Journal of evidence-informed social work最新文献

Objective: The objective of this article is to describe a care coordination model that includes promising practices which are supported by both practice-based and research-based evidence. This model was developed to address the gaps of other models, namely an emphasis on skill teaching with parents, the flexibility to adapt to the needs of youth with a wide variety of presenting problems, and model fidelity assessment tools to help scale up the program across multiple locations with fidelity.

Method: We discuss preliminary administrative and outcome data from 898 youth served across eight locations.

Results: Data suggest positive outcomes at departure from service, as well as 6 months and 12 months post case closure.

Conclusion: Preliminary data indicate that youth with educational and behavioral health challenges can benefit from coordination of services that are both youth guided and family driven. As this program has been scaled up and has an established vehicle of dissemination, it is in a unique position to be tested via more highly controlled and rigorous efficacy trials.

Purpose: For over a century, the social work profession has been concerned with describing the unique and specific characteristics that define its core functions in society; however, the profession has yet to agree to a single definition of social work. In the absence of a unifying definition, 51 different statutory definitions of social work have been created by each state and the District of Columbia.

Methods: Using qualitative methods, each statutory definition of social work was analyzed to gain an understanding of how social work is defined and understood across the United States.

Results: Findings indicate that 57% of the statutory language blend the full range of micro to macro social work practice skills into their definition. However, even within these and those remaining, there are vast differences in definitions.

Discussion: Implications for state licensing laws, are considered, along with how this impacts education, the work force, and professional identity.

As an intervention for adolescents, adventure therapy has evolved considerably over the last three decades with support from multiple meta-analyses and research input from both residential and outpatient services. Tainted by a history of unethical practice and issues of accountability, this article explores the question of how adventure therapy can meet a standard of evidence preferred by policymakers and funding bodies on the international stage. In this case, feedback-informed treatment (FIT) is presented as a means for routine outcome management, creating a framework for adventure therapy which aims to improve the quality of participant engagement while maintaining and operationalizing today's definitions for evidence-based practice. A case vignette illustrates the use of FIT with an adolescent participant engaged on a 14-day adventure therapy program.

The relationship between compassion fatigue and mindfulness in mental health professionals compared to Master of Social Work (MSW) students is explored. A convenience sample of mental health professionals (n = 40) and MSW students (n = 111) completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and Professional Quality of Life Scale. Results indicate a medium, negative correlation between compassion fatigue and mindfulness, with high levels of compassion fatigue associated with lower levels of mindfulness. There was no statistically significant difference between mental health workers and MSW students on the combined dependent variables. Results suggest that mindfulness protects against compassion fatigue regardless of professional or student status.

Purpose: This study assessed the citation impact of scholarship of African American faculty in the top 25 ranked schools of social work cited in the 2012 U.S. News and World Report.

Method: The citation impact scores (Hirsch h-index) of these scholars were examined.

Results: The overall mean h-index score for the top 25 ranked schools of social work and African American scholars was 6.62 and 12.14, respectively. The individual h-index for almost 80% of these scholars exceeded their respective school mean h-index scores.

Discussion: While the literature revealed long-standing systemic and structural barriers to research productivity for African American scholars overall, these faculty somehow found ways to circumvent these challenges. Future research calls for a more comprehensive exploration into the character and impact of scholarship produced by African American faculty to further expand the knowledge base about elements of research cultures in social work.

This study examined the impact of gestalt intervention groups for anxious Chinese parents in Hong Kong. A non-randomized control group pre-test/post-test design was adopted. A total of 156 parents participated in the project. After 4 weeks of treatment, the intervention group participants had lower anxiety levels, less avoidance of inner experiences, and more kindness towards oneself and mindfulness when compared to control group participants. However, the dimension of self-judgment remained unchanged. The adaptation of gestalt intervention to suit the Chinese culture was discussed.

Purpose: Improvements to intrapersonal development of clients involved with substance use disorder treatment programs has widely been recognized as contributing to the intended goal of reducing substance misuse behaviors. This study sought to identify a broad framework of primary outcomes related to the intrapersonal development of clients in treatment for substance misuse.

Method: Using qualitative research methods, individual interviews were conducted with program participants (n = 41) at three treatment programs to identify the ways in which respondents experienced intrapersonal development through participation in treatment.

Results: The findings support the development of a conceptual model that captures the importance and manifestation of achieving improvements in the following outcomes: self-awareness, coping ability, self-worth, outlook, and self-determination.

Discussion: The findings provide a conceptual framework for client assessment that captures a broad range of the important intrapersonal development factors utilized as indicators for client development and recovery that should be measured in tandem during assessment.

Objective: Adults with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders have poor outcomes in important quality of life areas, including hospitalization, incarceration, employment, and community housing. Integrated dual disorder treatment (IDDT) is a research-supported intervention for individuals with co-occurring disorders associated with improvements in outcome measures when implemented with high fidelity. Research-supported intervention IDDT was not designed with peer services, provided by people with lived experience with mental illness, but the practice has been altered to include peers.

Methods: IDDT fidelity data were evaluated from 20 teams that also reported on peer services on their team in one state over a 7 year period, and paired with their fidelity data for the most recent review to analyze the relationship between peers and IDDT fidelity. Analysis of variance was utilized to determine a dose effect peers on fidelity.

Results: Of these IDDT teams, 85% of teams incorporated a peer and 40% of teams had a full-time peer. Having a full-time peer (M = 4.22, SD = .41) was associated with significantly higher fidelity compared to teams with a part-time (M = 3.68, SD = .56) or no peer (M = 3.21, SD = .18, F(2, 17) = 5.88, p = .01).

Conclusions: Peers on IDDT teams are associated with higher fidelity, leading to important possibilities about the incorporation of those with lived experience into research-supported interventions. Implications for team composition, implementation measurement, policy, and funding are discussed.

Purpose: This article examines the publication productivity of the (N = 14) top-ranked U.S. Black/African American scholars in the U.S. News and World Report Schools of Social Work, as identified by Huggins-Hoyt, Holosko, Briggs, and Barner (2015).

Method: Publication information for each participant were taken from the Publish or Perish software site with an "author impact" search criteria that examined their lifetime publication history.

Results: Results suggested that these authors: (a) published collaboratively, (b) published highly on issues pertaining to Black/African American inequality, and (c) published in journals with both high-impact scores and high-impact readership.

Findings: Despite the low numbers of Black/African American scholars serving as full professors in U.S. colleges and universities, the techniques they used to circumvent systematic and structural academic barriers provide helpful tips that younger Black/African American scholars could employ when writing and publishing their research findings. However, additional research is needed to further unearth differences, and/or expectations, based on numerous variables, which includes but not limited to: (a) academic rank, (b) funded research,

Implementation literature has under-reported bottom-up dissemination attempts of research-supported interventions (RSI). This study examined factors associated with individual clinicians' implementation of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), including CPP social network (SN), supervision, and self-efficacy. Seventy-seven (90%) CPP graduates completed a cross-sectional survey, including measures regarding social network, receiving supervision, and CPP self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was significantly associated with CPP implementation; CPP SN and supervision were not. Mediation models showed that self-efficacy significantly mediated between CPP SN and supervision, and the implementation variables. Findings illuminate the importance of supporting clinicians using a new RSI, particularly in bottom-up dissemination, in order to foster RSI self-efficacy.