Social Work Commons^™

Evaluation Of The Health Resources And Services Administration (Hrsa) Behavioral Health Workforce And Education Training (Bhwet) Grant, Cheryl Neale-Mcfall, Nadine Bean, Sarah Fisher

Counselor Education Student Work

Our poster focuses on expanding the number of MS social work and MEd school counseling graduate students working with persons across the lifespan in vulnerable and medically underserved populations, providing evidence-based behavioral health services. In order to prepare the selected students, Interprofessional Education trainings and a 3-credit IPE academic course were administered, and data gathered and analyzed.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the trainings and IPE academic courses. For the purpose of the IPE Integrated Care Trainings, pre-post test data were collected. In addition, open-ended questions were added to the post-test to ascertain additional …

Giving Credence To The Experience Of X-Linked Hypophosphatemia In Adulthood: An Interprofessional Mixed-Methods Study, Melissa Hughes, Carolyn Macica, Catherine Meriano, Maya Doyle

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Purpose: X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare X-linked dominant metabolic bone disease, often diagnosed in childhood but causing increasing physical debilitation and pain in adulthood. Physical comorbidities of XLH in adulthood include pervasive and early-onset degenerative arthritis, mineralizing enthesophytes and osteophytes, osteomalacia and pseudofracture, dental abscesses, and hearing loss.

Methods: This mixed-methods analysis included physical findings, diagnostic imaging, occupational and physical therapy assessments, and semi-structured interviews by social work to understand the functional outcomes and lived experience of XLH in adulthood, through connections between qualitative data obtained by social work and occupational therapy with the quantitative findings from other disciplines. …

A Critical Glocalization Approach: Attending To Power In The Innovation Space, Maria Wathen

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this paper is to provide community practitioners with the theoretical background to recognize and work in the interplay of global and local forces. This paper reviews globalization as a contested term and presents several globalization paradigms. It introduces critical glocalization as a guiding approach that sensitizes social workers to power dynamics. With this approach, social workers are encouraged to look for innovations that arise in the glocal sphere. They will understand the broader political, economic, structural, policy, and discursive contexts in which they are working, and intentionally look for the marginalized voices in our complex, interconnected world.

Social Work, Ethics And Vulnerable Groups In The Time Of Coronavirus And Covid-19, Kathleen J. Farkas, Jaroslaw Richard Romaniuk

Faculty Scholarship

The profession of social work is dedicated to the betterment of society and to the protection of marginalized and vulnerable groups. The profession’s mission is detailed in the set of seven core values: service; social justice; dignity and work of the person; importance of human relationships; integrity; and competence. Relationships between people and among groups are the primary tools of social work assessment, intervention and evaluation. In the time of coronavirus and COVID-19, there are many challenges for professional practitioners to adhere to social work’s core values as well as to maintain their own health and welfare in a time …

How Diet Affects The Environment, Jessica Riley

Student Scholars Day Posters

While climate events result in large scale economic costs for communities, the social impacts are just as devastating. With the community event titled "How Diet Affects the Environment," the aim was to spread awareness about the negative environmental impacts of consuming animal products. From the literature and collaboration, attendees were encouraged to acknowledge how their eating habits affect the environment. Raising animals for food is responsible for 30% of the world's water consumption, occupies 45% of the earth's land, and is responsible for 91% of Amazon destruction. By exposing people to this information, there was a push to catalyze a …

Working Our Way Out Of Privilege: Lessons From South Africa On Preparing White Americans For A National Transitional Justice Process, Susan R. Wysor Nguema

Social Work (Undergraduate) Faculty Publications

This study utilized difference-in-differences analysis to determine likelihood of confidence in four major public institutions over three periods of time in South Africa and the United States, two prior to South Africa’s transitional justice process and one after. Results indicate that Black South African confidence rose while White South African confidence dropped drastically. American confidence levels, for both races, remained relatively consistent over all three time periods. The drastic drop in White South African likelihood of confidence points to possible feelings of loss related to power and privilege. These results provide insight for social workers interested in addressing racial injustice …

A Theology Of Compassion: Encouraging Local Church Ministry To Children In Foster Care, Allen Griffin

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Compassionate care within the local community of a church is of vital essence to a thriving church ministry. For centuries church leaders have endeavored to make an impact in the lives of the people living in their vicinity through outreach efforts. The compassion of the local church is needed in the area of children in foster care. Through the analysis of two church programs focused on serving the spiritual, educational, and social needs of teens in the foster care system, this dissertation will examine how to assist local churches in establishing a program to serve the children in their local …

Hard Conversations, Healthy Conversations: How To Respond When Tragedy Strikes, Elizabeth Marston, Samuel Marion

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

How do we talk to children and students about tragedy? How do we support families faced with a health crisis or unexpected death? This presentation will discuss the challenges of dealing with tragic circumstances and how we can best support children, students, and their families in a way to promote emotional health.

Correctional Officers' Mental Health Literacy And Attitudes Toward Offenders With Mental Illness, Amber Rebecca Hebert

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Overrepresentation of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system is a major societal problem. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly three quarters of people housed in local jails report having symptoms suggestive of mental illness. Individual consequences to incarceration for people diagnosed with a mental illness include disruption in treatment, increase in symptomology, exposure to violence, and victimization. Correctional officers are an important component to the criminal justice system but their role in the lives of offenders with mental illness has been understudied. The current study explored the mental health knowledge, attitudes, and personal experiences of …

Social Class And Social Work In The Age Of Trump, Hanna Karpman, Joshua Miller

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

Social class has many meanings and components – economic, social, political, one’s sense of identity, and how class intersects with other social identities – so it is difficult to define it briefly and succinctly. These definitions are further complicated by a global lens, where family of origin, geography, and other factors can pre-determine social class. In this article, we explore the complexities and contradictions of social class in the context of the United States as we believe that this is important for social work, particularly in the age of Donald Trump, where class, and its intersection with race and immigration …

Social Justice Education Framework: Examination Of An Integrated Model For Teaching And Evaluating Social Justice Education Through Historical Injustices, Amber D. Bell

Title III Professional Development Reports

Social justice continues to be emphasized within the social work profession as a central principle and value, often identified as the professional value that separates it from other human service professions. As varied as definitions of social justice are, so are approaches to effectively teaching about social justice within social work education across the curriculum (practice, research, HBSE, and policy). Equally absent are evidence based approaches to teaching social justice.In recent years, historical injustice and our societal lack of knowledge regarding it has been examined. Numerous studies have confirmed that the K-12 education system is grossly negligent in providing students …

Stinky Water And Other Ills: Environmental Justice For Rural Services, Michael R. Daley

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Environmental justice concerns affect rural communities and the people who are members of them. Social workers’ long-standing involvement in improving living conditions of the people and communities with whom they work make environmental justice an important responsibility. Yet there is a rural-urban divide on topics related to the environment, and rural and urban communities tend to establish different environmental priorities. Rural communities tend to prioritize local conditions and solutions over global and societal ones. Rural people distrust national policies especially those established by governmental as not being responsive to their interest. Some common environmental rural problems are identified. Environmental justice …

Children’S Participation Rights In Child Welfare Systems: Identifying Opportunities For Implementation, Anna M. Cody

Theses and Dissertations

Children’s participation rights are critically important for supporting children’s well-being. Studies across the world consistently demonstrate that children and youth feel uninvolved, silenced and marginalized within the child welfare context which has a direct impact on their physical safety as well as their subjective well-being. There has been a shift in US policy and practice towards recognizing the value and importance of engaging youth, older youth in particular, in being involved with planning for their care and for their future. However, definitions of what meaningful “youth engagement” might look like within the child welfare context generally lack clarity. In addition, …

Unsheltered Homelessness On Oahu, Hawaii, Erik Gray

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

According to a recent national estimate of homelessness in the United States, between 2016 and 2017, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 0.7 %. This study was focused on the issue of unsheltered homelessness in the context of Oahu, Hawaii. There is a gap within the available scholarly literature that directly addresses the unsheltered homeless populations and why it is that they are unsheltered rather than living in a shelter or utilizing other transitional services. Using the generic qualitative approach and a purposive sampling method, 12 service provider professionals who work directly with the unsheltered homeless on the …

Shifting The System: Aaspire And The Loom Of Science And Activism, Dora Raymaker

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2006 Dora Raymaker, Autistic person and autistic rights activist, co-founded the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) with Christina Nicolaidis, a physician-researcher and parent of an autistic child. AASPIRE works within the sphere of academic health and social services research to conduct projects the A/autistic community wants done. It endeavors to return power to communities that experience oppression to make their voices heard in research and policy settings. For example, its website autismandhealth.org offers resources for autistic adults, their supporters, and healthcare providers to improve the healthcare of autistic adults in the US. AASPIRE has served …

Harm Reduction Through Effective Volunteer Training, Rebecca Hohman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Through a combination of business education and social work competencies, an in-depth analysis of volunteer training was created from existing data and applied to qualitative survey data of nonprofit leaders in the local city of Akron, Ohio. The overall aim of the project was to base volunteer training on evidence, as evidence-based practice is a hallmark of social work practice. In doing so, the training would also aim to build connections among volunteers and between volunteers and the organization to retain the volunteers who were trained and increase the efficiency of the training. Thus, the project sought to reduce two …

The Social Construction Of Arab Identity In The U.S.: The Historical Complicity And The Modern Responsibility Of Social Work, Suhad Tabahi, Jacob Bucher

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper presents the sociopolitical experiences of early Arab migrants in the United States (U.S.) and the process of contradictory and socially constructed racial categorizations favoring white supremacy. While there is much discourse of the racial formation of Arab immigrants since 9-11, the actual racial project started in the early twentieth century, through varies entities including the social work profession where the “othering” process of early Arabs Americans existed in social welfare practice. Examples of the pejorative attitudes towards Arab immigrants from the early social work discourse are examined through proceedings from the National Conference on Social Welfare (NCSW) in …

Review Of Shaping A Science Of Social Work: Professional Knowledge And Identity By John Brekke And Jeane Anastas, Yawen Li

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Review of Shaping a Science of Social Work: Professional Knowledge and Identity by John Brekke and Jeane Anastas, Oxford University Press (2019).

Deconstructing The Racialized Cannabis User: Cannabis Criminalization And Intersections With The Social Work Profession, Amar Ghelani

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Cannabis users have been historically stigmatized and criminalized for non-violent behaviors such as consuming, producing, and distributing cannabis. Racialized cannabis users in particular have been constructed as fundamentally different, dangerous, and mentally unstable, while state actors have benefited from the subjugation of this group. The following article reviews the history of cannabis prohibition with an emphasis on the social construction of racialized cannabis users and role of social workers in the treatment of this group. As laws liberalizing cannabis use and trade are passed across North America, an emergent legal framework is maintaining racial divides and marginalizing non- White cannabis …

What Is It About Coda And Will? Exploring The Experiences Of School Social Workers Using Canine-Assisted Therapy In Their Clinical Practice With Students., Suzanne Mcdermid

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research project explores the experiences of school social workers partnering with trained, accredited facility dogs in an Ontario school board. A qualitative research methodology using an interpretative phenomenological analysis has been employed. Results reveal that organizational support is key to the successful integration of facility dogs in clinical social work practice within a school board. Environmental considerations allow for the establishment of therapeutic conditions that support positive interactions and interventions with a canine. Findings clarify three dimensions of canine-assisted therapy: connection, attunement and the handler-canine relationship. Connection is the ‘magic’ of canine-assisted therapy, the essence of an interaction between …

Chapter 14: Hospice And End-Of-Life Care, Sally Pelon, Brandon Youker, M. Paola Leon

Books and Contributions to Books

This chapter explores end-of-life issues and concerns as well as the hospice movement’s role in assisting terminally ill individuals. Specific social work assessment and interventions tools are offered considered as well as controversial issues in end-of-life care.

The Burgeoning Information Universe: Implication For Social Work Education And Practice, Sarah C. Johnson Mslis, Lmsw, Margaret Bausman Lcsw-R, Mslis, Sarah Laleman Ward Mlis, Ma

Publications and Research

The information universe is fierce and ubiquitous, replete with a 24 hour news cycle, trolls, bots, fake news, predatory publishers, and paywalls. The exponential acceleration in access to information during these nascent years of the 21st century is simultaneously a victory for egalitarianism and promotion of social equity as well as a daunting hotbed for scurrilous and obfuscated resources requiring discerning and supple information literacy skills to efficiently and effectively navigate an ever burgeoning wealth of knowledge. If, as the above quotations imply, life-long learning and contribution to the knowledge foundation is an ethical standard for professional social workers and …

Service User Inclusion In Social Work Education, A Factor Analysis, Nafees Alam

Social Work Faculty Publications

Based on the Principle Component Analysis extraction method using the Varimax with Kaiser Normalization rotation method, the Rotated Component Matrix gleans three extracted factors that were then examined for loading. Analysis finds Component 1 (C1) pertains to student development, Component 2 (C2) pertains to professional development and Component 3 (C3) pertains to service user compensation, with linear regression showing all three components as statistically significant, each with a significance of 0.000. C1, student development, has an unstandardized beta of 5.690 and a standardized beta of 0.783, C2, professional development has an unstandardized beta of 3.016 and standardized beta of 0.415 …

Resisting Gentrification: The Theoretical And Practice Contributions Of Social Work, Amie Thurber, Amy Krings, Linda S. Martinez, Mary Ohmer

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Summary

Gentrification is changing the landscape of many cities worldwide, exacerbating economic and racial inequality. Despite its relevance to social work, the field has been conspicuously absent from scholarship related to gentrification. This paper introduces the dominant view of gentrification (a political economic lens), highlighting its contributions and vulnerabilities, then introduces four case studies that illuminate the distinct contributions of social work to broaden the ways in which gentrification is theorized and responded to within communities.

Findings

When gentrification is analyzed exclusively through a political economy lens, researchers, policy makers, and practitioners are likely to focus on changes in land …

Connections For Change, Shirley Simon

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author, a social work educator, describes how a light bulb moment led her to recognize that professional associations need the youth, energy and enthusiasm of student involvement, and that social work students need the mentoring, networking, professionalism and purpose of the professional community. Recognizing that students need to find their voice and their passion, she made it her mission, through involvement in the International Association for Social Work with Groups, to ignite a sense of empowerment in these budding professionals and encourage their engagement with the hard work of this profession.

Bringing Upstairs Care Downstairs; Integration Of Rehabilitation Medicine, Care Management, And The Hospital Elder Life Program (Help) Into An Emergency Department., Robert Anderson, Molly Anderson, Rhonda Babine, Farid Feghali, Elizabeth Dunstan, Matthew Glazer, Susan Horton, Stephanie O'Brien, Elizabeth Pontius, David Smith, Megan Viens, Heather Williams

Journal of Maine Medical Center

Introduction: Services such as physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), speech-language pathology (SLP), social work (SW), care management, and elder life specialists have long been an established part of care for patients admitted to Maine Medical Center (MMC) but not for patients in the Emergency Department (ED). Methods and Results: Driven in part by changes in Medicare reimbursement models, care management established a presence in the Emergency Department (ED) in 2003 with a focus on care planning and cost avoidance. In recent years PT, OT, SLP, SW, and the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) have increased their ED involvement substantially. …

Social Work Students' View On The Integration Of Religion In Social Work, Araceli Delgado

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study focused on social work students’ views on the integration of religion in social work. This study allowed students to gain knowledge and insight on the importance of discussing religion with clients. The study examined social worker students’ experiences during their involvement in the social work program which looked into how prepared they were in situations where religion was necessary to discuss with clients and other outcomes.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with ten participants who discussed their experiences in internships during their involvement within the social work program. Participants were in different years in the BASW and MSW program …

Active Shooter Preparedness Training, Clarissa Welch, Nancy Villalta

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an Active Shooter Incident (ASI) training implemented at Southern California University (SCU). The purpose of this study was to assess students’ level of preparedness, anxiety, and knowledge about ASIs. Prior to collecting the data, an officer from the University Police Department (UPD) provided an ASI training for students where they were able to learn about safety procedures. Data was collected from a sample of Bachelor and Master level students within the SCU School of Social Work Department. Participants were given a questionnaire that consisted of questions regarding students’ level …

Understanding Implicit Bias In Public Defender Social Workers, Jess Laird

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated that implicit bias is an inescapable part of the human experience that can have harmful repercussions. Its effects can be seen particularly in the criminal justice system where those of marginalized groups are disproportionately represented. Social workers in the public defender’s office representing indigent clients in the criminal justice system, implicit bias can negatively impact client outcomes or service access. This study sought to explore how these social workers understand implicit bias in their work and will be conducted using qualitative analysis through the use of interviews and document review. This research found that social workers in …

Volunteer Service As A Coping Strategy For Social Workers Against Professional Burnout, Jessy Jean Salloum, Francesca Maria Augusta Twohy-Haines

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Burnout is a prominent issue among the social work profession. Methods to mitigate the effects of burnout have received considerable attention in social work research. This study focuses on a potential method of coping with burnout; volunteerism. While literature is scarce regarding the effects of volunteerism on burnout rates among social workers, studies in related fields such as nursing, public-sector public administrators, and nonprofit workers indicate that volunteerism has potential benefits against burnout. This study’s purpose is to determine whether involvement in volunteer service is related to lower rates of burnout among social workers. This quantitative study uses data from …