Social Work Commons^™

Review Of Student Service-Learning Program In The Early Period Of The Higher Education System In Indonesia, Andi Sri Wahyuni

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This study investigates the early formation and historical development of student service-learning in Indonesia from a global context. Employing a qualitative approach, it utilizes archival research methods for examining the inception of student service- learning, a community empowerment program conducted by the students in the country. It analyzed international documents sourced from Google Books archives, which are available through various online platforms and supplemented by the use of Google Ngram Viewer. The findings indicate that the concept of student service- learning was introduced in Indonesia during the academic year 1971/1972 and adopted by numerous universities before it became mandatory for …

Identification And Removal Of Barriers To Va Mental Health Treatment For Black Female Veterans, Thea Jenune Williams

DSW Capstone Projects

The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) operates the largest integrated health care system in the country. The VA dates back to 1865, when President Lincoln signed legislature establishing a network for caring for the nation’s wounded after the Civil War. Many see this system as a safety net for the nation’s military veterans. Research shows veterans have reported several factors that interfere with them receiving needed mental health treatment from the VA. The majority of veterans are males however the number of females is quickly growing. Currently, females make up 11% of the veteran population and are projected to reach …

Black Women And The Weight Of The World: When The Weight Becomes Too Much To Bear, April R. Edmonds

DSW Capstone Projects

ABSTRACT

Black women’s mental health continues to go largely underrepresented. Black women are seen as having many protective factors such as their faith communities, family and friends, and what others see as strength and resilience. A review of the literature depicts Black women as traditionally being caretakers, nurturers, and depicted as strong (Castelin & White, 2022). Because of this perception, terms such as the Strong Black Woman Schema and the Black Superwoman Phenomena are what many equate Black women with. This scholarship instead shows how associations such as these impact Black women negatively and impose additional stigma and hardship. Research …

Social Work's Unremitting Identity Crisis: Can The Dsw Provide Answers?, Debra Joyce Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThis study is centered on a long-standing professional identity dilemma that poses potential problems for the future of the field of social work. Current literature points to specific shortcomings in the field that threaten the future of the profession. Some researchers also suggest that the reemergence of the Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) may be used to solve some of the identity concerns with the profession. The study further asserts that practicing licensed clinical social workers (LCSW) have not been a part of the conversation regarding the identity issues or the remedies that the field is considering. Using both a …

School Social Workers’ Role In School Discipline: Understanding School Discipline And Juvenile Justice, Staisha D. Hamilton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Disproportionate disciplinary actions relating to school-based offenses for Black youth influence their early juvenile justice involvement. The continued excessive disciplinary actions involving Black male students in lower-level academic settings are concerning because, without being addressed, continuing disproportionate disciplinary action toward Black males can lead to future juvenile justice involvement and create a large-scale social work practice issue. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to focus on school social workers’ perspectives of their role in addressing disproportionate disciplinary strategies and their understanding of the relationship between school discipline strategies and juvenile justice involvement. The theoretical framework of this project …

Strategies For Emotional Intelligence Training For Improving Employee Performance, Dale Elizabeth Laing-Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The nursing home industry's lack of emotional intelligence (EI) can negatively impact patient satisfaction and performance. Nursing home leaders who lack strategies to apply EI training to increase job satisfaction, reduce employee turnover, and improve interpersonal skills risk financial loss and business failure. Grounded in the EI framework, the purpose of this multiple qualitative case study was to explore strategies nursing home leaders use to apply EI training to reduce employee turnover, increase job satisfaction, and improve interpersonal skills for performance improvement. The participants comprised four nursing home leaders from multiple nursing homes in Florida who implemented strategies to reduce …

Relationships Between Stress, Family Support, And Resources Among Custodial Grandparents In Appalachia, Yvonne Sherii Lee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Appalachian region has experienced a substantial increase in the number of grandparent-headed households providing care to grandchildren. Custodial parenting is not a typical responsibility for many grandparents and can be challenging. The specific problem addressed in this research study was the high level of stress experienced by many custodial grandparents. The theoretical foundation of the current study was based on Selye’s stress theory, which was introduced in 1936 and examined biological stress that he referred to as “the syndrome of being sick.” The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental, and correlational study was to examine the predictive relationship that custodial …

I’M Ok: Black Women’S Perceptions Of Vulnerability And Coping, Bridget Lewis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Within the social work profession, there has been limited understanding of tailoring treatment and coping strategies specific to Black women. The parallelism of Black women and strength has created a generational, internal conflict with maintaining the cultural label known as the strong Black woman (SBW) and stigma related to seeking help to improve mental health. The stigma associated with seeking help has hindered Black women from communicating thoughts or behaviors that categorize vulnerability. Grounded in the SBW collective theory and Black womanist theory, this study explored how the SBW stereotype impacts the communication on vulnerability and coping strategies Black women …

Well-Being Among Foster Parents Of Children With A History Of Sexual Abuse, Jelenny Marquez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There are over half a million children and adolescents living in foster care in the United States, and many of them endure frequent disruptions to their placements. Disruptions are more common among children with a history of sexual abuse. The disruption of placement increases the likelihood of undesirable outcomes for both the children and their foster parents. Foster parents who are willing to offer a home that is safe and stable for a child in the foster care system are more important than ever. This qualitative study explored foster parents’ experiences of well-being after having fostered children with a history …

Who Has Control In The Courtroom?: Maine Lawyers' Process For Client Representation Family Matters Cases And How Perceptions Of Coercive Control Impact Their Process, Katie Seelen Msw

All Student Scholarship

Supervising Professor: Rachel Casey Informed by the researcher’s work with women struggling through separation and child custody legal proceedings with their abusive male co-parents, the study seeks to understand if and how Maine’s court system considers intimate partner violence (IPV) in family matters cases. The research aims to gain specific insight into family lawyers’ understanding and consideration of coercive control—a term encompassing gender-based, psychologically abusive and controlling behaviors—when representing clients in divorce and parental rights and responsibilities cases. Under the label “post-separation abuse,” growing literature demonstrates the extent to which coercive control among separating co-parents manifests through the family court …

The Ambiguous Loss Of Alcohol Use Disorders For Affected Family Members: Can Al-Anon Involvement And Psychological Flexibility Make A Difference?, Giselle Hernandez Navarro

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD) destroy the health of many afflicted people, as well as their affected family members (AFMs). The purpose of this quantitative dissertation was to explore relevant variables for AFMs based on ambiguous loss theory and relational frame theory. In this study, 310 AFMs completed online surveys through MTurk. Differences in AFMs’ Al-Anon involvement (i.e., no involvement, newcomer, member) were investigated relative to psychological flexibility, psychological inflexibility, boundary ambiguity, distress, and ambiguous loss resilience (i.e., ambiguity tolerance). Results indicated Al-Anon involvement was not a significant variable in relation to AFMs’ distress or ambiguity tolerance outcomes. Psychological flexibility, psychological …

‘Have They Talked About Us At All?’ The Moral Distress Of Healthcare Social Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Investigation In The State Of Texas, Sophia Fantus, Rebecca Cole, Lataya Hawkins, Priyanjali Chakraborty

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Amid the ongoing pandemic, as overburdened and underfunded health systems are requiring health care social workers (HSWs) to assume responsibilities beyond their scope of practice, institutional constraints have undoubtedly heightened encounters of moral distress (MD). MD is the psychological disequilibrium that arises when institutional factors obligate an individual to carry out a task that violates their professional and/or personal ethics. Our qualitative study investigated HSWs’ (n = 43) MD in Texas during the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from our study indicate that MD occurs across five levels: (i) patient care decisions; (ii) personal care decisions; (iii) team/unit decisions; (iv) …

Parenting Style In Childhood And Attitudes Toward Caregiving In Adulthood: A Qualitative Study, Abby Baumbach, M. Courtney Hughes, Lily Derain, Yujun Liu

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This study aims to explore how relationships with parents during childhood can influence an individual’s attitude toward caregiving later in life. The qualitative data came from 47 respondents who care for adult loved ones, with a caregiver mean age of 46.7. The respondents reflected on their recent experience of providing care for their loved ones and how experiences with their caregivers growing up may have influenced their caregiving attitudes. Using a codebook thematic analysis, themes were generated linking childhood experiences to current attitudes toward caregiving. Themes included reciprocating good care, performing obligatory care, and stopping the generational transference of negative …

The Effects Of Relational Poverty: Healing Our Culture, Jenet Erickson

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

One of the most vexing challenges of our day is a profound hunger for connection, evidenced by an epidemic of loneliness, violence, relational poverty, and increasing mental health challenges. We are born to be in deep connection with others. As German analyst Frieda Fromm-Reichman wrote, “The longing for interpersonal intimacy stays with every human being from infancy through life, and there is no human being who is not threatened by its loss.” A radical cultural focus on autonomy with the associated ruptures in family stability, decreased religiosity and community engagement have increased loneliness in spite of the seeming “connectivity” of …

Secondary Traumatic Stress Is An Occupational Hazard For Pet Hospice Support Staff: Psychoeducational Support Groups Provide The Cure, Kari Hayden

DSW Capstone Projects

There are three separate yet interrelated products presented in this final capstone product. The completed product is focused on pet hospice veterinary support staff and the need for an evidence-based social work intervention to combat secondary traumatic stress. This capstone uses the andragogical approach to adult learning theory as the foundation to construct a psychoeducational peer support group specific to this population. Implications for clinical social work in veterinary medicine are presented within this project.

The first scholarly product presented is the Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The SLR utilizes a scoping review process in an attempt to locate prior research …

International Social Work Field Education, Shelli Gregory

DSW Capstone Projects

International Social Work Field Education (ISWFE) involves a set of unique challenges. For the literature review of this capstone project 20 peer-reviewed journal articles written between the years 2009 and 2018 were reviewed to answer the following research question: What are the unique challenges associated with ISWFE and the best practices for combatting these challenges? The challenges most frequently mentioned in the literature are the perpetuation of colonial mindset; students experiencing emotional vulnerabilities, stress, & distress (guilt, shame, loneliness, fear, helplessness, isolation, and homesickness); supervisory issues; language barriers; funding; culture shock, disequilibrium, or clash; safety concerns; administrative problems such as …

Acculturative Stress And Quality Of Life Among Older Korean Immigrants: Do Religiosity And Resilience Matter?, Sunghwan Cho

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of acculturative stress on the quality of life among older adults has been widely acknowledged in previous literature. However, few studies have explored the role of religiosity and resilience in this relationship among older Korean immigrants. This dissertation explores the relationships between acculturative stress, religiosity, resilience, and quality of life among 300 older adults aged 65 years and over who live in an ethnic Korean enclave of Queens, New York. The study employs path analysis and multiple regression analyses to test hypothesized relationships among these variables.

The key findings of the study are as follows: (1) higher acculturative …

Demonstrated Sensitivity, Kate Crankshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Flameworking is a tedious process that demands all of your attention and focus. Making multiples of a shape in this process allows my body and mind to fall into a rhythm. During these times, it allows my anxious mind to be quieted and helps me dive into processing past memories, trauma, and grief. It is commonly suggested in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy practices to find an activity to do that is both physical and repetitive to work through grief. This stimulates the physical and mental parts of the body, both areas where the effects of grief and trauma are held. Relaxing …

Wrestling With The One Drop Rule: Exploring Multiraciality In Social Work Education, Britney Pitts

Theses and Dissertations

This three paper dissertation aims to provide a baseline understanding of how multiraciality is understood in social work education. The first paper, a fusion autoethnography, explores how my own perception of my multiracial identity was clarified throughout my social work education. This exploration led to the development of incongruent logic in/validation (ILV), a new aspect of racial identity invalidation (RII). The second paper, a multimethod qualitative case study, explores master of social work (MSW) students’ knowledge, attitudes, and anticipated professional behaviors with multiracial individuals and families. Themes from this study include: never explicitly learned about multiraciality; non-ecological endorsements of multiracial …

A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Factors Associated With Burnout Among Early Childhood Education And Care Providers, Lee Wells

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Burnout among the early childhood workforce has gained widespread attention in research and policy due to greater awareness of the negative impacts on children, providers, and organizations. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers create supportive and nurturing environments that facilitate early learning and development for young children. Accordingly, ECEC providers are the connective tissue between program intentions and outcomes. Despite the critical nature of the field, early childhood providers continue to be underpaid, under-resourced, and undervalued, leading to a high risk of burnout. With turnover rates of ECEC providers higher than ever, the link between burnout and attrition has …