Social Work Commons^™

Waiting For The Wisdom To Drop: A Photovoice Exploration Of Menopause, Delinda L. Free

Student Research Symposium

The purpose of this study was to create a women’s menopause discussion group based on the Photo Voice method, to use a narrative approach to learn what is currently relevant in the experience of menopausal women, to reveal insights about menopause as a phase of psychological development, and to bring a visual representation together with narratives to tell a story about the collective psychological themes. Participants were asked to meet and reflect on what has changed in their values, attitudes, aspirations, goals, and outlook on life. Then participants were asked to take pictures over the course of a week, and …

Oregon Community-Based Care Survey: Assisted Living, Residential Care, And Memory Care, Paula C. Carder, Ozcan Tunalilar, Sheryl Dejoy Elliott, Sarah Dys, Margaret B. Neal

Institute on Aging Publications

In Oregon, community-based care (CBC) communities include assisted living (AL), residential care (RC), and memory care (MC) communities. These settings provide residential, personal care, and health-related services, primarily to older adults. As the population of Oregonians aged 65 and older is estimated to increase from 16 percent in 2015 to nearly 23 percent in 20501, the availability of CBC settings will continue to be an important source of long-term services and supports.

This report provides an in-depth look at Oregon’s CBC settings. Because no central dataset of CBC services, staff, and residents is available, as opposed to nursing facilities, information …

Enhancing The Career Planning Self-Determination Of Young Adults With Mental Health Challenges, Jo-Ann Sowers, Paul R. Swank

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

The impact of an intervention on the self-determination and career planning engagement of young adults with mental health challenges was studied. Sixty-seven young adults, 20 to 30 years of age, with mental health diagnoses (e.g., depression, bipolar disorder) were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Statistically significant greater increases were made by the intervention group versus the control group for self-determination and career planning engagement, and self-determination at least partially mediated increases in career planning engagement. With career planning self-determination interventions, young adults with mental health challenges might be able to achieve better career and life outcomes than is …

Gentrification And Displacement: An Environmental Justice Challenge For Social Work In Urban Environments, Eileen M. Brennan, Kevin Jones, Ryan Elizabeth Bender

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter presents a lesson which includes a case study highlighting the social, economic, and environmental injustices associated with the gentrification of Northeast Portland, Oregon, US. The reader will then engage in an exercise, which includes reviewing the suggested video clip and news article segment highlighting experiences of families caught up in gentrification in Northeast Portland. Finally, the reader will work through the associated questions and activities to achieve the learning outcomes.

Oregon Community-Based Care Survey: Adult Foster Homes, Paula C. Carder, Sheryl Dejoy Elliott, Ozcan Tunalilar, Sarah Dys, Margaret B. Neal

Institute on Aging Publications

Adult foster homes (AFH) offer long-term services and supports to older adults and people with disabilities who wish to remain in the community but need assistance with personal care and health-related tasks. This report focuses on Oregon AFHs that are licensed to care for individuals aged 65 and older and younger adults with disabilities. Homes may be licensed for one to five residents and must be staffed 24-hours daily to respond to residents’ scheduled and unscheduled needs or requests.

This report provides an in-depth look at a sample of Oregon AFHs. Since no central dataset of AFH services, staff, and …

A Qualitative Examination Of Pain Centrality Among Veterans Of Iraq And Afghanistan Conflicts, Samantha D. Outcalt, Christina Nicolaidis, Matthew J. Bair, Laura J. Myers, Edward J. Miech, Marianne S. Matthias

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective. Centrality of pain refers to the degree to which a patient views chronic pain as integral to his or her life or identity. The purpose of this study was to gain a richer understanding of pain centrality from the perspective of patients who live with chronic pain.

Methods. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 26 Veterans with chronic and disabling musculoskeletal pain after completing a stepped care intervention within a randomized controlled trial. Qualitative data were analyzed using an immersion/crystallization approach. We evaluated the role centrality plays in Veterans’ lives and examined whether and how their narratives differ when centrality …

North Douglas County Community Needs Health Assessment (Phase 2), Callie H. Lambarth, Diane Reid, Beth L. Green

Early Childhood

Beginning in August 2016, Phase 2 of the North Douglas County (NDC) Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) built on work completed in the Phase 1 planning process, and engaged the communities of Drain, Elkton, and Yoncalla, Oregon in the development and administration of a regional health services survey. The purpose of the survey was to learn from families with children ages 0-8 in the NDC region in order to:

• Identify service needs across a range of health service types, e.g., dental care, immunizations, prenatal care, well-child care, primary care, and mental health;
• Identify barriers to access;
• Prioritize the programs and …

Changing The Rules: A Guide For Youth And Young Adults With Mental Health Conditions Who Want To Change Policy, Nancy Koroloff, Barbara J. Friesen, Nicholas Buekea

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

To some people, “policy” seems like a mysterious and perhaps boring topic, compared to the busyness and intensity of everyday life. However, a growing number of youth- and young adult-led groups have shown how policy issues can influence their choices and their lives in critical ways, and that they can have substantial influence on policy. Policies may be general, and apply to all people in society (e.g., traffic laws), or they may specifically focus on particular groups of people, such as people with a mental health condition or criminal record (e.g., policies about housing or employment). Organizations such as Youth …

Will I Be Able To Understand My Mentee? Examining The Potential Risk Of The Dominant Culture Mentoring Marginalized Youth, Jennifer Lindwall

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most people would agree they want to live in a world where every child has what he or she needs to thrive and grow into a healthy and productive adult. It is estimated that 5,000 mentoring programs serve 3,000,000 youth in the United States alone (DuBois, Portillo, Rhodes, Silverthorn, & Valentine, 2011). In many of these programs, a majority of the mentors are matched with a mentee who comes from a culture and community they know very little about. Many of the youth development programs that were founded and implemented by people of the perceived dominant culture represent their values …

Kids In Transition To School (Kits), Beth L. Green, Lorelei Mitchell, Lindsey Brianna Patterson

Early Childhood

During the summer and fall of 2016, children and families in 16 schools in Lane County participated in the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) Program. KITS includes 16 weeks of group-based child classes and 12 weeks of parenting workshops, using an evidence-based curriculum designed to improve school readiness skills and parenting. To learn more about the KITS program from the perspective of participating families, four focus groups were held with parents who participated in KITS. A total of 44 parents participated in the groups, which were located in four different schools (two small, rural locations and two larger more …

What Are Effective Strategies For Implementing Trauma-Informed Care In Youth Inpatient Psychiatric And Residential Treatment Settings? A Realist Systematic Review, Stephanie A. Bryson, Emma Gauvin, Ally Jamieson, Melanie Rathgeber, Lorelei Faulkner-Gibson, Sarah Bell, Jennifer Russel, Sharlynne Burke

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Many young people who receive psychiatric care in inpatient or residential settings in North America have experienced various forms of emotional trauma. Moreover, these settings can exacerbate trauma sequelae. Common practices, such as seclusion and restraint, put young people at risk of retraumatization, development of comorbid psychopathology, injury, and even death. In response, psychiatric and residential facilities have embraced trauma-informed care (TIC), an organizational change strategy which aligns service delivery with treatment principles and discrete interventions designed to reduce rates of retraumatization through responsive and non-coercive staff-client interactions. After more than two decades, a number of TIC frameworks and …

Organizational Supports Used By Private Child And Family Serving Agencies To Facilitate Evidence Use: A Mixed Methods Study Protocol, Emmeline Chuang, Crystal Collins-Camargo, Bowen Mcbeath

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Challenges to evidence use are well documented. Less well understood are the formal supports—e.g., technical infrastructure, inter-organizational relationships—organizations may put in place to help overcome these challenges. This study will identify supports for evidence use currently used by private child and family serving agencies delivering publicly funded behavioral health and/or human services; examine contextual, organizational, and managerial factors associated with use of such supports; and determine how identified supports affect evidence use by staff at multiple levels of the organization. Methods: We will use a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, with study activities occurring in two sequential phases: In …

Student-Perceived Quality Of Motivational Interviewing Training: A Factor-Analytic Study, Douglas Smith, Melinda Hohman, Stéphanie Wahab, Trevor Manthey

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: This study developed and tested a student-report measure of motivational interviewing (MI) teaching quality called the Evaluation of Motivational Interviewing Teaching (EMIT) scale.

Method: Social work students (N = 297) receiving course content on motivational interviewing completed the EMIT, and exploratory factor analysis investigated whether theory-based dimensions of teaching emerged as EMIT subscales, including: interactivity/skill building, MI content coverage, modeling MI during teaching, trainee autonomy violation, and encouraging ongoing training in MI.

Results: Two subscales emerged representing MIconsistent (28 items, α = .92) and MI-inconsistent teaching practices (7 items, α = .73).

Conclusions: Although more …

Housing A Homeless Shelter: A Case Study Of Community Deliberation, Amie Thurber

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Among the core competencies of macro practitioners are the skills to design, implement and evaluate conflict resolution processes. Drawing upon theories of deliberative democracy, restorative justice and the Just Practice framework, this paper explores a process of deliberation which engaged 200 community members in the controversial siting of a homeless shelter. This case study is both descriptive and reflective: by offering an in-depth description of the process and a reflection on the guiding values, this paper provides critical insight into best practices in – and limitations of – using deliberation to resolve divisive community issues.

Changing The Rules: A Guide For Youth And Young Adults With Mental Health Conditions Who Want To Change Policy, Nancy Koroloff, Barbara J. Friesen, Nicholas Buekea

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This guide provides information about policy and policy change in mental health and other human services for young adult groups who want to be

directly involved in policy change activities. Some of the many ways that young people can be involved in policy work include serving on advisory committees that consider areas where policy change is needed, participating on groups convened to review contract language about youth-related issues or serving on groups charged with developing rules and regulations to support recent policy change. A number of manuals or handbooks address these important roles, although few of them are specifically focused …

What Is Peer Support And What Is Not Peer Support?, Mary Beth Welch, Caitlin Baird, Celeste L. Seibel

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This publication provides clarity around the primary functions of the young adult peer support role, and addresses the common misconceptions of young adult peer work.

Oregon Guide To Health Care Partnerships: For Community-Based Organizations And Advocates Supporting Survivors Of Domestic Violence In Health Care Settings, Sarah H. Keefe, Christine Heyen, Anna Rockhill, Ericka Kimball

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Safer Futures is a practice and partnership model that benefits survivors of intimate partner violence. This model demonstrates how community-based, non-clinical domestic and sexual violence (D/SV) intervention advocates can better serve survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in partnership with health care providers. Such partnerships strengthen services for survivors of IPV in various health care settings including, but not limited to, public health departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers, primary care clinics, and hospitals.

Partnerships between advocates and health care providers improve IPV survivors’ access to health care, advocacy services, resources and support. The model works best when a health care …

An Orphanage In Mexico: Four United Nations' Human Rights Of Children And Wolins' Prerequisites For Efficient Group Care Through The View Of The Manager And Staff, Lucia Beatriz Quesnel Galván

Dissertations and Theses

In Mexico there are officially 1.8 million orphaned children, without counting non-orphaned children deprived of family, who also need care; of these, only 657,000 are living in 703 orphanages. Mexico's government invests less than 2% of its budget toward protection of children. There is a lack of substantive research or official assessment of orphanages. According to the scant research found, the children's human rights most frequently violated in Mexican orphanages are the rights to nutrition and health care, to be protected from further victimization, to free expression and participation, and to not be exploited. This study was carried out through …

Achieving Cross-System Collaboration To Support Young People In The Transition Years: A Tip Sheet For Service Providers, Pauline Jivanjee, Eileen Brennan, Claudia Sellmaier, Maria Carolina Gonzalez-Prats, Pathways Transition Training Collaborative

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This tip sheet advises service providers on how to reach across fragmented services and systems to assist young people to achieve their goals.

Multnomah County Project Launch Evaluation, Jessica Auerbach, Elana S. Emlen, Danielle C. Garcia, Noelle Hause, Callie H. Lambarth, Mhora Lorentson, Isabel M. Rife, Kathleen J. Zavela, Yumiko Aratani, Jeana R. Bracey, Mercedes Ekono, Beth L. Green, Rachel Kryah, Melissa Mendez, Sheila Smith, Lily Tom

Early Childhood

Early childhood is a critical time in human development. Any experience, positive or negative, can influence long-term outcomes for physical, emotional, social, and cognitive health (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2010). To ensure a strong foundation for success in school and in life, efforts designed to promote wellness and identify early learning or mental health challenges must begin well before kindergarten. Strong evidence shows that investing in early childhood can yield large dividends for children. Additionally, the ability of our systems to provide positive outcomes for children can be enhanced through strategic planning, well-developed partnerships, and coordinated …

Quality Rating Improvement System (Qris), Shannon T. Lipscomb, Roberta B. Weber, Beth L. Green, Lindsey Brianna Patterson

Early Childhood

With funding from the Race-to-the-Top grant, we are working with Oregon State University researchers to conduct a validation study to support the state’s Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS). The QRIS provides technical assistance to child care facilities to improve quality, as well as ratings for child care facilities to help parents in decision-making. Center staff are collecting standardized observational measures of child care quality statewide to assess the extent to which QRIS ratings correspond to observed quality.

Housing With Services, Paula C. Carder

Institute on Aging Publications

This report describes findings of an evaluation of the Housing with Services project in Portland, OR.

This evaluation was designed to assess the implementation process and impacts of a novel program of coordinated health and social services on behalf of over 1,400 residents of 11 affordable housing properties in Portland, Oregon. Affordable housing for older adults and persons with disabilities provides an important financial subsidy for persons with low incomes. To qualify for the affordable housing described in this report, individuals must have incomes of no more than $15,450 for a single person. In the U.S., over one million older …

The Development And Evaluation Of An Online Healthcare Toolkit For Autistic Adults And Their Primary Care Providers, Christina Nicolaidis, Dora Raymaker, Katherine E. Mcdonald, Steven K. Kapp, Michael Weiner, Elesia Ashkenazy, Martha Gerrity, Clarissa Kripke, Laura Platt, Amelia E.V. Baggs

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

BACKGROUND: The healthcare system is ill-equipped to meet the needs of adults on the autism spectrum.

OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop and evaluate tools to facilitate the primary healthcare of autistic adults. DESIGN: Toolkit development included cognitive interviewing and test–retest reliability studies. Evaluation consisted of a mixed-methods, single-arm pre/postintervention comparison.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 259 autistic adults and 51 primary care providers (PCPs) residing in the United States.

INTERVENTIONS: The AASPIRE Healthcare toolkit includes the Autism Healthcare Accommodations Tool (AHAT)—a tool that allows patients to create a personalized accommodations report for …

Provider Perspectives On Principle-Adherent Practice In Empirically Supported Interventions For Emerging Adults With Serious Mental Health Conditions, Janet S. Walker, Katherin M. Flower

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recognition of the need to create new treatment approaches that will be appealing to and effective for emerging adults with serious mental health conditions, researchers have begun to create and evaluate programs and interventions that are specifically tailored to reflect the preferences and needs of the population. The literature that describes these new approaches—including both descriptions of interventions and guidelines based on expert consensus—expresses a high degree of agreement regarding practice principles that should guide intervention. However, beyond naming these principles, the literature provides little information about what the principles mean, or how principle-adherent practice can be recognized. This …

Predicting Positive Education Outcomes For Emerging Adults In Mental Health Systems Of Care, Eileen M. Brennan, Peggy Nygren, Robert L. Stephens, Adrienne Croskey

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Emerging adults who receive services based on positive youth development models have shown an ability to shape their own life course to achieve positive goals. This paper reports secondary data analysis from the Longitudinal Child and Family Outcome Study including 248 culturally-diverse youth ages 17 through 22 receiving mental health services in systems of care. After 12 months of services, school performance was positively related to youth ratings of school functioning, and service participation and satisfaction. Regression analysis revealed ratings of young peoples’ perceptions of school functioning and their experience in services added to the significant prediction of satisfactory school …

Bridging The Worlds Of Home And School: A Study Of The Relational Worlds Of First-Generation Students In A School Of Social Work, Miranda Cunningham

Dissertations and Theses

Much scholarship on first-generation students has focused on their academic and social integration in college (Collier & Morgan, 2008; Lowery-Hart & Pacheco, 2011; Stuber, 2011). Little is known about the experiences of first-generation students in schools of social work. In this research I've expanded the focus beyond students' experiences of academic integration to explore how first-generation students in a school of social work describe their relational worlds and the implications for professional socialization.

Informed by Standpoint Feminism and Postmodern/Post structural Feminism, I conducted focus groups with 19 students in two undergraduate programs and one graduate program in a school of …

An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Of Long-Term Mentoring Relationships From The Youth Perspective, Kevin Richard Jones

Dissertations and Theses

When mentoring programs are well-designed and well-implemented, young people can experience positive gains in a number of social, emotional, behavioral, and educational areas. While some of the processes underlying mentoring relationships have been explored, the voices and perspectives of participants themselves have thus far been largely excluded from the mentoring literature. The lack of participant voice in mentoring research suggests that an important source of empirical and interpretive information is unavailable to the field in the process of designing, implementing, and researching mentoring programs. This study used interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore how youth participants in the Friends of …

Focal Point, Volume 30, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue explores early psychosis intervention services. Throughout history psychosis has traumatized and permanently disrupted people's lives, but early psychosis intervention is showing that much of this trauma and disability can be prevented. Early psychosis intervention services are rapidly becoming available in every state of the US, and thousands of people who have lived through psychosis are speaking out and proving that we have every reason for hope.

Volunteering In Oregon: Strengths And Opportunities In The Nonprofit Sector, Callie H. Lambarth, Lindsey Anne Cochran

Equity & Diversity

The Volunteering in Oregon (VIO) project, conducted in 2016 and commissioned by The Oregon Community Foundation (OCF), sought to explore key questions related to volunteering in Oregon among nonprofits in the state. The VIO project included a statewide electronic survey with a random sample of nonprofit organizations, an electronic survey with a convenience sample of volunteers within these nonprofits, interviews with representatives from nonprofit organizations, and three case studies based on a document review and key stakeholder interviews with representatives of each organization. Ultimately, the aim of the VIO project was to identify recommendations and action steps for how OCF …

Introduction To The Special Section: Positive Developmental Strategies For Engaging Emerging Adults And Improving Outcomes, Janet S. Walker, Celeste Seibel, Sharice Jackson, John D. Ossowski

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

As compared to any other age cohort in the US population, young people in late adolescence and early adulthood have a higher rate of unmet need for mental health services. Not only are these young people (from about 16 to 25 years old, and referred to here as “emerging adults”) more likely to experience a serious mental health condition (SMHC), but they are also less likely to engage in services. Furthermore, when emerging adults do engage in services, they face multiple barriers to service continuity, particularly as they come up to “milestone” ages at 18, 21, and 24.

There is …