Social Work Commons^™

Dementia Caregivers: An Exploration Of Their Knowledge, Beliefs, And Behavior Regarding Advance Care Planning For End-Of-Life Care, Mariette Klein

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore what knowledge dementia caregivers have about advance care planning (ACP), how they learn to execute formal advance directives (ADs) or have engaged in an informal ACP process, and how they understand their roles as decision makers for the patients. Factors that contribute to the completion of an ACP process such as demographic, psychosocial, and situational factors are identified. From the grounded theory data analysis, a theory emerged about how ACP is accomplished and used by caregivers. Findings reveal that caregivers understand ACP as having the power to shape the dying process for …

Building A Lifetime Of Economic Security: Mobilizing For Change, Center For Social Development

Center for Social Development Research

Building a Lifetime of Economic Security: Mobilizing for Change

Student Perspectives On How Trauma Experiences Manifest In The Classroom: Engaging Court-Involved Youth In The Development Of A Trauma-Informed Teaching Curriculum, Shantel D. West, Angelique G. Day, Cheryl L. Somers, Beverly A. Baroni

Social Work Faculty Publications

This study explores how the lived experience of court-involved youth impacts learning and school culture, and solicits youth voice in creating a trauma-informed intervention to improve student educational well-being. Thirty-nine female students, ages 14 to 18, participated in focus groups to describe externalizing behaviors that they have both witnessed and personally struggled with in the classroom, discuss the perceived causes of these behaviors, and their suggestions for improving school culture to reduce these behavior manifestations in the classroom. Two major categories of behavior were identified, including: “anger emotions” and “aggressive actions.” Students described the causes of behavior as, “environmental influences” …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 41, No. 1 (March 2014)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Table of Contents

• PATHOLOGIES OF THE POOR: WHAT DO THE WAR ON DRUGS AND WELFARE REFORM HAVE IN COMMON? - Kalynn Amundson, Anna M. Zajicek, and Valerie H. Hunt
• GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SELF-EMPLOYMENT OF OLDER WORKERS IN THE UNITED STATES AND NEW ZEALAND - Angela L. Curl, Deanna L. Sharpe, and Jack Noone
• INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF CHILDREN IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC: A CASE OF PATH DEPENDENCY - Victoria Schmidt and Jo Daugherty Bailey
• THE FIRST FAITH-BASED MOVEMENT: THE RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESSIVISM IN AMERICA (1880-1912) IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE - Steven Stritt
• MASS SHOOTINGS AND MENTAL HEALTH POLICY - Jessica Rosenberg …

Perspectives Of Social Work Students On Nutrition And The Nutrition Effects On Mental Health, Diana Tran

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Nutrition is related to the mental well-being of clients. However, the nutritional views and practices of social workers in the mental health field have not been thoroughly explored. By using the post-positivist paradigm, 15 mental health social work students were interviewed for their perspectives regarding nutrition and nutrition’s effect on stress. Their main ideas were identified, connected, and organized to develop a theoretical statement. The resulting theory focused on the development of social work students' perspectives in applying nutrition into their mental health practice. The students were influenced by a variety of background factors, including their education, barriers to applying …

Under What Conditions Does Caseworker-Caregiver Racial/Ethnic Similarity Matter For Housing Service Provision? An Application Of Representative Bureaucracy Theory, Jennifer E. Blakeslee, Emmeline Chuang, Alicia Bunger, Bowen Mcbeath

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, we examine child welfare caseworkers’ housing-related service strategies when they serve culturally similar versus culturally dissimilar clients. Testing hypotheses drawn from representative bureaucracy theory and using data from the second cohort of the National Survey of Child and AdolescentWell-Being, we find that when non-Caucasian caseworkers share the same racial/ethnic background as caregivers, caseworkers use more active strategies to connect caregivers to needed housing services. The relationship between racial/ethnic matching and frontline workers’ repertoire of service strategies is most pronounced when the need for housing has been registered formally via referrals and case plans and thus legitimated institutionally. …

Refining The Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (Ebpas): An Alternative Confirmatory Factor Analysis, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Catherine N. Dulmus Phd, Eugene Maguin Phd, Nicole Fava

Brown School Faculty Publications

Barriers to adopting evidence-based practices into real-world mental health organizations have received considerable attention and study. One particular attempt is Aarons’s Evidence- Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS), which measures a worker’s attitudes toward adopting new treatments, interventions, and practices. This study follows Aarons’s work by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis of the EBPAS administered in a large child and family human service agency in New York state (N = 1,273). Replicating Aarons et al.’s four-factor model of the EBPAS, the authors found that, within the model, the pattern of factor loadings that was apparent in previous investigations held for their …

Refund To Savings: 2013 Evidence Of Tax-Time Saving In A National Randomized Control Trial, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Krista Comer, Blair Russell, Clinton Key, Dana C. Perantie, Dan Ariely

Center for Social Development Research

Refund to Savings: 2013 Evidence of Tax-Time Saving in a National Randomized Control Trial

Refund To Savings: 2013 Results From A National Experiment To Build Financial Stability At Tax Time, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Krista Comer, Blair Russell, Clinton Key, Dana C. Perantie, Dan Ariely

Center for Social Development Research

Refund to Savings: 2013 Results From a National Experiment to Build Financial Stability at Tax Time

Marital Quality In Remarriage, Dr. Kevin Shafer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

There were four goals of this MEG project. Unlike most MEG projects, I employed graduate students because the School of Social Work lacks undergraduate students. Below I outline the four goals of the project and discuss how each goal was met. Notably, we found some interesting effects related to relationship self-regulation in remarriage, which has led us to work in other areas, as well.

Social Capital And Suicide: Social Workers' Obligation Toward Contemporary Suicide Prevention, Christopher Hodshire, Roghayeh Khosravi, Shuresh Lotfi

Social Work Faculty Publications

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “approximately 1 million die by suicide in the world every year and it is estimated that 1.5 million will die from suicide in 2020.”To many in the social work field feels this is disturbing news that deserves far more attention both by the academics and the mass-media. This study pertains to the applications of social capital theory and its everyday practice in the social work profession. In particular, the study provides a deeper understanding and review of social capital, suicide and its application of social capital theory in the social work practice with …

Chhs February 2014 E-Newsletter, Dr. John Bonaguro, Dean, Vashon S. Wells, Editor, Wku College Of Health & Human Services

College of Health & Human Services Publications

No abstract provided.

In The Best Interest Of The (Adult) Child: Ideas About Kinship Care Of Older Adults, Tezra Jennings, Tam E. Perry, Julia Valeriani

Social Work Faculty Publications

This article uses a qualitative, ethnographic approach to examine the experiences older adults and their kin, as the older adult engages in relocation. Studies looking at caregiving by kin for older adults highlight burdens for the adult child. This study offers a life course perspective on kinship care, analyzing older adults’ decisions’ to move. It was found that many older adults are strongly influenced by the desire to not be cared for by their kin as well as to select housing near their existing social network, which might exclude kin. In conclusion, policy implications are discussed.

Relocation Remembered: Perspectives On Senior Transitions In The Living Environment, Tam E. Perry, Troy C. Anderson, Daniel B. Kaplan

Social Work Faculty Publications

The experience of aging may necessitate transitions in living environments, either through adaptations to current residences or relocations to more supportive environments. For over a half century, the study of these transitions has informed the work of researchers, health and mental health providers, policymakers, and municipal planners. In the 1970s and ‘80s, knowledge about these transitions advanced through Lawton & Nahemow’s ecological theory of competence and environmental press, Wiseman’s behavioral model of relocation decision-making, and Litwak & Longino’s developmental perspective on senior migrations. This paper revisits influential theoretical frameworks which contribute to our understanding of senior transitions in living environments. …

How Disparities Research Can Influence Public Policy, Ann Curry-Stevens

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation providing a overview of the partnered research between the Coalition of Communities of Color and Portland State University.

A Case Example Of The Acyf’S Well-Being Framework: The Kansas Intensive Permanency Project, Becci A. Akin, Stephanie A. Bryson, Thomas P. Mcdonald, Charles Wilson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This series of papers, Integrating Safety, Permanency and Well-Being in Child Welfare, describes how a more fully integrated and developmentally specific approach in child welfare could improve both child and system level outcomes. The papers were developed to further the national dialogue on how to more effectively integrate an emphasis on well-being into the goal of achieving safety, permanency and well-being for every child.

The third paper, A Case Example of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families’ Well-Being Framework: KIPP (Akin, Bryson, McDonald, and Wilson), presents a case study of the Kansas Intensive Permanency Project and describes how it …

How Do You Build A Community? Developing Community Capacity And Social Capital In An Urban Aboriginal Setting, Gus Hill Phd, Martin Cooke

Lyle S. Hallman Social Work Faculty Publications

Previous literature has identified social capital as an important resource for successful community development activities, and there have been some attempts to adapt the concepts of social capital to the particular context of First Nations. However, little information is available about how social capital itself might be developed or improved in Aboriginal communities. Moreover, urban Aboriginal communities are different from rural First Nations, Inuit or Métis communities in structure, composition, activities, and diversity, and deserve specific attention and their own models of community development. This paper presents a framework to guide development initiatives in urban Aboriginal contexts that is drawn …

“Giver Of Light”: The Influence Of A Mexican Midwife On Community Development, Karen Sandberg, Jini Roby

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Dar a luz, meaning “to give light,” is the Mexican phrase for giving birth. The equation of light with the birth process reveals its significance to the Mexican people. Internationally, female midwives educated and assisted women in the birth process, making it a specific sphere of women’s influence. Midwives played an important role in the development and well being of their communities as well: they “served as healers,” using herbs and other medical treatment’s to promote general health (Sapiro 206). As such, health care has been one of the few areas historically where women have, in addition to their …

A Study On The Cultural Influences Involved In The Decision To Place Children For International Adoption, Heather Hintze, Jini Roby

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), international adoption is very common. The RMI has one of the highest international adoption rates per capita in the world. This research project was designed to learn and understand the reasons behind this high international adoption rate in the RMI. The research project focused on investigating the cultural influences that cause Marshallese women to relinquish their child for international adoption. Currently, the work is still in progress. All of the information was obtained from Marshallese birth mothers living in the Marshall Islands. Now the data entry needs to be done at Brigham …

Assessing The Knowledge Level Of Social Service Professionals On Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ptsd): Creating Training Guides, Charles E. Lawrence, Ph.D., Geraldine L. Palmer Ph.D.

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

Objective: Creating training guides for social service workers to deliver more effective services for veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Background: Effective service delivery for veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome is often hampered by a lack of knowledge about how to identify the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Appropriate training guides can provide integral benefits including: improved situational awareness, more accurate data gathered in the intake process, a reduction in veteran homelessness and prevention of chronic homelessness. Method: A pre-and post-test design was used to determine levels of knowledge guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956). The study focused on …