriers to mental health services for the aforementioned population. In this qualitative study, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 professional social workers (N =14) who have direct experience …

Social Workers' Knowledge And Experience Working With Mixed Race Youth And Families, Ashley R. Bennett, Mellissa M. Duchesne

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of social workers’ knowledge and experience in working with mixed race youth and families. The literature review suggested that biracial and multiracial individuals struggle with identity issues, along with several barriers that affect their interactions with social workers, and the social workers’ abilities to provide services for mixed race clients. The literature review also discussed the public's perception of social workers in dealing with minorities, most of which included the notion that social workers are biased. The literature review also discussed the use of technology in child welfare, and …

Perceptions Of Mental Health Among Asian Pacific Islander College Students, Jenny Phan

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

As part of the demands of higher education, college students undergo stressful events that have a negative impact on their mental health. Furthermore, Asian American Pacific Islander (API) Asian Pacific Islanders (API) face cultural and structural barriers that further influences individuals to ignore their mental well-being. Through interviews and surveys, this study aims to explore the current perceptions of mental health among API college students and the possible factors that prevent these students from addressing the mental health concerns through interviews obtaining student’s personal narratives. The findings are to enhance social work practice through becoming more culturally aware of the …

Perceptions Of Compassion Fatigue Amongst Master Of Social Work Students And Self-Care Strategies To Build Resilience, Daniel Wright

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Due to the unpredictable nature of the social work profession, MSW interns may find themselves unprepared when dealing with clients that have suffered through traumatic events. For those that are not adequately prepared, there can be risks of experiencing compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a process by which a professional’s inner experience is negatively transformed through empathic engagement with clients’ trauma material (Killian, 2008). This research project examined possible contributing factors to compassion fatigue among MSW students and recent MSW graduates from a large public university in Southern California. The study also focused on whether self-care methods were being used, …

Emotional Labor: How Gendered Racism Affects African American Women Working In Mental Health Crisis Response, Dana N. Sandoval

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The research uses the framework of emotional labor to analyze the effect of gendered racism on mental health, physical well-being, and burn out of African American women who provide mental health crisis response. The focus on the emotional toll an African American woman experiences while dealing with clients who may respond with racist and/or sexist actions or words. Also explored are coping strategies and protective factors while managing the stressors of sexism and racism while working in a mental health crisis response. The study uses in- depth interviews to explore the lived experiences of African American/Black women. Axial coding links …

Masters In Social Work Student And Professor Understandings Of The Connectedness Of Social Work And Public Health In Education And Practice, Ashley Swatman

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand Masters in Social Work (MSW) student and professor perspectives on the connectedness of public health and social work, and inquire about their opinions of barriers and facilitators to further merging these two areas in practice and education. The study was formulated on the knowledge that social well being directly impacts health outcomes, and public health and social work share many target objectives and populations. The study implements a qualitative design using face to face interviews with five advanced year MSW students, and two MSW professors at California State University, San Bernardino. The …

Mental Health Challenges Among Ethnic Minorities College Students, Fiorella G. Valles, Ruben Gonzalez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This research study explored the challenges of mental health-seeking services of college students of color in the San Bernardino area. College students of different ethnicities have unique needs and challenges that contrast with the general student population. Previous research stated that students of color deal with a greater number of unmet mental health needs and indicates a connection between mental health and attaining a college degree (Arria et al., 2013). To increase the utilization of mental health amongst students of color, this study aimed to identify the influencing factors that prevented students from help-seeking. The research design of this research …

Domestic Violence In Rural Areas, Priscilla Ayala, Patricia Sanchez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Domestic violence (DV) negatively impacts individuals and families, including children, across the U.S. Yet, there is little research on the barriers and facilitators to services these families encounter, especially in rural areas. The goal of this study was to examine service availability in rural areas for families who have experienced domestic violence.

This study was conducted using a qualitative research design. Researchers conducted face-to-face and phone interviews with nine human services professionals in one rural California community. The study used in-depth interviews with open-ended questions to encourage participants to share their views and experiences.

The findings were categorized into six …

Investigating Work Engagement And Affective Commitment Through A Multi-Dimensional Work Underload Scale, Mediated By Work-Related Boredom, Jessica Clemons

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Previous research on workload has primarily approached work underload as unidimensional focusing on either repetitive monotonous tasks or the employee’s perception of their current workload. Researchers have focused on work related outcomes, such as job engagement and organizational commitment, as consequences of those perceptions. Recently, work related boredom has been measured alongside work underload as precursors to aforementioned outcomes. In the current study we investigated if a recently developed, more complex, multidimensional scale of work underload, including desire for more work and expectation of more work, would better explain the relationship between perceived work underload, and work-related boredom, job engagement, …

Vicarious Trauma Among Social Workers: The Impact Of Client Trauma, Raelynn Berrios, Monique Zarate

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Social workers in the field of practice work with clients who share their personal trauma history. By listening to traumatic events vicarious trauma can develop and affect social workers mental health. Vicarious trauma is the consequences of working with clients that have a traumatic past. This trauma impacts social workers' job satisfaction, personal life, and mental health. This paper will focus on the impacts of vicarious trauma and the level of experience in the field of social work. Utilizing interviews and surveys the research intends to understand the level of comprehension of new and experienced social workers in vicarious trauma. …

Kinesthetic Language: A Dialect Of Kinesics, Terrill Suzanne Corletto

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Human communication requires the disciplines regarding physical fitness, codified language, and the performing arts to overlap, and exist symbiotically. Within the realm of artistic performance, the three disciplines working together deliver a deliberate message in a way unique to performing artists. The general tendency to compartmentalize sports, communication, and the performing arts into their pigeonhole categories of Kinesiology, Linguistics, and Theatre Arts is impractical, particularly for performing artists simply because all of the disciplines are mutually dependent in the context of all kinesthetic communications.

The purpose of this paper is to define and discuss several concepts and the ways in …

Measuring Teacher Self-Efficacy In Addressing Pupil Mental Health Post Assembly Bill 2246, Samantha J. Ross, Christel Salas

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Assembly Bill 2246, known as the pupil suicide prevention policies, was implemented into law at the start of the 2017-2018 academic school year. This legislation mandates that all secondary schools in the state of California implement a suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention policy for at-risk students. Assembly Bill 2246 specifically recognizes the role of teachers in addressing pupil mental health and aims to provide support through policy. The purpose of this study is to measure teacher self-efficacy in addressing pupil mental health post Assembly Bill 2246. This study’s research design is comprised of a quantitative, pretest/posttest model using an independent …

Exploring The Need Of Soft Skills Development In Alternative Education Settings Serving Youth-At-Risk, Ana Hernandez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Today’s young 21^st century workforce has so much to offer in an array of industry sectors. Yet, so many are not achieving their full potential with underdeveloped or lack of soft skills. Vulnerable youth-at-risk who have not experienced healthy developmental stages growing up are at a higher risk of not developing soft skills essential for workforce and lifelong success. This study aims to analyze the gap in soft skills development in youth-at-risk who are attending alternative education. Using a Constructivist paradigm, this qualitative research was completed using maximum variation and snowball sampling to capture the full experience and the …

Eating Disorder Treatment: What Former Patients Attribute To Their Personal Recovery, Wendy Ingram

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the personal experience of people who have an eating disorder with a specific focus on what they attributed to their recovery. Eating disorders are a mental illness that affect one in 20 people. Thus, this prevalence coupled with a lack of significant research about eating disorders in the field of social work uncovered the need for this study.

Qualitative interviews were completed with five female students from a university in California. Each transcript was coded using conventional content analysis to uncover themes and subthemes, which included barriers to recovery, the need to …

Professionals’ Perspectives On Barriers And Facilitators Of Success With Teen Parents In The Child Welfare System, Zuleima Carrillo, Victoria Valenzuela

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the barriers and facilitators of success with teen parents who are in the child welfare system. The study examines these issues through the perspectives of professionals and paraprofessionals. The literature review suggested that having children at a young age negatively affects the mother as well as the child and that adolescents who have received or are receiving services from child welfare agencies become teen mothers at higher rates.

The study used a qualitative, exploratory design. The data was obtained from in-depth interviews with 15 professionals and paraprofessionals who …

Self-Care, Burnout, And Compassion Fatigue, Among Child Welfare Workers, Angelica Castrejon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Child welfare is recognized as a stressful and overwhelming career the demands of which can result in poor retention and high turnover. Many factors contribute to the high turnover including, high caseloads, unmanageable administration requirements, challenging clients, and increasing amount of paperwork. Thus, this study aimed to explore child welfare social workers’ understanding of burnout and compassion fatigue, its effects on their work, and how self-care is integrated into their daily practice to reduce burnout and compassion fatigue. The study used qualitative methods to explore burnout and compassion fatigue among seven child welfare social workers employed by a large child …

Perception Of Burnout Among Social Workers And Coping Mechanisms Used To Combat It, Natasha Hogan

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate how many social workers are experiencing burnout as well as to learn what kinds of methods they use in order to reduce the symptoms of burnout. During this study, the researcher interviewed six participants who are social workers in San Bernardino County. Each participant disclosed their feelings and thoughts surrounding their experience with burnout. To interpret the findings the open coding method as well as a qualitative data analysis was used. It was found that many participants not only experienced burnout in their job as social workers, but many also were experiencing …

Clinical Preparedness Of Clinicians For Lgbt Clients, Martin Rojas

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study used surveys to measure the clinical competency of clinicians and their clinical preparedness, attitudes, knowledge of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clients using an exploratory quantitative research design. The purpose of the research was to assess clinician knowledge, preparedness, and attitudes to identify to what extent further training is needed to work effectively with the LGBT population. Data was collected from seventy-eight participants from southern California. Findings were that clinicians’ knowledge regarding LGBT clients was high, attitudes were open towards this population, and preparedness was also relatively high. Comparisons between LGBT participants and other participants, social workers …

Evaluating The Perceptions Of Preschool Teachers And Administrators On Mental Health Services In The School Setting, Celia Tavarez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Mental health can impact a child’s success in many aspects, including in the school setting. School settings are very often the only place that provide an opportunity for families to be able to receive mental health services for their children. It is imperative that schools meet the mental health needs of the children who attend their schools. This research project examines data and information gathered from educators and school administrators to help us understand their experiences, successes, and/or displeasure about the services that are offered or not offered within the agency they work for. The literature review discusses the definition …

La Mera Verdad: Exploring Immigrant Latino Fatherhood, Jessica Martinez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of the current experiences of immigrant Latino fathers and their families in Southern California, and to examine the barriers and facilitators that impacted their paternal involvement. The literature suggests that father-absence diminishes the ability of a child to thrive in life and yet immigrant Latino fathers are more at risk of all the factors that lead to father-absence, such as poverty and other added stressors. Likewise, these fathers have been noted to experience a lack of fathering in their childhood, which speaks on generational trauma creating the father wound …

The Correlation Between County Expenditures And Ab109 Recidivism: A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Maya Crim

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In response to a federal mandate, California passed Public Safety Realignment policies in 2011 to reduce its prison population. Popularly known as Assembly Bill 109 (AB109), these policies sought to reform the prison system on multiple fronts. One of these fronts is preventing recidivism among offenders. Most studies on recidivism look at individual factors or specific micro interventions. However, the aim of this research was to examine the relationship between external factors and recidivism rates across 55 California counties. Using Spearman’s Correlation, this study tested the hypothesis that external factors such as county funding/expenditure, poverty level, and unemployment level monotonically …

The Incremental Effect Of Voluntariness Of Part Time Work Status Over Age In Predicting Work Motivation In Part Time Workers, Daniel A. Caro

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Much research has been done on work motivation in a variety of employment settings, with most of the research focused on full-time employees. Being that there are an increasing number of employees who work in contingent work settings, such as part time jobs, it is important to better understand what motivational factors are salient in these situations. In addition, researchers have looked at why employees choose to work part time and they have found that there are voluntary and involuntary reasons they choose to do so. Therefore, in the present study, I examined work motivation in part time workers. I …

Master's Project, Patricia Miller

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Patricia Miller is an Inland Empire based artist, who was born and raised in San Bernardino, California. She creates abstract plywood sculptures that promote mental health awareness. Her work is an investigation of the unhealthy relationships that many people have with society, the fine art world, their environment, and themselves.

Measuring The Impact Of Academic Entitlement In First-Year College Students, Tanner Carollo

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research on academic entitlement (AE) in college students has provided support for its maladaptive nature. Students high in AE are reported to present greater levels of externality in the locus of control, exhibit behaviors and actions that are inconsistent with traditional academic norms, score lower on assessments, and hold expectations that are aligned with academic consumerism. However, research examining AE and its effects on student behavior have relied on AE scores collected after students have attained some collegiate experience and have yet to evaluate interventions that may reduce the corresponding implications of AE. Using survey data collected from 941 matriculating …

A Parenting Curriculum For Parents And Caregivers Of Young Children With A Focus On Attachment Theory, Alexandria Driscoll

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Attachment science has shown the importance of a purposeful and secure parent-child relationship. A secure attachment relationship includes sensitivity, responsiveness, and warmth. However, these behaviors may not come naturally to some parents due to lack of knowledge, stress, mental health issues, and/or past relationships. The purpose of this project was to inform parents about attachment science, increase parents’ confidence, and reduce parental stress by providing four two-hour workshop sessions. This project specifically targeted parents of young children. During the implementation of the project, the platform of the sessions changed from face-to-face to online due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent …

The Myers-Briggs Personality System And Its Moderating Effects On The Relationship Between Job Characteristics And Job Satisfaction, Rebecca Marshall

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In this research, I examined how characteristics of the job, namely task significance and task identity, predicted job satisfaction and how those relationships were moderated by one’s Myers-Briggs type. It was hypothesized that the thinking/feeling dichotomy would moderate the relationship between task significance and job satisfaction and the sensing/intuition dichotomy would moderate the relationship between task identity and job satisfaction. In the study, I sought to understand how these moderated relationships would differ for people with good and poor psychological health. There were 945 people who participated which required them to answer questions about their job, personality, psychological health, life, …

Validating And Culturally Responsive Pedagogies: Examining The Effects Of First-Year Seminar Course Redesign At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Joanna M. Oxendine

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A substantial amount of research exists regarding the efficacy of first-year seminar courses (FYSC); unfortunately, most existing FYSC research has been undertaken at predominantly white institutions and has tended to present college-going and the transition to college within the dominant narrative. Where addressed at all, the efficacy of FYSC’s for students of color has typically been framed via a deficit model lens and has not taken into account certain pedagogies known to better support Latinx, African-American, or other minoritized students. Led by the overarching purpose of exploring how intentionally incorporating culturally relevant and critical pedagogies in first-year seminars might be …

Critical Period Controversies For Second Language Acquisition: Implications For Language Teaching, Randy Lucio

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

It was proposed by Eric Lenneberg (1967) in Biological Foundations of Language that implicit first language (L1) acquisition was only possible during a critical period (CP) spanning from infancy to puberty. The critical period hypothesis (CPH) has since been a topic of controversy among L1 and second language (L2) scholars, whose studies have produced varying results that argue for and against a CP. It is suggested in this paper, however, that these often-varying results offer important insight that can serve to inform current and future L2 educational policy and instruction within K-12 education in the U.S. Thus, it is imperative …

The Consequences Of Social Exclusion On Women's Negative Emotions And Self-Regulation Of Unhealthy Eating, Caitlin Shaw

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Social exclusion can be psychologically harmful. Two known consequences of social exclusion are increased negative emotions (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000) and a lowered ability to self-regulate eating behaviors (Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005). These effects have been shown for both individual exclusion (due to a person’s unique characteristics or attributes) and group exclusion (due to a person’s social identity such as gender or ethnicity). Typically, individual social exclusion is elicited through methods such as “life alone” or the “no one chose you” paradigms. Because both of these forms of individual exclusion suggest the person has enduring undesirable traits, …