Suchergebnisse

Disaster mental health work requires additional skills and an enlarged vision of the human condition that values the resiliency and strengths that people have. Using models most social workers are trained to apply in clinical work is a potentially dangerous trap: People are likely to be perceived by professionals as victims or broken people, and lacking needed strength and resilience if that clinical lens is automatically or universally applied to people who experience traumatic incidents (terrorism, natural disasters, or the unexpected or violent death of a family member, peer, or significant other). Focusing only on the individual in these situations can cause professionals to lose the ability to focus equally upon the institutional and communal social systems that have also been thrown into chaos.

The paper described the conceptual underpinnings of two community based programs designed to serve drug users and abusers. Differences and similarities between the two programs, which are located in distinctly different socio-economic neighborhoods, are explored. The authors describe through actual excerpts from case material how the programs work, and the key role of young people as primary helping agents. Both are multi-modality programs. One is designed as a therapeutic community project, while the other uses a community building model. The authors examine some core issues in both programs and discuss the implications of these concerns.