Digital Commons Network^™

Grief On The Margins: The Death Of A Family Member To Substance Use, Adair Shaw

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Despite Canada's high death rates from substance use, there is limited research on the sociopsychological impact on families, who often face stigma and disenfranchised grief. This study explores how family members make meaning of a substance-related death. Through qualitative inquiry, eleven family members were interviewed on their experience of grief from substance death. The imprint of losing a family member to mental illness and substance use is fraught with intergenerational grief, ambiguity, prolonged mental-emotional distress, and relationship challenges. Substance death was also associated with stigma, social withdrawal, and shame for many participants. However, grievers reconstructed the socially prescribed negative perceptions …

The Divine Invitation To Co-Creation: The Effects Of Creative Practice On The Vocation Of Clergy In The Anglican Church Of Canada, Dawn Dickieson-Leger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Creative practice has been confirmed as having benefits for health and well-being for people as well as an effective spiritual practice aiding in discernment. Clergy find their purpose in their sense of vocation, often formed and discerned in the context of seeking ordination. The researcher, an Anglican priest and amateur artist, presents a renewed idea of vocation as co-creation with God by engaging in creative practice. Throughout the dissertation she offers reflections from her own experiences in art, health recovery, and ministry. Fifteen Anglican clergy were interviewed about their vocation, ministry, and creative practice. Each of these clergy met the …

International Students Practicing Their Wellbeing: Social Connections And Use Of Professional Mental Health Services, Lal Ruby Atesoglu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

International students are a growing group of immigrants in Canada, and in particular in Ontario. Literature has consistently showed that international students experience unique mental health challenges, with reasons ranging from uncertainty about the future to having to cultivate social networks from scratch. Despite these stressors, they access professional mental health services at a lower rate than domestic students. Research has also shown that international students turn to their social connections to address their mental health concerns frequently. The aim of this study is to explore how international students utilize professional mental health services as well as their social connections …

Operationalizing Intersectionality Analysis For Urban Agriculture In Quito, Ecuador, Laine N. Young

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis outlines the results of a case study in Quito, Ecuador with the municipally led participatory urban agriculture project, AGRUPAR, an internationally recognized project that promotes women’s empowerment, traditional knowledge, agroecology, and livelihoods. It works to improve the lives of those experiencing high levels of poverty in Quito. This dissertation applies an intersectional analysis to urban agriculture research to enhance attention to power relations, social justice, and equity within its scholarly and practical realms. Intersectionality is an understanding that people have unique experiences of oppression based on their unique social location (what intersecting social categories they belong to) and …

Weaving A Tapestry Of Community Based Child Trafficking Interventions In High-Trafficking Incidence Areas In Ghana, Crispin Mbamba

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Background: This dissertation addresses the urgent issue of child trafficking in high-incidence areas of Ghana, where sociocultural, economic, and structural factors sustain and exacerbate this complex social challenge. The rationale for the study is grounded in the need for a holistic understanding of child trafficking beyond traditional justice-based approaches. The research emphasizes the necessity of community-led interventions informed by local cultural norms and protective values that have been largely unexplored in the Ghanaian context. Specifically, this dissertation applies an integrative approach, rooted in the Ubuntu philosophy, to explore community interdependence as a central component of sustainable anti-trafficking interventions.

Methods: …

Family And Community Role In The Provision Of Informal Care For Older People Living With Chronic Life-Limiting Illnesses In Rural Ghana, Barbara Adonteng-Kissi, Obed Adonteng-Kissi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Informal care for older people living with chronic life-limiting illnesses is associated with difficulties. The informal care system built around generational values and cultural norms is steadily weakening in rural Ghana because of economic challenges, migration, urbanisation, and changing family structure. In responding to this knowledge gap, we aimed to ascertain how the immediate family, extended family and community support impact on mechanisms underlying provision of informal care for older people living with chronic life-limiting illnesses. Ethnographic interviews were conducted amongst fifteen older people; fifteen informal caregivers; ten health care professionals, after participatory observations during six months of fieldwork utilised …

Truth Telling And The “Lead Splinter”: Aboriginal Elders’ Perspectives On Community Service Provision And Intergenerational Trauma, Janelle Caddy, Eyal Gringart, Darren Garvey

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This article is based on PhD research aimed at improving community services for remote Aboriginal people with intergenerational trauma. It focuses on the role that Yamatji Aboriginal Elders played in cocreating a framework to enhance service provision for Aboriginal clients and the importance of local truth telling in this endeavour. Elders specified that local truth telling was essential in building shared understandings of healing from intergenerational trauma between Aboriginal people and community service providers. The characterisation of intergenerational trauma as a “lead splinter”, continually poisoning the wellbeing of Aboriginal people provided an illustration of trauma and the complexities of facilitating …

It Was Either Food Or Petrol: Financial Hardship During Professional Experience For Pre-Service Teachers, Tammy Green, Christina Gray, Kirsten Lambert

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Many pre-service teachers prolong studies or fail to complete teaching degrees due to financial hardship. This attrition exacerbates the teacher shortage in Australian schools. Our research uses critical theory to explore the challenges for pre-service teachers as they complete the compulsory professional experience component of initial teacher education. This phenomenological study, based on interviews with eight pre-service teachers at a university in Western Australia, gives voice to pre-service teachers experiencing placement poverty, revealing the difficulties faced in their quest to become teachers. The findings highlight the importance of addressing the financial barriers that hamper students’ abilities to become quality teachers.

Assessing Teachers’ Conceptual Leadership Perceptions Of School-Site Administrators As An Approach To Improve Teacher Morale, Darlene C. Landy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to have teachers complete a self-assessment survey to assess their conceptual belief of the leadership styles of school-site administrators that are conducive to high teacher morals. The questions addressed how teacher morale affected the teachers according to the number of years they had been teaching, their college majors, their highest college degree, their gender, and their ethnicity. The teachers who participated in this study were volunteers who had to be teaching for 2 years or more.

This was a quantitative study that used the Teacher Rapport With Principal dimension of the Purdue Teacher Opinionnaire …

The Lived Experiences Of Project Rebound Students In California, Jeffrey R. Jacobs

Theses and Dissertations

As the United States attempts to address issues of prison overcrowding, recidivism, and rehabilitation, states like California have turned to higher education during and after incarceration to remedy the situation and promote successful community reentry among individuals who have served time in the nation’s prisons. People who are formerly incarcerated are often up against a myriad of obstacles once released, and programs like California State University’s Project Rebound aim to aid in this transition through a model rooted in community and campus care. Numerous bodies of research have explored the impacts of education on individuals who are actively incarcerated; however, …

Law Enforcement And The Need For Mental Health Collaboration, Jacquline Gillins-Hatcher

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the ongoing challenges and the necessity of enhanced collaboration between law enforcement agencies and mental health professionals in responding to mental health crises in the United States. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews with law enforcement officers and mental health professionals, along with an analysis of existing records and policies.

Findings highlighted that crisis intervention team training improved officers’ ability to manage crisis situations. However, barriers such as limited interagency coordination, funding constraints, leadership challenges, and systemic policy gaps continued to hinder effective collaboration. Data from this research indicated that …

Risk Factors For Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Statistical And Machine Learning Perspective, Supti Biswas

Open Access Master's Theses

his study explores factors associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) through analysis of a rich dataset comprising maternal and child characteristics. The data were carefully cleaned and preprocessed to address missing values and ensure analytical consistency. Statistical analyses and advanced visualization techniques were used to uncover patterns linking ASD status with variables such as maternal age, prenatal smoking, and education level. To further assess predictive capacity and feature importance, multiple supervised machine learning algorithms - logistic regression, decision trees, random forests, and support vector machines (SVM) - were applied. ASD appears to be influenced by a complex interplay of demographic …

First Destination Survey 2025: For Degrees Awarded December 2024-August 2025, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University

First Destination Survey

No abstract provided.

Continuous Quality Improvement In Social Needs Screening: Evaluation Of An Intervention In Bariatric Specialty Care, Claire Chang, Samantha Cooley, Bradley Iott, Jordan Greene, Dilhara Muthukuda, Renuka Tipirneni

Student Publications

_{Introduction:}

With growing recognition of the influence that social risks, such as food insecurity and housing instability, have on individual and population health, social risk screening and social care interventions have proliferated across the health system. Social needs intervention research on screening and referral in specialty care is limited, despite evidence that social needs influence access to and outcomes of surgical and specialty care.

_Methods:

This study is a qualitative, formative evaluation of a quality improvement-oriented social needs screening and referral pilot program implemented in a bariatric surgery practice and aims to share lessons related to the structure and process …

Quasi-Experimental Study Examining Student Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Healthcare Teams And Experiences With Social Determinants Of Health Through A Virtual Poverty Simulation, Suzanne Greenwalt, Renee Brown, Lindsay Hahn, Missy Bryan, Tamara Lemmonds, David Phillippi

Health Professions Education

Purpose: Highly functioning interprofessional teams are essential for optimal patient care. Interprofessional teams consist of healthcare workers from various disciplines working together to meet the unique needs of each patient, family, and caregiver with the highest level of care possible. Healthcare programs must train students to work and communicate effectively within such teams. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of an interprofessional virtual poverty simulation on students’ attitudes toward interprofessional healthcare teams and experiences with social determinants of health.

Methods: Students from seven health professions participated in a virtual case event. Students worked in interprofessional teams …

Surviving And Thriving In Educational Leadership: Challenges And Coping Strategies Of High School Principals In Nepal, Shankar Dhakal

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

School leadership in Nepal is shaped by sociocultural, institutional, and resource-related challenges. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining leadership dynamics within this unique and diverse educational context. Guided by resilient leadership theory as a referent, this qualitative case study, grounded in a constructivist paradigm, involved semi-structured interviews with public high school principals to investigate their workplace challenges and coping strategies. The findings reveal challenges including sociocultural and gender biases, teachers’ resistance to modern pedagogical practices, and resource limitations. They navigate these challenges through strategies of humility, intrinsic motivation, and collaborative partnerships. The findings highlight the need …

Social Care Worker: The Shaping Of An Emerging Title., Martin Power

Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies

The inclusion of the title social care worker in the Health and Social Care Professionals Act (2005) was a crucial development in the journey toward the professionalisation of social care work. With the two year grand-parenting window for entry to the register closed at the end of November 2025, the regulation of social care work has now begun. While this will mean that a definitive number rather than estimates of the number of social care workers in Ireland will be available, ambiguities remain. For example, in spite of the passing of two decades since the inclusion of social care worker …

Driving Impactful Change: Entrepreneurial Insights For Social Responsibility In The Irish Context, Anna Zherdeva, Deirdre Mcquillan, Lucia Morales

Articles

Today’s volatile situation at the global level, provoked by a significant rise in Economic and Political Uncertainty, emerged as an answer on countries attempts to manage the climate change crisis, armed conflicts, the rising cost of living, a growing divide between the more prosperous Global North and the poorest Global South that are reflected on the emergence of multifaceted, multiple and long-lasting crises. During periods of heightened instability and economic uncertainty, businesses struggle to build trusting relationships with stakeholders as they seek to reduce costs. Additionally, companies seek deep engagement as they confront the costs associated with sustainability challenges and …

“We've Just Kind Of Woven In All These Different Ways Of Keeping Him Close By” A Narrative Analysis Of How Children And Their Surviving Parent Co-Construct Continuing Bonds Following Parental Death, Miriam Summers

School of Psychology Theses

Continuing bonds research has predominantly focused on adults and considered from an individualistic perspective; consequently, little is known about how such bonds may be developed relationally within families. This study aimed to explore how parentally bereaved children and their parent/caregiver co-construct continuing bonds. Eight families were recruited, and parent/caregivers and their children were interviewed together. Narrative analysis explored semantic themes and interactional processes. The findings highlighted that continuing bonds are co-constructed through regular joint remembering, family acts of remembrance, joint connecting through objects and shared interpretations of signs from the deceased. Constructive interactional processes included collaboration, agreement and sharing positive …

Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide, University Of Queensland, James Cook University, University Of Southern Queensland, Charles Darwin University, Southern Cross University, Queensland University Of Technology, Deakin University, University Of South Australia, Kate Strong, University Of Tasmania, The Australian National University

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Updated in 2025, this edition of the guide is designed to support students undertaking Australian legal studies and contribute to the development of research skills in Australian law schools. An exciting feature of this edition includes a brand new chapter on Legal Research using Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI).

Undergraduates’ Lifestyle And Suboptimal Health Status (Shs): A Cross-Sectional Study In The Ha’Il Region Of Saudi Arabia, Bandar Alsaif, Collins Otieno Asweto, Sehar Un Nisa Hassan, Mohamed Ali Alzain, Mohammed Elshiekh Saeed, Ahmed Kassar, Kamal Elbssir Mohammed Ali, Mouna Ghorbel, Rafat Zrieq, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background University students in Saudi Arabia are embracing some of the negative traits of the fast-paced modern lifestyle, typified by unhealthy eating, low physical activity, and poor sleep habits that may increase their risk for poor health. Health and holistic well-being at the population level are among the priorities of the 2030 vision of a vibrant society in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The current study thus aims at determining the prevalence and predictive factors of Suboptimal Health Status (SHS) among university students. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 9,026 undergraduate students between 31st May and 15th June 2023. …

Weight Stigma Amongst Nurses And Nursing Students: A Scoping Review Of Direct And Comparative Evidence, Mahshid Fonoudi, Beverley Ewens, Amanda Towell-Barnard

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aim: To map both direct and comparative research on weight stigma amongst nurses and nursing students by identifying the extent, range and nature of studies and identify the gaps in this area. Design: Scoping review, following the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidelines. Data Sources: Seven databases including MEDLINE, Web of Science, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, PsycINFO and Cochrane Library, in addition to Google Scholar and Open Access Theses and Dissertations were systematically searched in August 2023. Methods: Inclusion criteria comprised nurses or nursing students as participants, weight stigma as the concept and any context. After uploading all search results into EndNote …

Impact Of Perceived Discrimination And Social Exclusion On Wellbeing Of Black African Immigrants In Australia, Obed Adonteng-Kissi, Matthew Mabefam, Elizabeth Archibong, Nnaemeka Meribe, Frank Darkwa Baffour

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Across the globe, a significant number of immigrants frequently encounter discrimination and social exclusion in their host nations, prompting discussions regarding policies and societal attitudes toward these groups. This study is guided by the structural social work framework which provides a very important structure to understand the experiences of Black African immigrants in Australia. Drawing on the case of Black African immigrants in Australia, this study investigates the effects of discrimination and social exclusion on their wellbeing. This research builds upon existing literature concerning the discrimination and social exclusion of immigrants, incorporating the perspectives of 27 social workers and immigrants …

True Inclusion: A Qualitative Study In Autoethnography; Examining The Educational Journey And Divine Calling Of An Administrator To Champion The Inclusivity Of Students With Special Needs, Andrea Loutsch

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to dive deeper into the real-life experience of a public school teacher/administrator that ventured into the role of a Catholic school administrator and their role as an advocate for students with special needs. A great deal of the research for the inclusion of students with special needs has been in the realm of public K-12 institutions and their rights as individuals with disabilities, since the introduction of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975. However, many private, Catholic K-12 schools have recognized not only a stronger demand for services for students with …

Comparison Of Diabetes Education Content Experienced By Blind And Nonblind People With Diabetes, Nazanin M. Heydarian, Qusay Hussein, Zully Guerra, Bhumi Patel, Allyson S. Hughes, Julia E. Blanchette, Yessenia Castro

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

This survey sought to examine disparities in diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) to illuminate gaps underlying morbidity and mortality disparities experienced by blind people with diabetes and develop a pathway for improved health care delivery and health outcomes. Blind participants were more likely to report getting DSMES on strategies to promote treatment adherence and noncompliance with medical regimen; yet, blind and nonblind participants did not differ on primary care provider visits or amount of time spent in diabetes education. These findings suggest that DSMES content may differ for blind versus nonblind participants.

Diabetes Care Disparities In Deaf/Hard Of Hearing And Blind/Low Vision Populations, Allyson S. Hughes, Karissa Mirus, Nazanin M. Heydarian, Michelle L. Litchman

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Purpose of Review

Describe the connection between Deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) and diabetes, explain the bidirectional relationship of blind/low vision (BLV) and diabetes, characterize challenges DHH and BLV populations face when seeking healthcare regarding their diabetes management. Highlight the inaccessibility of diabetes technology in these populations. Provide best practices when communicating with DHH and BLV people in the clinical setting.

Recent Findings

Diabetes disparities exist in DHH and BLV populations due to systemic barriers to health equity related to access and communication. Structural barriers, risk factors, social determinants of health, and the U.S. healthcare system do not support the DHH …

The Complex And Marginalized Experiences Of Bipoc Trafficked Women: An Examination Of Disabilities, Aces, Discrimination, And Racism, Jacquelyn C. A. Meshelemiah, Fabian Arroyo Rojas, Hannah Ruth Steinke, Marlene Carson, Justin A. Haegele

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences and multiple identities of disabled BIPOC trafficked women. The findings from this study help to identify a carousel of victimization experienced by disabled BIPOC trafficked women, starting with adverse childhood experiences, onto trafficking victimization that differed between Black and White women, and later while seeking services. These findings highlight the need for providers and researchers to think beyond monolithic identities and consider the intersecting ways in which various forms of oppression (ableism and racism) influence the experiences of disabled trafficked BIPOC women.

Conceptualizing And Problematizing Inclusion Porn In Education Scholarship And Practice, Justin A. Haegele, Anthony J. Maher

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

Discourses of inclusion are currently used without clear and consistent meaning and multiple and varied interpretations exist, therefore stunting our ability to enhance or utilize the concept in social justice and education scholarship and practice. In this article, we argue that the ambiguous, conflicting, and contested features of inclusion have opened a door for nondisabled policy makers, academics, practitioners, and other stakeholders to exploit the concept of inclusion by crafting the logics and taken-for-granted assumptions that become associated with it. Accordingly, these nondisabled stakeholders gain social, cultural, and symbolic capital in the fields that they operate, while (some) disabled students …

Suicide Awareness And Crisis Planning: Trauma Responsive Techniques For Educators, Dustin Young, Shannon Trecartin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Suicide Awareness And Crisis Planning: Trauma Responsive Techniques For Educators, Dustin Young, Shannon Trecartin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.