Social Work Commons^™

Dealing With The Unsuccessful Cases: An Assessment Of The Experiences And Process Of Coping With Patient Suicide In Mental Healthcare Professionals, Jennifer Heinemann

Social Work Theses

Mental health care professionals will inevitably encounter all types of “unsuccessful cases” in their line of work. Patient suicide is the extreme of these cases and can have a negative impact on their personal and professional life. This study sought to continue and expand research in this area by investigating the experiences and impact of patient suicide on all mental health professionals, the services available to them, and their opinions on best practice methods. Twenty- eight in-patient and five out-patient mental healthcare workers in Rhode Island were surveyed for this study. Analysis confirmed the impact of patient suicide on professionals …

Voices Of Women In Rural India: Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, And Education, Joanne Riebschleger Ph.D., Lmsw, Brittany Fila Basw

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Women self-help group participants in rural northern India described living with social and economic challenges, including persistent poverty and discrimination. Self-help group participants, teachers, administrators, and parents discussed rural education. Stakeholders talked with a social work student serving an intensive internship in a grassroots non-governmental organization. A grounded theory approach guided data collection, coding, and analysis. Self-help group participant data themes included the empowerment of women and development of entrepreneurship. Education stakeholders revealed a need for increased access to education, especially for girls and young women. Therefore, recommendations centered on “3 E’s” – empowerment, entrepreneurship, and education. American and Indian …

Child Safety And Children In The Education System: Prioritizing The Need For Statewide Anti-Bullying Policies, Angelique Day

Social Work Faculty Publications

This study was conducted to explore the responses of 380 students enrolled at Michigan State University who had experienced bullying in high school as victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Findings included significant predictors of bullying behavior. For example, male students were more likely to bully than their female counterparts; and bystanders who witnessed bullying incidents were more likely to become both victims and/or perpetrators of bullying. The MSU students offered recommendations for policymakers to create anti-bullying legislation with enforcement guidelines and other methods of improving school culture to reduce future bullying incidents.

Taking It To The Streets! Engaging In The Praxis Of Community Organization, Paul Force-Emery Mackie

Social Work Department Publications

This grassroots action focused on excessive property development of affordable, single-family homes against aggressive property developers. This presentation traces the author's involvement with a variety of neighborhood stakeholders, socio-political entities, and BSSW students to work for real, positive, sustainable social change to improve their local community.

A Culture Of Giving: The Effect Of Activism On Teenage Girls And Their Ability To Investigate Social Change Through Volunteerism, Amanda Settlage

Whittier Scholars Program

My senior project is studying the effects that being involved in community organizations has on teenage girls ages 14-18. My primary focus has been on volunteerism in an activist capacity, especially for social change. This project has been done in a way that argues that volunteerism is positive for girls and their communities. I chose to study teenage girls because I have a broader interest in the effect that being involved in community organization has on women but also because I wanted to look at the lifetime effects of volunteering at a relatively young age. Also, teenagers are among the …

Emotional Exhaustion And Workload Demands Of Kidney Transplant Social Workers, Joseph R. Merighi, Teri Browne, Sarah Keenan

Faculty and Staff Publications

This exploratory study examined training issues, emotional exhaustion and workload demands in U.S. kidney transplant socialworkers. Online survey data were obtained from 91 respondents who represented all 18 End-Stage Renal Disease networks.Findings indicated that the majority of the respondents’ employers provided resources for educational training and paid timeoff associated with these trainings. With regard to hours per week spent on specific job tasks, respondents indicated that pretransplantactivities were the most time-consuming, followed by post-transplant and inpatient work. Generally, emotionalexhaustion and workload demands were slightly lower than reported for dialysis social workers. Implications for social workpractice and research are discussed.

Loss In Translation: A Model For Therapeutic Engagement And Intervention With Grieving Clients, Shelley Cohen Konrad

Social Work Faculty Publications

Bearing witness to grief is about accepting and experiencing suffering as an unavoidable aspect of loss. It also entails listening to and responding with clients in a way that affirms that their experiences have been heard and understood. This article describes a model for therapeutic engagement and intervention with grieving clients. The model is informed by contemporary grief and practice theories characterized by such qualities as emotional presence, reciprocity, responsiveness, empathic expression, and meaning making. Case examples from the author’s research and practice experience illustrate how these qualities contribute to what she describes as translational relationships that lead to transformations …

Understanding The Complexities Of Workforce Issues Among Rural Social Workers, Paul Force-Emery Mackie

Social Work Department Publications

This presentation addresses a brief history of knowledge around rural social work (including demographics), the current state of knowledge on rural workforce issues, the social work workforce in rural and remote areas, recruitment and retention issues and concerns, and suggestions for future development of social work workforce, research, and knowledge development.

Social Policy And Constructivism: Using Constructivist Learning Theory In Teaching Social Work Students Research Skills, Linda Sizemore, Brad Marcum

The Southeastern Librarian

Principles of constructivist learning theory were used in developing a process-oriented approach to research skills instruction as applied to real world social problems and social policy responses. Building upon past experiences in establishing collaborative relationships with social work faculty, the theories of constructivism, Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process, and collaborative learning were incorporated into the framework of efforts to provide library instruction at important developmental phases, also known as “zones of intervention”, in student coursework involving three successive social work classes. This article will attempt to describe the above concepts and articulate how these concepts were employed in efforts to improve …

Social Workers In Rural Areas: Research On Workforce Issues, Recruitment, And Retention, Paul Force-Emery Mackie

Social Work Department Publications

This presentation addresses a brief history of knowledge around rural social work, the current state of knowledge on rural workforce issues, the social work workforce in rural and remote areas, recruitment and retention issues and concerns, and suggestions for future development of social work workforce, research, and knowledge development.

Teaching Icwa Online: Undergraduate Child Welfare Student Learning, Paul Force-Emery Mackie, Mackenzie Collin

Social Work Department Publications

The "ICWA Online" class was developed to provide a critical learning experience to Title IV-E students who will likely work with Native American children and families sometime in their careers and social workers. This presentation is designed to outline and show how we are attempting to do this using current technology and platforms - to keep the promise established by ICWA 30 years ago... Today.

Alzheimer's Caregiving Appraisal, Andre' Fortier

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge base of AD caregiving appraisal by understanding a connection of factors that influence caregiving appraisal. It is important for the profession of social work to understand the complexities which may impact the level of care and/or appraisal. A combination of research questions and hypotheses were devised to determine the influence of each factor and/or a combination of factors on caregiving appraisal. The survey comprises of six sections: demographics and stage of AD, burden, resilience, family strengths, ethnic awareness, and caregiving appraisal. The overall survey was designed by the researcher; …

Psychosocial Aspects Of The 2008 End-Stage Renal Disease Conditions For Coverage, Teri Browne

Faculty and Staff Publications

On October 14, 2008, practices and policies in every dialysis unit in the United States and its territories will besignificantly changed with the implementation of the 2008 Conditions for Coverage (CfCs) for End-Stage RenalDisease Facilities (Office of the Federal Register, 2008). These CfCs mark the first wholesale change in the regulationsfor dialysis units in more than 30 years, and the Council of Nephrology Social Workers (CNSW) is makingevery effort to provide its members with the tools and resources they need to adapt to and adopt these new CfCs.This special issue of The Journal of Nephrology Social Work is intended to …

Faith-Based Organizations And Legislative Advocacy: A Qualitative Inquiry, M. Lori Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Since the early 1990s, religion and matters of faith and spirituality have become a focal point in numerous arenas beyond the individual and traditionally sacred. With President George W. Bush's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives of 2001, the Charitable Choice provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act that preceded it in 1996, and the myriad of legal challenges that followed, matters of religion have become paramount in political discourse regarding social welfare. The viability of faith-based social service provision and the organizations providing the direct services have been the focus of speculation, debate, and …

Negotiating 'Professional Agency': Social Work And Decision-Making Within The Ontario Child Welfare System, Henry Parada, Lisa Barnoff, Brienne Coleman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores how social work as a discipline has helped to negotiate professional agency in decision-making within the restructured child protection system. The narratives of child protection workers affirm that a restrictive climate does exist in child protection agencies and that it indeed shapes the way they make their decisions. This study uses institutional ethnography as the methodology for exploring the decision-making practices of child protection workers. Three forms of data collection were used: experience as data, documentation reviews and in-depth interviews.

Two Decades After Mcmartin: A Follow-Up Of 22 Convicted Day Care Employees, Mary Deyoung

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It has been more that two decades since the notorious McMartin Preschool case created a day care ritual abuse master-narrative that recruited many social workers into becoming involved in case-finding, investigations, interviewing and advocacy. The purpose of this article is threefold: it introduces a sample of 22 day care employees who were convicted in day care ritual abuse cases; it updates their current legal status; and it discusses the relevance of these cases to social workers who currently are being recruited by today's new master narratives about extrafamilial sexual threats to children, whether from neighborhood pedophiles, child pornographers, parish priests …

Debra L. Delaet On Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book By Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications, 2006. 271pp., Debra L. Delaet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book by Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2006. 271pp.

The Use Of Critical Ethnography In Managed Mental Health Care Settings, Cassandra L. Bransford

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

How social workers in managed mental health care settings exercise their professional authority may have profound consequences for the provision of ethical and value-based services to vulnerable populations. Building upon Gidden's theory of structuration, this article describes the use of critical ethnography as a specific research methodology that may support social workers in the exercise of their authority. This article examines the historical roots of critical ethnography and provides a detailed examination of its underlying assumptions and research procedures. The article concludes with a case example of a critical ethnography conducted within a managed mental health care setting.

The Poet/Practitioner: A Paradigm For The Profession, Rich Furman, Carol L. Langer, Debra K. Anderson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores a new paradigm or model for the professional social worker: The poet/practitioner. The training and practice of the poet are congruent with many aspects of social work practice. An examination of the practice of the poet, and the congruence of these practices to social work, reveals a paradigm with the capacity to focus social workers on the essential values of our profession. This paradigm, which highlights the humanistic, creative, and socially conscience role of the social work practitioner, may be particularly important today given the medicalization of social problems and the conservitization of society.

Social Work, Independent Realities & The Circle Of Moral Considerability: Respect For Humans, Animals & The Natural World, Thomas D. Ryan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Social work's conceptualization as to what it is that entitles an individual or entity to moral consideration, or as having moral status, is thoroughly anthropocentric, and is articulated in complete disregard of the context of our fundamental evolutionary continuity and our embeddedness within an evolving natural world, and flies in the face of the reality that we already inhabit mixed communities and a wider household. It is deemed to be obvious that we are islands of moral value in an otherwise valueless natural world.

Nephrology Social Work: History In The Making, Teri Browne

Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethnic/Racial Matching Of Clients And Social Workers In Public Child Welfare, Robin Perry, Gordon E. Limb

Faculty Publications

Although considerable debate exists throughout the human-service literature regarding the potential benefits and limitations associated with ethnic/racial matching of clients and workers, there are few studies that examine the prevalence of this practice with large representative samples. This study utilizes a secondary analysis of data collected from 4813 public-child-welfare workers throughout California. Using census data to control for county-specific population demographics, American-Indian, Hispanic/Latino(a), Caucasian, and Asian-American child-welfare workers are more than two times more likely to have caseloads with a high percentage of clients who match their race/ethnicity than workers self-identified as another race/ethnicity. African-American workers are 1.28 times more …

The Sound Of Silence: Social Work, The Academy, And Iraq, Scott Harding

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Despite the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq in 1990, the social work academy has ignored the impact of this global social policy promoted by the international community. Though evidence existed for more than 10 years that sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and other vulnerable groups in Iraq, while also crippling the nation's health care and social infrastructure, the profession has remained silent. The implications of this case study suggest a need for greater engagement by social work researchers and the profession on global issues.

Spirituality And Self-Efficacy In Counseling And Social Work Trainees, Pam J. Matthews

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships of the counseling/social work trainee spirituality and religion/spirituality awareness to trainee self-efficacy in counseling clients with religious/spiritual issues or backgrounds. In addition, the study explored the influence of demographic variables on spirituality, religion/spirituality awareness, and self-efficacy including: (a) religious/spiritual affiliation (Christian, Non-Christian), (b) ethnicity (Caucasian, Non-Caucasian), (c) training/accreditation program affiliation, (d) gender, and (e) age.

Families And The Republic, John Braithwaite

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Restorative and responsive justice can be a strategy of social work practice that builds democracy bottom-up by seeing families as building blocks of democracy and fonts of democratic sentiment. At the same time, because families are sites of the worst kinds of tyranny and the worst kinds of neglect, a rule of law is needed that imposes public human rights obligations on families. The republican ideal is that this rule of law that constrains people in families should come from the people. Restorative and responsive justice has a strategy for the justice of the people to bubble up into the …

Lisa Schechtman On Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice By Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp., Lisa Schechtman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice by Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp.

Testing, Treatment, And Trust: Social Work Professional Development And The Genomics Revolution, Anna M. Scheyett, Kimberly Strom-Gottfried

Faculty and Staff Publications

Knowledge in the area of human genetics and genomics is expanding at an exponential pace, with significant implications for social work in health, mental health, and other settings. This article identifies some key roles social workers may play in the arena of genetics, discusses social workers responsibility for ongoing professional development in this area, and describes a flexible genetics and genomics social work curriculum developed by the authors. We provide an evaluation of pilot curriculum implementations, discuss ongoing strategies and barriers to dissemination, and make recommendations for future actions to more fully incorporate genetics and genomics content into the social …

Nadia Yakoob On Best Practices For Social Work With Refugees And Immigrants By Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 538 Pp., Nadia Yakoob

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Best Practices for Social Work with Refugees and Immigrants by Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 538 pp.

Infertility And Marital Adjustment: The Influence Of Perception Of Social Support, Privacy Preference And Level Of Depression, Margaret Haviland Maillet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of perception of social support, privacy preference and level of depression on marital adjustment for couples presenting for infertility treatment. Data was obtained from three infertility clinics in Louisiana from January 1, 2001 through October 1, 2001. Forty-seven couples presenting for infertility treatment completed four questionnaires measuring marital adjustment, perception of social support, privacy preference and level of depression. Demographic and descriptive information was gathered from an information sheet completed by the subjects. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine which, if any, of the independent variables predicted the dependent …

Social Work Practitioners And Technology Transfer, Anna M. Scheyett, Amelia C. Roberts, Raymond Kirk

Faculty and Staff Publications

The application of new skills and interventions into the practice community is often slow and haphazard. A coaching intervention is proposed to augment traditional social work education techniques and maximize the integration of new knowledge into social work practice. This coaching model includes assessment of a practitioner's readiness for change, stage-wise coaching interventions, assessment of organizational barriers to the transfer of new information, and development of strategies to address these barriers. Implications for social work professionals development and future research are discussed.