Social Work Commons^™

Reflections On The Bgj Anti-Racism Seminar, Michelle Billies

Publications and Research

In this Letter to the Editor, Billies (2021) responds to critical and supportive opinion pieces in the British Gestalt Journal (BGJ) following their plenary presentation at BGJ’s 2018 annual seminar (see Asherson Bartram, 2019; O’Malley, 2019). As author of the companion article "How/ Can Gestalt Therapy Promote Liberation from Anti-Black Racism?” (Billies, 2021), Billies, who identifies as white, discusses the intent at the seminar to support white people to increase accountability and reduce harm in dialogue with people of color, while supporting the work and needs of people of color on their terms from a Gestalt perspective. Describing a fishbowl …

Understanding Female Full-Time Social Workers’ Experience Providing Informal Care For Older Loved Ones, Randi L. Anderson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Limited research existed regarding the experience of informal caregiving that female social workers provide to older loved ones while managing a full-time social work position. The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to understand how Female Master’s level Social Workers (FMSWs) who are also informal caregivers manage these roles and whether the roles impact current and future well-being. Role spillover theory and cumulative disadvantage theory were the theoretical frameworks. Data were collected from nine participants through interviews completed on Zoom. The participants responded interview questions about significant changes in their levels of stress, resiliency, or burnout at work …

Social Workers' Perceptions Of The Effectiveness Of Interventions On Csec Behavior, Tonia Ifeanyi Ukanwoke

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractCommercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and child sex trafficking involve the sexual abuse, exploitation, and the trafficking of minors for financial benefits or in exchange for something valuable, which may include monetary or nonmonetary benefits that are given or received by any person. It is imperative to develop interventions that provide direct service to CSEC and/or sex-trafficked youths. The intervention used should adopt evidence-based modalities that have demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness with CSEC and sex trafficked youths. Seeking safety therapy is one such evidence-based therapy that could address CSEC behavior and safety in New York City (NYC) and ultimately …

Social Worker Perceptions Of Lgbt Cultural Competent Practice Within Hospitals, Ronald Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Social work cultural competence within a hospital setting has gained importance due to the various changes to how health care is delivered within the United States hospital system. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) individuals seeking care have reported negative experiences and discrimination, adversely impacting their treatment in a hospital setting. Those experiences have resulted in decreased use of medical treatment. Researchers have established the need for increased levels of cultural competence from social workers within hospital settings to develop rapport with LGBT individuals when delivering social work services as a part of the hospital treatment team. With cultural humility …

Parole Officers’ Perspective On The Needs Of Indigenous Offenders On Conditional Release, Ritesh Dalip Narayan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Indigenous offenders are overrepresented in all aspects of the Canadian criminal justice system, including corrections. Indigenous offenders are overrepresented in the prison population and are least likely to be granted an early release from prison. Indigenous offenders also disproportionately breach their conditional release orders and consequently spend more time incarcerated than non-Indigenous offenders. To understand the reasons behind the breaches, need-based theoretical lenses were used to analyze data. Sixteen parole officers were interviewed using a narrative design where participants shared their accounts on supervising Indigenous offenders while highlighting the needs which they felt were not being met by their Indigenous …

Transforming Outcomes To Increase Participation In The Independent Living Program Sponsored By Sunrise Children’S Services, Richard R. Burslem

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Research demonstrates the transition for aging-out foster youth evidences they are not equipped with the necessary tools to live a self-sufficient adult life. Many children who age-out of the foster system have encountered trauma at multiple levels. Sunrise Children’s Services is an agency in Kentucky committed to changing negative outcomes for this population of individuals.

The optimum goal for children and youth is for them to grow up within their biological family where they receive guidance and support as they mature. For some individuals that is not an option, and the government along with agencies like Sunrise are focused on …

Enhancing Evidence-Based Tobacco Treatment Services For Clients With Mental Illnesses, Janet Otachi

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

Tobacco users with mental illnesses (MI) have continued to experience disparate rates of tobacco use, related illnesses and mortality. Despite higher rates of tobacco use among clients with MI, few providers in mental health settings deliver evidence based tobacco treatment. If tobacco use is not addressed, clients with MI will continue to experience disproportionate rates of tobacco use and related burden. Utilizing the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study examined factors associated with provider intentions to deliver tobacco treatment, and their tobacco treatment delivery practices. Based on the main constructs of the TPB, providers’ attitudes about tobacco treatment delivery, …

Pandemic And Protest In 2020: Questions And Considerations For Social Work Research, Kimberly D. Hudson, Gita Mehrotra

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and social/political protest concerning structural anti-Black racism marks a moment for deep reflection and revision of many taken-for-granted assumptions about our research and academic lives as social work scholars. In this reflexive essay we, as two non-Black qualitative social work scholars, explore some of the questions and considerations for social work research that have surfaced since the emergence of these complex social, political, and economic crises. We organize our reflection around what we study, why, and how we go about studying it. We then offer a discussion of various constraints and challenges that emerge …

“We’Re More Than A Daycare”: Reported Roles And Settings For Early Childhood Professionals And Implications For Professionalizing The Field, Rachel E. Schachter, Qingyu Jiang, Shayne B. Piasta, Erin E. Flynn

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the US, recent efforts have focused on professionalizing the field of early childhood. One way to indicate professionalism is through the terms used to describe both the field and the workers. However, few have examined how practitioners or researchers describe early childhood professionals’ work. Using multiple data sources and analytic strategies, we examined the ways that those working with young children described their role and setting, as well as how these were described in research and practitioner journals. “Teacher” was the preferred term for both journals and professionals, and terms for setting reflected traditional K-12 school structures. Professionals linked …

Social Determinants Of Health And Parenting Self-Efficacy Among Mothers Of Preterm Infants, Susanne Klawetter, Blair W. Weikel, Kristi L. Roybal, Nazan Cetin, Mathew C, Uretsky, Stephanie L. Bourque, Anne Hall, Sunah S. Hwang, Madalynn Neu, Mauricio A. Palau, Multiple Additional Authors

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: To explore the relationships between social and environmental factors and parenting self-efficacy (PSE) among mothers of preterm infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) using a social determinants of health (SDoH) framework. Method: We analyzed data from a prospective cohort study that included 187 mother-infant dyads admitted to four NICUs in the Mountain West region between June 2017 and December 2019. We used multivariable linear regression models to assess the independent associations between maternal and infant characteristics and PSE. Results: Our final multiple linear regression model predicting the efficacy score including maternal race/ethnicity, age, insurance, employment status before …

Evaluating The N/Ne Preference Policy, Amie Thurber, Lisa K. Bates, Susan Halverson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

North/Northeast Portland has long been the heart of Portland's Black community. By 2010, the area had lost two-thirds of its Black residents to displacement. In response, the City adopted a Preference Policy that prioritizes displaced affordable rental and homeownership applicants. This report describes findings from the first phase of a study to understand what difference this policy is making in the lives of residents.

Interrupting White Supremacy In Field Education: Experiences Of Microaggressions In Placement Settings, Anita Reinette Gooding, Gita Mehrotra

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

As social work’s signature pedagogy, field education socializes students into their professional roles as practitioners. However, for students and field instructors of color, racial microaggressions add another dimension to the practice experience. Utilizing findings from a qualitative study exploring the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) social work students and agency-based field instructors, this paper highlights experiences of microaggressions in field placement settings. Specifically, BIPOC students and field instructors described being tokenized in agencies, feeling invisible in placement settings, experiencing microaggressions from service users or students, and witnessing microaggressions. Experiences of microaggressions had emotional impacts, and affected …

White Clinicians’ Way Of Being With Their Black Clients, Briana Bogue

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Within the context of pervasive racial social inequality in mental healthcare (Lund, 2020), this dissertation sought to explore how white people who inherently hold racial bias according to critical whiteness theory (Olcon, Gilbert, & Pulliam, 2019), navigate this within their therapeutic work and relationships as clinicians with Black clients. Using the framework of clinician way of being, the conscious attitudes and beliefs that clinicians hold towards clients (Fife, Whiting, Bradford, & Davis, 2014), this phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews with key informants, practicing white clinicians (N=19). Content analysis of verbatim transcripts suggests that whiteness and conscious navigations of emotions and …

Family Preservation Strategies: Regendering Labor In Mixed-Status Marriage After Co-Deportation, April M. Schueths, Nathan Palmer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Harsh U.S. deportation policies disproportionately target Latin American immigrant working-class men and subsequently divide families. The unique experiences of co-deported mixed-status couples are missing from the deportation literature—that is, U.S. citizens, primarily women, who live outside of the United States with their deported Latin American immigrant spouses (what we call co-deportation) rather than living separately. Using hegemonic masculinity, this research qualitatively analyzes the experiences of eleven mixed-status couples internationally co-deported. Findings suggest couples' gender dynamics shift paid and unpaid labor to sustain family life living as co-deportees. Co-deported couples are a testament to how adaptable heterosexual gender dynamics can be, …

The Determination Of The Factors Affecting Air Transportation Passenger Numbers, Tüzün Tolga İnan Asst. Prof. Dr.

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

So long as human beings are required to go between places, the civil aviation industry will always exist. In this study, a country-based examination has been applied to air passenger numbers. 50 countries are selected according to the highest rating of air transportation passenger numbers, gross domestic product (GDP), total population, and human development index (HDI) data. 28 of these countries are included in the analysis which is common in at least three of these rankings. The relationship between the four parameters is examined via correlation analysis. Thereafter, the related parameters were taken as independent variables in multiple linear regression …

Research To Consider While Effectively Re-Designing Child Welfare Services, Richard P. Barth, Jill Duerr Berrick, Antonio R. Garcia, Brett Drake, Melissa Jonson-Reid, John Gyourko, Johanna K. P. Greeson

Department of Social Work - Faculty Scholarship

An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highlights 10 commonly held misconceptions which we assert are inconsistent with the best available contemporary evidence. Implications for better alignment of evidence and reform are discussed.

“One Hundred And Ninety-Four Got Licensed By Monday”: Application Of Design Thinking For Foster Care Innovation And Transformation In Rhode Island, Johanna K. P. Greeson, John Gyourko, Andrew J. Ortiz, Durell Coleman, Sixto Cancel

Department of Social Work - Faculty Scholarship

The American child welfare system is in crisis. Given its history, the beleaguered state of the system evokes little surprise. There is an urgent need for new and creative approaches to problem-solving and transformation in child welfare. Design Thinking, a change management framework that prioritizes deep empathy for end user needs is one such approach, holding promise for helping child welfare systems transform to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Like many states, Rhode Island has long struggled to effectively recruit, license, and retain an adequate pool of resource families. From 2012 to 2017, Rhode Island saw a 12% …

Chapter 1: Introduction: Toward A New Era Of Human Rights, Lihua Huang

Books and Contributions to Books

Using the human rights approach, this chapter attempts to fundamentally understand more diverse, healthy, active, and unequal older Americans. It explores genesis of ageism and calls professionals to recognize and combat pervasive ageism in their own attitudes, emotion, beliefs, and behaviors as in the society and professional practice.

The Rise In Use Of Emotional Support Animals By College Students: The Impact Of Parenting Styles, Misty G. Smith, Samantha Ballard, Jill Willis

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs

As the generational context of higher education shifts, a rise of Emotional Support Animals (ESA) and mental health concerns are present for students on college campuses. While previous studies have aimed to address the relevancy and controversy of ESAs in higher education as well as their effectiveness in supporting individuals, less research has explored underlying factors that contribute to the use of an ESA. The purpose of this study was to explore the parenting behaviors of parents/caregivers of students with ESAs in comparison to parents/caregivers of students without ESAs. An embedded mixed methods design was used. Participants completed the Parenting …

Harming The Help-Seeking: Necessity For Assessing Harmful And Biased Attitudes Toward Clients With Substance Use Disorder, Crystal D. Mcdowell, Crystal Dawn Mcdowell

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

Numerous times, as a new clinician, I have witnessed the substance use disorder population referred to as not being dependable, dangerous, burnt out, and even hopeless. Often times I have heard mental health professionals make statements amongst themselves that the client could not be helped, referred to them as a “frequent flyer,” (meant to convey they frequently present for treatment, relapse, and return for treatment), and complain how tax dollars are being wasted to support the client. I felt empathy and a sense of hopelessness for these clients as they were seeking treatment in order to get help and yet …