Suchergebnisse

In this article, I critically examine contemporary notions of trauma and how they have informed mental health interventions for women. The feminist underpinnings of trauma therapy invite practitioners to understand women's mental health "symptoms" within the context of such experiences as child abuse and sexual violence that disproportionately affect women. However, this article poses the question: Has trauma theory caused paradigmatic shifts in mental health interventions that have increased practitioners' capacity to engage with sociopolitical issues, or are preexisting assumptions about the biological basis of women's mental illness guiding treatment approaches simply by another name? Implications for social workers are discussed.

Is being 'culturally competent' a sufficient response by social work to racialised oppressions and injustices, particularly in the context of Black Lives Matter? The social work profession has acknowledged the problem of racism within Australian society. Nevertheless, decades of scholarship has demonstrated social work's ongoing involvement in policy and practice frameworks that reinforce and contribute to racialised oppressions. This article critically engages with this concerning disconnect between rhetoric and practice. In order to move beyond an acknowledgement of racial injustices and towards transformed practices, we argue that whiteness within the social work profession must be more thoroughly examined, including problematising notions of social work's 'professional innocence' in relation to racism and white supremacy. We demonstrate the benefits of moving beyond rhetorical commitments and performative allyship, highlighting opportunities for new directions in social work education and policy, in addition to the importance of engaging with anti-racist grass-roots activism.

The assumption of universal human developmental tasks is central to Erikson's influential Eight Stages of Man. While grand developmental theories have been strongly critiqued from a feminist perspective, it is necessary for feminists to also consider the implications of Erikson's theory from a critical disability perspective. Applications of Erikson's theory have claimed that disabled people experience stagnated development because they are unable to complete the achievements required for full participation in adulthood. However, we argue that the positioning of disabled people as diminished adults is open to question, as it is based on narrowly defined notions of "autonomy", "industry" and "initiative". Additionally, constructions of disabled adults as "dependent" or "vulnerable" render invisible the systematic exclusion of disabled people from social and economic opportunities. Human service workers who adopt normative developmental understandings may not realize the potential for "well-intentioned" disability services to cause harm through paternalism and a culture of low expectations. It is essential that universalized models of adulthood are deconstructed from both feminist and critical disability perspectives, in order to locate, understand and celebrate diverse developmental experiences. We offer some ideas about how this deconstruction might be enacted within a university education context.

AbstractWhile scholarship regarding the promises and challenges of deinstitutionalisation is expansive, less is known about deinstitutionalisation within the context of contemporary neoliberal disability policy frameworks. This article reports on a study exploring recent transitions from institutional to community living within the context of the highly contested National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia. The perspectives of family members and staff within disability services reveal diverse understandings of the transition. Thematic analysis identified multiple complexities, including hope simultaneously experienced alongside grief and loss, and the non‐linear processes involved in taking on new roles and identities. The study demonstrates that deinstitutionalisation is not constituted merely by a physical re‐location and that undoing institutional practices requires ongoing attention and resources. Significant concerns raised by participants relating to the impacts of privatisation, fragmented services and a casualised workforce disrupt simplistic thinking about the inevitability of social inclusion through deinstitutionalisation, particularly within neoliberal policy settings.

Although it is well established that women experience significant gendered oppressions when accessing mental health services, research exploring the impacts of involuntary mental health services is frequently conducted without attending specifically to gender. This article reports on a qualitative study that explored women's experiences of compulsory mental health treatment in Australia. In-depth interviews revealed substantial gendered harms experienced by women within involuntary mental health treatment settings. Themes identified were: involuntary treatment replicates the dynamics and tactics of gendered violence; treatment involves profound deprivation and losses, with potential implications across the lifecourse; mental health services disrupt and undermine mothering; and recovery is found outside of coercive mental health systems. The study reveals the heightened harms experienced by women within involuntary mental health contexts, as well as women's strategic resistances to psychiatric oppression. It demonstrates the relevance of a conceptual lens that is attuned to gender, in order to develop a deeper understanding of women's experiences of intersecting oppressions within involuntary mental health settings. Implications include the need for alliance-building across feminist and critical mental health movements, and the need for a much more robust engagement by the social work profession in challenging the widespread acceptance of involuntary mental health treatment.

"This book will inspire the next generation of social work practitioners to integrate research into their everyday social justice practice. Through highlighting the centrality of values to the task of research and the possibilities for enacting social justice through our research practice, it argues for respectful, meaningful and just relationships with the people with whom we do research and build knowledge; acknowledge the ongoing impact of colonialism; respect diversity; and commit to working towards social change. With First Nations Worldviews - ways of knowing, ways of being, ways of doing - weaved throughout the text, this book seeks to both reclaim ancient knowledges and disrupt Western research traditions. Divided into three sections - a strong rationale for the importance of research skills to social work practice; - step-by-step guides on doing social research aimed at novice researchers; - a series of examples of applied social justice projects Bringing the authors' passion for finding new ways 'doing' research and contesting traditional research paradigms of objectivity and the scientific, it advocates for knowledge building that is participatory, emancipatory, and empowered. It will be required reading for all social work students at both the undergraduate and masters level as well as professionals looking to put research into practice"--

IntroductionRisk of traumatic injury is increased in individuals with mental illness, substance use disorder and dual diagnosis (mental disorders); these conditions will pre-exist among individuals hospitalised with acute traumatic spinal injury (TSI). Although early intervention can improve outcomes for people who experience mental disorders or TSI, the incidence, management, and cost of this often complex comorbid health profile is not sufficiently understood.
Objectives and ApproachIn a whole-population cohort of patients hospitalised with acute TSI, we aimed to describe the prevalence of pre-existing mental disorders, and compare differences in injury epidemiology, costs and inpatient allied health service access.
Record-linkage study of all hospitalised cases of TSI between June 2013 and June 2016 in New South Wales, Australia. TSI was defined by specific ICD-10-AM codes. Mental disorder status was considered as pre-existing where specific ICD-10-AM codes were recorded in incident admissions.
Results13,489 individuals sustained acute TSI during this study. 13.11%, 6.06%, and 1.82% had pre-existing mental illness, substance use disorder, and dual diagnosis, respectively. Individuals with mental disorder were older (p<0.001), more likely to have had a fall or self-harmed (p<0.001), experienced almost twice the length of stay and inpatient complications, and increased injury severity compared to individuals without mental disorder (p<0.001).
Conclusion / ImplicationsIndividuals hospitalised for TSI with pre-existing mental disorder have greater likelihood of increased injury severity and more complex, costly acute care admissions compared to individuals without mental disorder. Care pathway optimisation including prevention of hospital acquired complications for people with pre-existing mental disorders hospitalised for TSI is warranted.