Localising Social Work: Lessons Learnt from a Community Based Intervention amongst the Bedouin in Jordan

This paper presents an example of local social work practice in Jordan in the health field. It draws on a research study on Bedouin health in the North Eastern Badia. The project developed, implemented and evaluated a training intervention developed in partnership with a range of providers for improving local social work practice. Evaluation methods used included a pre and post test, focus group discussions and students' field notes. Findings revealed the significance of promoting culturally competent practice to respond to local health and social needs. Students and practice assessors agreed that the training interventions were an effective way to implement theory into local practice in relation to Bedouin society. This training intervention is an example of developing local social work practice as a way of responding critically to social inequalities.     

Teaching Note—Integrating Prevention Content Into Clinical Social Work Practice Courses

Rapid changes in health care services and delivery suggest an upcoming paradigm shift in the field of mental health. Recent national reports, health care policy changes, and growing evidence support a shift toward prevention-focused mental health care. The social work profession is uniquely positioned to act as leaders in this shift as the profession’s values, goals, and hallmark practice approach are consistent with preventive care. Most social work students, however, do not receive training in prevention practice. The author’s development, implementation, and evaluation of a prevention-focused master of social work elective in the area of mental health is presented as an example of integrating prevention content into clinical social work practice courses. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Critical social work and competency practice: a proposal to bridge theory and practice in the classroom

Social work education in North America is increasingly focused on competency criteria and micro skills training for future practitioners. Market forces are transforming the nature of social work practice in Canada, and social work regulators are concerned about the lack of evidence-based competencies in social work education. Since the Controlled Act of Psychotherapy was proclaimed in 2017, social work practitioners are in a position to offer psychotherapy services; as a result, universities are under greater pressure to shift to competency-based learning that meets the requirements of a regulated profession. This has raised concerns about the narrowing focus on critical social work theory in preparing students for practice. The divergence between anti-oppressive and direct practice schools is widening with the result that many students have difficulty bridging the gap between critical theory and competency-based practice. This paper attempts to integrate both traditions by offering students a course that directly links critical analysis of structural barriers and client centered interventions. The course is part of a developing critical competency curriculum that focuses on methods of facilitating empowerment and change in the helping process by articulating key relational components between service user and practitioner from a critical-competency perspective.     

The Right Tools for the Right Job: Social Work Students Learning Community Development

The place of community development within social work varies across nations and time. The tensions in the 1970s in the UK gave way to decades when social work has been dominated by issues relating to protecting and caring for individuals. We now have a resurgence of community development activity, bringing together varied disciplines such as urban planning and health promotion as well as social work. Within the UK there are now requirements for community development knowledge and skills within qualifying social work training. This paper reflects on experiences in promoting community development practice learning in social work qualifying placements within Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland. Issues are raised about the diversity and complexity of expectations on qualifying training, and the challenges that face universities, colleges and employing organisations in developing practice learning in this curriculum area. The prospects for improving community development learning within both qualifying and post qualifying education and training are considered particularly in the light of inter-professional and inter-organisational initiatives that put community development in the context of health promotion, housing, crime, poverty and other social issues that might be addressed at community level to improve the health and social well-being of citizens.     

Mental Health Workforce Change Through Social Work Education: A California Case Study

The 2004 CaliforniaMental Health Services Act requires large-scale system change in the public mental health system through a shift to recovery-oriented services for diverse populations. This article describes an innovative strategy for workforce recruitment and retention to create and sustain these systemic changes. The California Social Work Education Center Mental Health Program provides stipends to master's of social work students at 17 California universities. In return, students must work for 1 year postgraduation in community mental health practice. Results of a 5-year study show that stipend recipients closely mirror the diverse demographics of the state, and 94% have remained in community mental health practice. The article also discusses lessons learned and implications for social work education in California and other states.     

An interprofessional internship model for training master’s level social work and counseling students in higher education settings

ABSTRACT

The mental health needs of college students are steadily on the rise, which compels mental health service providers and educators to explore innovative ways to provide more collaborative, supportive, and interdisciplinary service models of practice and professional training. Graduate programs in social work and counseling are at the crux of producing internship training programs to help accommodate the influx of students with persistent mental health concerns across a variety of needs and cultures. This article describes an interprofessional internship program structured and designed to meet the clinical training needs of master’s level students matriculating in social work and counseling who aspire to provide mental health services in higher education settings. The interprofessional internship training model proposes an innovative interdisciplinary approach to field education which may result in positive training outcomes and learning experiences for social work and counseling students. This paper discusses the model’s emphasis on individual and interdisciplinary group supervision, objectives of the internship experience, internship site criteria, and professional and personal benefits to pre-service social workers and counselors. Recommendations for training and limitations of the model are provided.     

Disability equality training—constructing a collaborative model

This paper describes and discusses the process of a research project designed to provide a model of disability equality training for health and social care staff. The interprofessional and participative consultative process when designing a disability equality staff training programme based on a social model of disability is evaluated. The methodology and conceptual thinking of the research process is analysed using the qualitative data generated from service users and staff. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities for health and social service agencies committed to implementing staff disability equality training consistent with the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998.     

Addiction Social Work Fellowship Program in Canada

Substance use disorders (SUD) disproportionally contribute to the global social and economic cost of disease; however, their treatment has been inadequate in large part due to an enduring research to practice gap in which competencies for treating and preventing SUDs are often lacking from social work education curricula. Training social workers in managing SUDs has been separated from nurse and physician training, partly due to the long-standing divide between the behavioral health and medical care system. Recently, a new interdisciplinary fellowship in addiction social work, nursing and medicine has been established in Vancouver, Canada. We describe the novel fellowship program and outline initial impact of the training on knowledge and skills in addiction social work from our qualitative evaluation of the fellowship. We conclude that training social workers, and other allied health professionals alongside physicians and nurses may extend the reach of this type of training program even further.     

Navigating stormy waters: Challenges and opportunities for social work in mental health

The reforms driven by the National Mental Health Strategy have created both opportunities and challenges for social work as a profession. This paper examines the rapidly changing context for practice in mental health, including policy change, and developments in the education and training of the mental health workforce. Key practice issues identified for social work include: (i) the need to establish a viable paradigm for practice; (ii) a more positive response to the challenge of evidence-based practice models; (iii) a national agenda for education and training; and (iv) the importance of working collaboratively with consumers and families in a way that values their human rights and the lived experience of mental illness.     

The meaning of mental illness within the Victorian Mental Health Act: the problem of definition

This study will critically examine the Mental Health Act 1986 (Vic), including the significant changes introduced through the Mental Health (Amendments) Act 1995 (Vic). It will be argued that the Victorian legislation presents some practical difficulties in application as it adopts too broad a definition of mental illness to be used reliably in assessing a person's need for treatment and/or criminal responsibility within a court of law. This lack of precision is potentially problematic for social workers and lawyers alike with respect to key decisions regarding assessment for mental health services and assigning criminal responsibility before the law. Implications for social work practice will be briefly discussed.     

Teaching Note—Meeting the Demand for Behavioral Health Clinicians: Innovative Training Through the GLOBE Project

ABSTRACT

The national move toward integrated mental health and substance abuse service delivery has a significant impact on social work education and necessitates changes in how we train students. To address this need, the Global Leaders of Behavioral Health Education (GLOBE) training project was developed. GLOBE is a student training and stipend program that prepares students for clinical behavioral health practice in integrated care. This teaching note describes GLOBE, reports challenges encountered in its implementation, and provides strategies for overcoming them. The challenges include assigning students to grant-compliant field placements, engaging other health care professionals in the educational efforts, and implementing curriculum changes. Suggestions for social work program administrators interested in integrated care training are provided.     

Advocating the Clinical Social Work Professional Identity: A Biographical Study

Aiming to portray the clinical social work (CSW) professional identity, the present biographical study examines the CSW knowledge and practice domain boundaries as they appear from the perspectives of three Greek mental health social workers who have advocated for the professionalization of CSW. The practitioners' perspectives are studied in relation to their demographic characteristics, education and training, and multidisciplinary relationships. A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed that these practitioners retained their nuclear social work identity and felt their skills and interests to be different from those endorsed by the present generic social work education and practice system. The study also revealed differences in the educational qualifications and routes that each of the three practitioners followed in order to be able to identify themselves as ‘clinical social workers’. Although the common denominator in the practitioners' perspectives was their training in psychotherapy, the type of psychotherapy training pursued and the experience of personal psychotherapy differentiated each practitioner's ability to theorize on the CSW practice identity. The research data were filtered through a psychodynamic lens to reveal the dynamics of the unconscious processes within the relationships formed between individuals and organizations.     

Developing a framework for anti-discriminatory practice teaching on social work courses

This article suggests that recognition of mental health issues in social work is a generic requirement. It considers the parameters of a mental health perspective in social work, examines the obstacles to its integration into practice, and outlines the contribution that social work training can make to the competence of individual workers. It recognises, however, the tension between individual and structural solutions, and locates mental health awareness within its organisational context.     

Physician Resistance to Innovations: The Case of Contract Medicine

Abstract

Physicians' assessments of contract medicine arrangements such as health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are considered in light of innovation diffusion theory and changing professional relations in medical care. Data from a national sample of physicians reveal that physicians practicing in HMOs differed from others in that they were more likely to be primary-care practitioners and politically liberal; they were also more likely to have thought that a physician surplus was emerging and that HMOs offered better working conditions. They did not differ from other physicians in job satisfaction. After considering differences between the two groups, the research examines how physicians, who did not practice in HMOs, viewed such contract medicine arrangements. Findings indicate that physicians in fee-for-service (FFS) practices felt that working conditions and service quality in HMOs are highly related and are better in FFS practices than in HMOs. In addition, physicians who anticipated heightened competition from HMO development were more likely to favorably evaluate HMO service delivery. The findings suggest accommodation to an organizational innovation if it is seen as preserving practice autonomy, but limited acceptance otherwise.     

Achieving Collaborative Competence through Interprofessional Education. Lessons Learned from Joint Training in Learning Disability Nursing and Social Work

The ability to work interprofessionally is widely regarded as essential to professional education and training for social work. The changing contexts of social work practice and the requirement for integrated working are regular reminders of the need for social work students to develop collaborative competence. Guidance preceding the development of the social work degree emphasised that social work students should undertake specific learning and assessment in partnership working and information sharing. This suggests that aspects of interprofessional education are relevant to the teaching and development of social work students if graduates are to successfully engage in complex practice.

This paper seeks to identify the competencies needed for successful collaboration. It then draws on evaluative research of joint training programmes in learning disability nursing and social work in England to discuss the unique experiences and perspectives of graduates whose social work training was exceptionally interprofessional. The paper will discuss how some of the findings from this research can indicate lessons for promoting collaborative competence in singly trained social work students. It will argue that interprofessional learning opportunities are one of the key ingredients for the development of critical practice.     

'In the real world we're all put on the spot at some time or other,so you need to be prepared for it': An exploratory study of an oral method of assessing knowledge of mental health law

The education and training of Approved Social Workers (ASWs) involves at least 60 days of college and practice-based learning. A major component of the college-based curriculum is the teaching and assessment of knowledge of mental health law. One programme in England assesses student knowledge of law by an oral examination that includes a case discussion and questions about the Mental Health Act 1983. Oral assessment of knowledge of law is commonplace for those entering legal professions. Oral assessment of clinical knowledge in professions such as medicine and psychiatry is similarly frequent. However, examination by oral assessment is not usual in social work education. An exploratory study by postal questionnaire of all past students of the programme and their line managers was undertaken to establish their views of this means of assessing knowledge of law. This paper considers the results of the research and outlines student perceptions of the law oral assessment as preparation for practice as an ASW. The paper focuses on three distinct but interlinked areas--education, assessment and practice--and suggests some implications for educators and practitioners, which are especially relevant in the light of the current review of mental health legislation.