Digital Commons Network^™

Co-Design Of An Nhs Primary Care Health Check For Autistic Adults, Helen Taylor, Barry Ingham, David Mason, Tracy Finch, Colin Wilson, Clare Scarlett, Sebastian Moss, Christina M. Nicolaidis, Multiple Additional Authors

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Autistic people experience more health conditions and earlier mortality. This study investigated views about a primary care health check for autistic adults to inform its design. Fifty-one people participated in consultation groups and interviews, comprising autistic adults (some with co-occurring intellectual disabilities), adults with intellectual disabilities, supporters and health professionals. Participants wanted the health check to cover physical and mental health and social functioning. They emphasised the importance of sharing information about individual needs and associated adjustments before the health check. They highlighted the need to change the way healthcare services communicate with autistic people, such as reducing phone contact …

Youth-Reported School Connection And Experiences Of A Middle Schoolebased Screening, Brief Intervention, And Referral To Treatment Initiative: Preliminary Results From A Program Evaluation, Maria Stepanchak, Kate Katzman, Margaret Soukup, Evan Elkin, Kathryn Choate, Allison Kristman-Valente, Carolyn A. Mccarty

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

This study aimed (1) to evaluate the feasibility of a school-based Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) program that expands on traditional SBIRT to support the mental health and well-being of middle school students and (2) to assess its effects on students’ connection with adults at school.

Methods

Focus group discussions were conducted with 26 students in grades 6–8 to understand student perspectives about an innovative school-based SBIRT program. A subset of middle school students from the SBIRT program who received a brief intervention (BI) after screening (n = 116) were asked to rate their experience meeting …

“The Broker Of Reality”: A Scoping Review Of Moral Reconation Therapy, Sam Harrell, Constance Johnson, Chandler Boys, Brianna Suslovic, Ben Anderson-Nathe, Kassandra Botts

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: This scoping review aims to identify the evidence-based literature supporting Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), a cognitive-behavioral treatment program created in 1987 and implemented in correctional-treatment settings across the US. Social work students and practitioners are among MRT’s facilitators.

Method: We analyze the reliability and validity of the most recent meta-analysis of MRT, covering studies published between 1988 and 2010. We then identify 669 potential publications on MRT published between 2011 and 2021.

Results: Our search across Google Scholar and eleven academic databases yielded zero peer-reviewed studies on MRT’s effectiveness or outcomes.

When Families, Organizational Culture, And Policy Collide: A Mixed Method Study Of Alternative Response, Stacey L. Shipe, Mathew C. Uretsky, Catherine A. Labrenz, Corey S. Shdaimah, Christian M. Connell

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective Alternative response (AR) is a family-centered, preventative approach for child protection systems. This study first examined what family and case factors predicted re-investigation and then explored which organizational factors influence caseworker and agency implementation of AR. Method Using administrative data from child protection reports, AR families (N = 9,959) and traditional response (TR) families (N = 13,974) were followed for 18 months to determine re-investigation rates using multilevel modeling where families were nested in county of residence. Four focus groups with 14 participants were conducted to discuss the quantitative findings, organizational culture, and implementation of AR. Results AR families …

The Case For Mandatory Reporting As An Ethical Dilemma For Social Workers, Sam Harrell, Stéphanie Wahab

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mandatory reporting of child abuse is a part of the civil legal system that can activate a policy cascade disproportionately criminalizing racialized and marginalized communities. While social work scholarship has explored ways to increase provider compliance with mandatory reporting laws, there is a dearth of research focused on how social work education guides future providers towards the praxis of mandatory reporting discourses. This article presents findings from a content analysis of social work textbook excerpts focused on mandatory reporting of child abuse in the U.S. We found that textbooks affirm social work’s loyalty to the State by approaching mandatory reporting …

Efficacy Of The Project Futures Self-Determination Coaching Model For College Students With Foster Care Backgrounds And Mental Health Challenges, Jennifer Blakeslee, Rebecca A. Miller, Mathew C. Uretsky

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Post-secondary students transitioning from foster care face a range of unique challenges to academic engagement and success, and the typical mental health stressors experienced by college-age young adults are exacerbated by experiences of trauma common to those with foster care experience. Many campuses have introduced specialized support programs for these students, but few have been rigorously tested. This study is the first identified randomized experiment to evaluate a post-secondary support program for enrolled college students with foster care backgrounds and mental health challenges. We report findings from a pilot intervention study testing the Project Futures model, which includes one-on-one coaching …

Assessing Student Readiness To Work With People Who Use Drugs: Development Of A Multi-Disciplinary Addiction Educational Survey, Patrick C.M. Brown, Dana Button, Danika Bethune, Emily Kelly, Hannah R. Tierney, Rahee M. Nerurkar, Christina Nicolaidis, Rebecca Harrison, Ximena Levander

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: As health profession schools implement addiction curricula, they need survey instruments to evaluate the impact of the educational interventions. However, existing measures do not use current non-stigmatizing language and fail to capture core concepts.

Objective: To develop a brief measure of health profession student readiness to work with people who use drugs (PWUDs) and establish its content validity.

Methods: We conducted a literature review of existing instruments and desired clinical competencies related to providing care to PWUD and used results and expert feedback to create and revise a pool of 72 items. We conducted cognitive interviews …

Shifting Course: Drawing On Feminist Principles To Inform Community-Engaged Teaching In Uncertain Times, Amie Thurber, Sarah V. Suiter, Susan Halverson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This autoethnographic case study explores teaching community-engaged courses during the onset of COVID-19. As educators who teach applied program evaluation courses at two universities, we consider how principles of feminist community engagement—relationality, border crossing, reflexivity, and disruptive pedagogy (Iverson & James, 2014)—ground our courses. Drawing from instructor reflections, interviews with community partners, students’ written reflections, and course evaluations, we explore how these principles informed our pedagogical response to teaching through the tumultuous spring of 2020, and the degree to which these practices enabled the continued participation of students and community partners. We close with implications for community-engaged teaching in these—and …

Predictors Of Positive Parenting: Mexican And Puerto Rican Mothers Vulnerable To Child Welfare Involvement, Jessica Rodriguez-Jenkins, Mathew C. Uretsky

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

For young children, positive parenting is predictive of their prosocial development and positive emotional well-being. Understanding the factors that promote or undermine positive parenting is of particular importance for families at risk of child welfare involvement. For Latinx families, conceptualizations of risk are better viewed through a cultural lens. This paper explores predictors of positive parenting among Latinx families (Mexican and Puerto Rican) who are vulnerable to child welfare involvement. Weighted data were drawn from Wave 1 of the National Survey on Child and Adolescent Well-being II—Restricted Release (NSCAW-II), a national sample that approximated a probability sample of child welfare …

Social Needs Resource Connections: A Systematic Review Of Barriers, Facilitators, And Evaluation, Katherine Dubose Broadwell, Dawn Michele Richardson, Christina M. Nicolaidis

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Healthcare organizations increasingly are screening patients for social needs (e.g., food, housing) and referring them to community resources. This systematic mixed studies review assesses how studies evaluate social needs resource connections and identifies patient- and caregiver-reported factors that may inhibit or facilitate resource connections.

Critical Synthesis Toward Transformative Collaboration: A Dialectical Analysis Of Functionalist And Critical Paradigms, Jangmin Kim, Junghee Lee

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social workers are required to become effective boundary spanners to address complex social problems with community-based and cross-system collaboration. However, substantial tensions exist in the literature about how to build successful collaboration, stemming from the massive use of the two competing paradigms: functionalist and critical paradigms. Using a dialectical analysis, this article attempted to uncover and synthesize paradoxical understandings of the major elements of successful collaboration. Significant contradictions between the two contrasting paradigms are identified at the multidimensional levels, including (1) member capacity for developing objective/consensus knowledge vs. subjective/dissensus knowledge, (2) unity vs. diversity in membership, (3) centralized vs. decentralized …

Working With Others In The Mentoring Relationship System, Thomas E. Keller

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

A mentoring relationship typically doesn’t operate in isolation. Even youth who want or need additional support from a mentor are bound to have many other important people in their lives, such as parents and other caregivers, siblings, teachers, and peers. Consequently, a mentor already may have or may need to establish relationships with other people in the mentee’s network of support. Because these other individuals, and a mentor’s interactions with them, have the potential to enhance or detract from the mentoring experience, they are all important parts of the “mentoring relationship system.”

This chapter outlines important considerations for how to …

Intervention Development To Improve Foster Youth Mental Health By Targeting Coping Self-Efficacy And Help-Seeking, Jennifer Blakeslee, Brianne H. Kothari, Rebecca Miller

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study articulates the iterative development of an intervention called Strengthening Youth Networks and Coping (SYNC), which is designed to target coping self-efficacy and help-seeking intentions and behaviors among youth in foster care. The overarching goal is to design an intervention that will be a feasible and acceptable enhancement to existing child welfare services, and that will address modifiable determinants among adolescents involved in child welfare system that are related to elevated risk for mental health challenges, limited support network capacity, and service disengagement after exiting foster care. In this paper, we describe our initial needs assessment, explain how we …

Colonial Necrocapitalism, State Secrecy, And The Palestinian Freedom Tunnel, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Stephanie Wahab

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Secrecy and the use of “secret information” as capital in the hands of the state is mobilised by affective racialised machineries, cultivated on “security” grounds. Securitised secrecy is an assemblage of concealed operations juxtaposing various forms of invasions and dispossessions. It is a central strategy in the politico-economic life of the state to increase its scope of domination. Secrecy is used and abused to entrap and penetrate political subjects and entities. This article explores the necrocapitalist utilisation of secrecy embedded in the coloniser’s attempt to distort the mind of the colonised. Built from the voices of those affected by secrecy’s …

Practice Research Methods In Social Work: Processes, Applications And Implications For Social Service Organisations, Bowen Mcbeath, Michael J. Austin, Sarah Carnochan, Emmeline Chuang

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although social work research is commonly rooted within social service settings, it can be difficult for social work researchers and practitioners to develop and sustain participatory studies that specifically promote knowledge sharing and service improvement involving organisational practice. One participatory approach is practice research (PR), which involves social work researchers and practitioners collaborating to define, understand and try to improve the delivery of health and social care services and organisational structures and processes. The two goals of this commentary are to introduce essential methods and approaches to PR and to identify points of connection involving PR and social service organisational …

Reflections On Teaching Against White Supremacy During A Time Of Social Rupture And Transformation, Erica Fonesca, Stéphanie Wahab

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social Justice and Social Work is a foundational course required for all social work students in the master’s of social work program at Portland State University. Although the course has long focused on interrupting oppressions including White supremacy, teaching the course during the fall of 2020 required a nimble dance between our familiar modes of teaching and the need for spontaneous adaptation and creativity. The unique landscape for this course included teaching the course remotely (Zoom), inside a university embattled around the arming of its security force (that killed a Black man in 2018), in a city targeted by an …

Gentrification, Amie Thurber, Amy Krings

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Gentrification can be understood as the process through which geographical areas become increasingly exclusive, which disproportionately harms people living in poverty and people of color, as well as the elderly, families, and youth. As such, this article argues that macro social work practitioners should view gentrification as a key concern. Thus, to help guide macro interventions, the article begins by first defining gentrification and describing ways to measure it, while emphasizing its difference from revitalization. Second, the article explores causes of gentrification, including its relationship to systemic racism. Third, the article explores the consequences of gentrification on individuals’ and communities’ …

"We Support You... To An Extent": Identities, Intersections, And Family Support Among First-Generation Students In A School Of Social Work, Miranda Mosier

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Family support is a critical part of college student retention. Given the strength of parental educational attainment in predicting access and persistence among college students (Choy, 2001), some have questioned the capacity for families to support first-generation college students. Family support may be especially critical for first-generation college students, who value interdependence more highly than continuing generation students (Stephens et al., 2012). This paper centers the perspectives of first-generation students in a school of social work and their experiences of family support. Focus group conversations were analyzed using the Listening Guide/Voice-centered relational data analysis (Brown & Gilligan, 1992). My interpretations …

(Not) Minding The Gap: A Qualitative Interview Study Of How Social Class Bias Can Influence Youth Mentoring Relationships., Renée Spencer, Martha J. Mccormack, Alison L. Drew, Grace Gowdy, Thomas E. Keller

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study sought to examine how social class bias may be enacted by mentors and mentoring program staff within community-based youth mentoring relationships and how these biases may influence the mentoring relationship. A narrative thematic analysis was conducted with interviews from mentors, mentees' parents/caregivers, and mentoring program staff representing 36 matches participating in a larger, prospective, mixed-methods study examining factors associated with early match closures. Findings indicate that although some mentors were able to partner with the youth and family to effectively navigate challenges related to the family's economic circumstances, other mentors and some mentoring program staff held deficit views …

Can Preference Policies Advance Racial Justice?, Amie Thurber, Lisa K. Bates, Susan Halverson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mitigating the harms of gentrification to communities of color is a pressing challenge. One promising approach is preference policies that enable long-term residents to remain in or return to gentrifying neighborhoods. This mixed-methods study evaluates the City of Portland’s “Preference Policy,” which provides targeted affordable rental housing to residents displaced from a historically Black neighborhood. This paper draws on survey, interview, and focus group data to explore resident motivations, changes to well-being, and recommendations for improving the policy. Findings suggest preference policies can enhance well-being, and underscore the need for comprehensive strategies to advance racial justice in gentrifying neighborhoods.

A Multidimensional Framework For Understanding Refugee Poverty In The United States, Mitra Naseh, Miriam Potocky, Shanna L. Burke, Paul H. Stuart

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The abrupt and unplanned nature of forced displacement usually leaves refugees with limited financial and social assets (Betts et al., 2017; Naseh et al., 2018). Moreover, forced displacement often interrupts refugees’ access to education and opportunities to invest in their human capital (Dryden-Peterson, 2011). These challenges together with other factors such as lack of familiarity with a new language, stigma and discrimination, and unfamiliarity with the job market can result in poverty among newly resettled refugees (Ekren, 2018; Lukasiewicz, 2017). This study aimed to build a multidimensional poverty framework for adult refugees with a specific focus on their …

Contributions Made By Undergraduates To Research Projects: Using The Credit Taxonomy To Assess Undergraduate Research Experiences., Matt Honoré, Thomas E. Keller, Jen Lindwall, Rachel Crist, Leslie Bienen, Adrienne Zell

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The authors developed a novel tool, the CREDIT URE, to define and measure roles performed by undergraduate students working in research placements. Derived from an open-source taxonomy for determining authorship credit, the CREDIT URE defines 14 possible roles, allowing students and their research mentors to rate the degree to which students participate in each role. The tool was administered longitudinally across three cohorts of undergraduate student-mentor pairs involved in a biomedical research training program for students from diverse backgrounds. Students engaged most frequently in roles involving data curation, investigation, and writing. Less frequently, students engaged in roles related to software …

Creating Academic-Community Partnerships To Jointly Enhance Advocacy And Research On Violence And Disability: Two Case Examples, Emily M. Lund, Rosemary B. Hughes, Katherine E. Mcdonald, Sandra Marie Leotti, Marsha Katz, Leanne Beers, Christina Nicolaidis

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: This article describes the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to foster bidirectional and equitable academic-community partnerships in two studies related to interpersonal violence and disability. Method: We analyzed our methods and experiences in conducting these studies to focus on the ways in which CBPR methodology was used to jointly promote and enhance research and advocacy surrounding violence and disability in the research processes themselves and the resulting assessment and intervention products. Results: Our use of CBPR methodology allowed us to identify and address critical issues related to violence in the disability community, such as disability-related forms and experiences …

Dinner At Dinosaurland: Invention, Dialogue, & Solidarity In The Early Childhood Classroom, Selena L. Hoy, Jessica L. Lea, Erin E. Flynn

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Ideas from Practice piece highlights a storytelling practice called story circles as a routine classroom practice with the potential to catalyze shared ideas in the classroom by spurring invention, dialogue, and invention. Examining the slow-growing unfolding of stories about the invented world of Dinosaurland, we illuminate the potential of the language of story as a way for children to sustain and develop ideas through sharing imagined worlds.

Redesigning Schools Of Social Work Into Schools Of Social Work And Social Justice: Opportunities For Civic And Organizational Renewal In A Justice Reform Environment, Bowen Mcbeath, Michael J. Austin

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores the re-envisioning of a school of social work into a School of Social Work and Social Justice. The thought experiment identifies how a school can meet its educational and social justice mission in response to the historic crises of 2020. An outgrowth of the aspirational strategic vision statement is the proposed strengthening of democratic learning spaces involving students and faculty members, better alignment of school curricular reform with human service workforce dynamics and social work practice needs, and an emphasis on culturally responsive leadership. The overall intention is to identify opportunities for social work schools and departments …

Mentoring Students With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities: Evaluation Of Role-Specific Workshops For Mentors And Mentees, Rumi Agarwal, Laura Heron, Mitra Naseh, Shanna L. Burke

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transitioning to post-secondary education is often challenging for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities ( IDD ) . To address this, Florida International University, specifically FIU Embrace, piloted the Embrace Mentoring Program ( EMP ) , which provided unique role-specific workshops to both faculty/staff mentors, and student mentees with IDD. A mixed-method design was used to analyze knowledge acquisition and participant perceptions of the workshops. Quantitative findings indicated knowledge improvement in a key area for mentors, while qualitative data demonstrated a positive response to workshop content, and highlighted areas of improvement for future workshops. Ultimately, the results from the pilot …

Centering A Pedagogy Of Care In The Pandemic, Gita R. Mehrotra

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay is a reflexive account of my experience of teaching a social justice course during the pandemic. Specifically, I reflect on how centering a pedagogy of care within the course provided a framework for me to be responsive to student needs while also disrupting dominant culture and neoliberal forces in academia. In particular, I highlight sharing power and co-creating meaning, community care, and use of creativity and mindfulness as disruptions to dominant paradigms that I employed in my class that were impactful in the context of the pandemic. I also reflect on how this pedagogical praxis of care has …

A Sanctuary: Mourning The Loss Of The Classroom During Covid, Lakindra Mitchell Dove

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This reflexive essay explores the challenges and successes that I encountered as a professor during the transition from face-to-face teaching to remote teaching due to COVID. The essay outlines my thought processes and emotional responses to how unfamiliarity with teaching remotely, coupled with the stress of a pandemic, significantly impacted my teaching style. It also highlights my observations of students’ experiences from their shared discussions and interactions with other students as they navigated the initial onset of challenges during the spring term of 2020. The essay discusses the importance of adaptability during a time when we were collectively experiencing trauma, …

Working: Glimpses Of The Pandemic From This Fine Place So Far From Home, Miranda Mosier

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This manuscript was written for a special issue on Reflections on a Pandemic. In it, I write as an emerging scholar from a working-class background. The pandemic has underscored the divergence between my working life as an academic, which is unintelligible to those I love, and their “essential” work, which increasingly renders them expendable. In this essay I struggle with the tensions that other working-class scholars have articulated before me: I am tentatively welcome in a place that asks, or even demands, that I become someone whose work is unrecognizable to my loved ones. Through the use of reflective inquiry …

An Ethic Of Care? Academic Administration And Pandemic Policy, Stephanie A. Bryson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This reflexive essay examines the adoption of an intentional ‘ethic of care’ by social work administrators in a large social work school located in the Pacific Northwest. An ethic of care foregrounds networks of human interdependence that collapse the public/private divide. Moreover, rooted in the political theory of recognition, a care ethic responds to crisis by attending to individuals’ uniqueness and ‘whole particularity.’ Foremost, it rejects indifference. Through the personal recollections of one academic administrator, the impact of rejecting indifference in spring term 2020 is described. The essay concludes by linking the rejection of indifference to the national political landscape.