Suchergebnisse

Each year more than five million children in the United States are exposed
to traumatizing events in their communities. This paper presents a discussion of
multiple areas in violence and victimization research that needs to be continued as
well as provides suggestions on how to un-silence child survivors through bridging
the gaps between research and practice. It reviews the overarching problem of violence
in the U.S. at the domestic and global levels and the effects of victimization.
Suggestions on how to study possible mediators and moderators of victimization
and individual and family adjustment, including: 1) The ecological perspective; 2)
Court process and verdict; and 3)Utilization of victim services, are explored. Finally,
a rationale and examples of combining qualitative and quantitative methods in
future research that uses children's attributions of violence as a mediator are presented.

Poetry therapy has become a valuable adjunctive tool in social work practice, as well as an important discipline in its own right. What has not been previously presented in the literature are intervention strategies designed for when clients spontaneously present their poems in treatment without prompting from the clinician. This article provides just such practice guidelines for clinicians, especially clinicians who do not normally use poetry in therapy. First, the article explores the uses of poetry in social work practice. Second, it presents general guidelines for how to handle the introduction of poetry by clients through the lens of essential social work values and principles. Third, a case study is presented to amplify these guidelines.

This article demonstrates the importance of helping clients understand,
explore, and develop friendships in social work practice. The nature of friendships is
explored. A cross-disciplinary analysis of the literature concerning friendships and
their relationship to human health and functioning is discussed. Case examples
illustrating the importance of friendships and examples of the conscious use of
friendships as a target of intervention are provided.

The purpose of this article is to reignite a discourse about feminist principles and their application to leadership in the social work profession that will extend beyond the theoretical to actions that are guided by these principles, leading overtime to concrete change. Mainstream theories of leadership are reviewed, as are developments in feminist approaches to leadership. Specifying principles and suggesting practices in relation to leadership result in an integrated feminist perspective of leadership. The intent is to encourage a dialogue about the challenges of social change in both processes and outcomes across multiple contexts by diverse women and men.

The past decade has seen growth in the international and interdisciplinary literature about competency-based education (CBE). With the passage of the Council on Social Work Education's Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) in 2008, the U.S. social work education enterprise joined other professional groups in embracing CBE. This article analyzes the positions of both proponents and critics of CBE. It reviews the core competencies for social work identified in the EPAS and explores challenges and opportunities that CBE and the competencies present to feminist pedagogy. It concludes with a classroom exercise that is used to integrate feminist pedagogy and the core competencies.

Purpose: Adolescent mental health is a public health priority. Considered an early intervention approach, Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) trains adults to provide initial assistance to adolescents experiencing a mental health problem or crisis. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the U.S. version of YMHFA (YMHFA-USA) among graduate social work students. Method: A quasi-experimental design ( N = 73; intervention, n = 39; comparison, n = 34), using the Mental Health Beliefs and Literacy Scale, assessed the effectiveness of YMHFA-USA. Outcomes were measured at pretest, posttest, and 5 months in the intervention group. Differences between groups were compared at 5 months. Results: Statistically significant improvements in attitudes, beliefs, self-confidence, and knowledge were observed among intervention group students. At 5 months, these students had significantly better attitudes and greater knowledge and self-confidence than the comparison group. Conclusion: Results indicate YMHFA-USA may improve factors related to master's level social work students' abilities to engage with youth experiencing mental health problems.

Violence and trauma exposure have been increasingly investigated as contributing to a range of negative outcomes in child physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and psychological functioning, particularly among youth who are racial/ethnic minorities. This study presents findings related to children's attributions of their violence and trauma exposure. Attributions are inferences made about the cause of an event, situation, or action, with internal, stable, and global attributions most likely to lead to negative psychological outcomes. Data were drawn from an on-going clinical intervention study with families at risk for child maltreatment and/or neglect residing in a large metropolitan city on the East Coast. Mediation models provide evidence for a mediated relationship between violence exposure and PTSD through child attribution. Children develop their definitions of violence, formulate reasons why the violence occurs, and react to violence based on interpreting and developing cognitive attributions and schema about their experiences with violence in order to adaptively cope.