Changing Agency Practices Toward Openness in Adoption

Abstract

The impact of openness in adoption on private adoption agencies' practices and services was examined. In 1987-89 and 1993 staff from private agencies participated in structured interviews concerning their current practices regarding openness and the services offered by the agency. Over time, agencies tended to offer a greater range of openness options. Agency personnel reported that client demand, changes in agency philosophy, and competition from independent or private adoptions were among the most salient reasons for this change. Compelled to adopt new roles in response to openness, many agencies now offer mediation services to help address requests for information or problems within the adoptive family-birthparent relationship. The perspectives of adoption staff regarding the main advantages and disadvantages of each type of openness are explored, and implications for practice are discussed.     

Knowledge Management in Social Work–Towards a Conceptual Framework

SUMMARY

Knowledge management (KM) is receiving increasing attention in the human services such as social work. Social service organizations have started to use information and communication technology for knowledge management purposes with the aim of improving service efficiency and effectiveness. Existing KM studies, particularly in the commercial or industrial sectors, mainly focus on the reductionistic “knowledge-as-object” view, while other perspectives such as “knowledge-as-process” are less discussed. This paper argues that these mainstream conceptions of knowledge in KM do not fully fit with that of social work knowledge, and that a spectrum view may be more useful for future practice and inquiry in the area.     

Caring vs. Cashflow

Summary

The administration and delivery of human services often involve apparently conflicting goals, such as the desire to offer quality services to those most in need while maintaining a sound financial status for an agency. Using the example of needs for caring vs. cashflow in a hospice, this article describes how computer simulation was used to explore possible solutions for this common dilemma in human service organizations. A system dynamics model was developed to represent student and staff beliefs about the causal relationships between processes of caring and cashflow. A generic system dynamics computer application, STELLA, was used to simulate and explore varying assumptions and beliefs about agency functioning. The simulation period proved very useful as an educational tool, and as a motivator for staff to pursue a solution to the caring vs. cashflow dilemma.     

Incorporating knowledge management as HRD strategy: the case of a Korean electronics company

Abstract

There is no doubt that knowledge management is now a very dominant theme in modern enterprises. To survive and compete in a knowledge-based economy, companies must learn to manage and sustain their intellectual assets. As a number of practitioners have noted, human resources play an important role in the transition process to the knowledge-based economy. This transition process is characterized by participant-driven integrative teamwork for dealing with various tasks and issues in organizations. This article presents a case study of the development of human resources in the context of knowledge management, which is based on systems thinking, exploring the process of problematization. It is based on a Foucauldian approach to expose the social relationship of power, knowledge and subjectivization in the problem-solving practice.     

The moderating effect of alcohol use on protective and risky sex behaviors among college students in the Southeast United States

ABSTRACT

Objective: College students are a high-risk population for new human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) diagnoses. Although condom use self-efficacy and HIV knowledge can protect against risky sexual behavior (RSB), these same protective factors have been shown to exacerbate RSB. The influence of alcohol use can further complicate these protective factors to influence RSB. Participants: 689 African American/Black and non-Hispanic White college students attending a public university in the Southeast United States. Method: This study sought to examine the relations between condom use self-efficacy and HIV knowledge with RSB and the moderating effect of alcohol use. Results: Findings showed positive associations between RSB and HIV knowledge and alcohol use. Unexpectedly, low frequency drinkers with high condom use self-efficacy were at increased risk for RSB compared to high frequency drinking counterparts. Conclusions: Findings point to the need to target prevention services for low-risk drinkers in college settings.     

Which Models of Supervision Help Retain Staff? Findings From Australia’s Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault Workforces

ABSTRACT

The contribution professional supervision makes to quality services, staff satisfaction, and retention is well recognised across social work and human service settings. Yet frequent supervision is difficult to provide where organisational resources are limited and urgent client-related tasks must take priority. In these contexts, group-based supervision may offer an alternative to traditional individual approaches, yet its impacts have been infrequently researched. Using survey data (n?=?917), we examine the prevalence of individual and group-based supervision among practitioners delivering domestic and family violence and sexual assault services (DFVSA), and associations these forms of supervision have with staff retention. While individual supervision remains most common, one in eight practitioners report that they never receive it. Multivariate analysis indicates frequent individual supervision is most effective for retaining practitioners. This provides empirical support for prioritising individual supervision within strategies for promoting workforce sustainability and service quality in DFVSA and other social service settings.

IMPLICATIONS

• Individual supervision remains more common than group-based approaches in domestic and family violence and sexual assault services.

• Workplaces should consider prioritising individual supervision over group supervision when attempting to improve practitioner retention.

• Managers should adopt a critical stance and consider evidence when assessing the implications of adopting group-based approaches to supervision.

     

Health Staff Responses to Domestic and Family Violence: The Case for Training to Build Confidence and Skills

ABSTRACT

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a serious, worldwide public health concern and the literature suggests that women who have experienced violence identify health care providers as the professionals they would most trust with disclosure of abuse. Social work is well positioned to respond to women presenting in hospitals after experiencing DFV and in advocating for systems and policy initiatives to support health staff in becoming adequately trained and supported to detect and respond appropriately. This paper reports on research that surveyed health staff in two hospitals in Queensland, Australia, to identify what DFV training they had received, whether this training increased their knowledge, skills and confidence to address DFV and what services they would access to support women presenting with DFV. The results showed that the respondents were an experienced staff group who had worked in the health sector for 10–20 years but despite having access to State-based training, the majority of them had not completed any in-house training and only 12% had received face-to-face training, and when they did undertake training, it was usually only a two-hour session. Seventy-five per cent of respondents would refer to their hospital-based social worker and 40% would make referrals to other support services, primarily social work.

IMPLICATIONS

• Hospitals need to prioritise, commit to, and resource appropriate and regular training to better equip health staff to identify and respond to DFV.

• Training needs to build the knowledge and skills of staff members to address their confidence to intervene and offer support.

• Social work can provide an important role in advocating and developing training and procedures to sustain health staff members’ capacity to respond appropriately to DFV.

     

Applying Group Support Systems in Social Work Education and Practice

SUMMARY

This article describes an electronic tool or process called Meeting Works?, which supports and arguably improves human service staff meetings. Meeting Works? has been shown to be effective with action planning, focus groups, project planning, quality initiatives, and a number of other activities associated with the human services.     

Mental Health Among College Students: Do Those Who Need Services Know About and Use Them?

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine connections between university students' mental health and their knowledge and use of campus mental health services. Participants and Methods: In March 2001, a sample of undergraduate students (N = 266) completed a Web-based questionnaire, providing information related to their mental health, knowledge of mental health services, and use of those services. Results: Students who were mentally distressed were more likely to know about and use services; however, some students who reported to be mentally distressed either did not know about services or knew about services but did not use them. Living off campus, identifying as male, and having fewer years in college were related to less knowledge of campus mental health services. In addition, female sex and number of years in college were predictive of higher service use. Conclusions: With the high prevalence rates and severity of mental health problems, university mental health providers must continue to make strategic efforts to disseminate knowledge about mental health services to all students.     

Happy Doing Good? How Workers' Career Orientations and Job Satisfaction Relate in Grassroots Human Services

ABSTRACT

Job satisfaction has long been a focus of human services managers and researchers. Yet recent trends in what workers want from their jobs and careers may challenge the current understanding of this important phenomenon. There is limited understanding, in particular, of human services workers' potentially diverse orientations toward their work and how those preferences relate to job satisfaction. These factors are considered using unique data from a population of domestic violence agencies. Results show that newer human services employees report valuing opportunities for entrepreneurialism at work more than their veteran coworkers, while senior staff state stronger preferences for jobs that facilitate work-life balance. Across all employees, a preference for work seen as advancing a social cause is positively linked to job satisfaction, while a desire for job autonomy is negatively related to satisfaction. Finally, the work-life balance preferences only of newer staff are positively related to their satisfaction. The article concludes with a discussion of strategies for managing employees' multidimensional preferences for work.     

Computer Management in a Substance Abuse Resource Center

Summary

This paper describes the use of computers to manage the Connecticut Clearinghouse, a resource center on alcohol and other drugs. Software packages were used to manage information on resources; to develop a database for monitoring client activities; to create a mailing list; and to publish a newsletter.

The paper addresses the selection process, equipment requirements and technical support for computer software. It focuses on introducing computer technology to a small staff, including staff resistance and techniques to overcome barriers to implementation.

Discussion centers on the role for supervisors in providing support and making training available to staff to facilitate computerization.     

What College Students Do Not Know: Where Are the Gaps in Sexual Health Knowledge?

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to understand the gaps in college students’ knowledge regarding sexual health information. Participants: A sample of 242 participants enrolled in an introductory college course participated in this study in the Fall 2009 semester. Methods: Students participated in 1 of 2 brief interventions and wrote a response paper about their experience. The papers were analyzed using conventional content analysis for information that was new to participants by looking for key words that suggested learning took place. Results: The findings indicated that the majority of participants learned new information. Most learning occurred regarding sexually transmitted infections (ie, types, symptoms, prevalence, treatment, testing) and correct condom use. There were also demographic differences regarding reported new information. Conclusions: Findings can be used to develop future sex education programs for college students by providing college educators with an understanding of where students lack knowledge of sexual health.     

HIV knowledge mediates the relationship between HIV testing history and stigma in college students

ABSTRACT

Objective: HIV-related stigma is one of the strongest barriers to prevention and treatment. HIV prevalence in U.S. college students is estimated around 0.02%, but is thought to be drastically underreported. We examined the influence of HIV knowledge on the relationship between HIV testing history and stigma in college students. Participants: A random sample of 2343 students, over the age of 18, attending a large university in the southeastern United States completed the survey in January 2016. Methods: A mediation model was constructed in regression framework to explore the relationship between HIV testing history, knowledge, and stigma. Results: HIV testing history was associated with higher knowledge scores (a path: B = 4.08, p < .001) and higher knowledge scores were associated with lower stigma (b path: B = .01, p < .001). These results suggest that HIV knowledge partially mediates the relation between HIV testing history and stigma in college students. Conclusions: HIV testing history may decrease stigma by increasing knowledge. Results can be used to inform college health promotion practice on developing programs and services.     

How Political Is the Personal? Gender Differences in the Level and the Structure of Political Knowledge

ABSTRACT

In this research note we report on the results of an experimental study among 469 respondents in Belgium. The study shows that the familiar gender differences in political knowledge can be substantially reduced when including more questions on female politicians. Using confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory measurements, we can observe that the structure of political knowledge is identical for women and men implying that women and men do not have different conceptions of what constitutes the political domain. Both for women and men, “personal items” (in this case: The correct name of the new baby of the female vice-prime minister) were shown to load strongly and one dimensionally with the more traditional institutional political knowledge questions. It seems that women and men respond in the same manner to information about the personal lives of politicians.     

Knowledge,Attitudes, and Informational Behaviors of College Students in Regard to the Human Papillomavirus

Abstract

Objective: To assess students’ human papillomavirus (HPV) knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Participants/ Methods: Students (N = 1,282) at a large, public university in the Northeast United States completed a questionnaire during February 2008 assessing HPV knowledge, prevalence, transmission, cervical cancer risk and stigma; sexual behavior, vaccination status, as well as past and preferred sources of information about HPV and sexual health. Results: A majority of respondents know of HPV. However, understanding was insufficient in several important areas. Overwhelmingly, respondents heard about HPV via television commercials yet preferred to obtain sexual health information from physicians. Hearing about HPV on a TV commercial was associated with increased knowledge. More knowledge of HPV was associated with less stigma. Men exhibit a higher level of stigma and less knowledge than women. Conclusions: Publicly funded health campaigns aimed at increasing knowledge about HPV are overdue and necessary. This is especially true for efforts targeting young adults about this extremely common sexually transmitted infection (STI).     

Statistical Software in the Human Services

Abstract

This article reviews past uses of statistical software in human services organizations and surveys recent developments in the software and its modern substitutes. It proposes four computer literacy standards for human services professionals: (The ability to) (1) choose appropriate software for data analysis tasks, (2) build and analyze small, user-generated data sets, (3) read and analyze external, machine-readable data, and (4) read and analyze internal, machine-readable data. The author concludes that developments in statistical and substitute software have greatly expanded data analysts' options for working with both internal and external data. The developments should help human services pioneers explore both the old frontier of “data rich, information poor” organizations and the new frontier of decision support and expert systems.     

Social Justice Advocacy Readiness Questionnaire

Summary

Social service providers of consultation, counseling, and education can benefit from determining their social justice awareness, knowledge, and skills to ensure culturally competent practice and to challenge the multiple oppressions facing clients and staff on individual, cultural, and institutional/systemic levels. The Social Justice Advocacy Readiness Questionnaire (SJARQ) provides a means to advocate for social justice with persons of multiple cultural identities, including all sexual orientations and gender identities. The SJARQ instrument contains three areas of self-assessment for social services staff: individual social justice advocacy awareness, comfort, and values; cultural social justice advocacy knowledge; and institutional/systemic social justice advocacy skills.     

The Worker Safety Advisor

SUMMARY

A performance support system (PSS) improves workplace performance by providing on-demand access to the integrated information needed to complete the task or solve the problem at hand. To test the feasibility of a human services PSS, the authors developed the Worker Safety Advisor (WSA), which presents several computer screens on which workers specify the situation they face. The WSA then searches a knowledge base and presents relevant worker safety information in an easy-to-read format. This article describes the development of the WSA, Including its background, rationale, objectives, resources required, and lessons learned. The PSS concepts and experiences presented can help others develop similar applications.     

Qualitative accounts of young-people,parents and staff involved with a purpose-designed,pilot short-break service for 18–24 year olds with life-limiting conditions

PurposeTransition to adult health and social-care services is a time of great uncertainty for young adults with life-limiting conditions; due to improved management, many who would have previously died before they were 18 years old are now surviving into early adulthood. Nevertheless, few services exist to meet their specific needs for specialist short breaks away from home. The purpose of this research was to determine the views and perspectives of young adults' parents/carers and staff engaged with a purpose-designed, pilot short-break service for 18–24 year olds with life-limiting conditions. Data were gathered through qualitative individual or focus group interviews involving two young adults, four mothers and fifteen health or social-care staff associated with the service. Data were analysed using Framework Analysis.Principal resultsEmergent themes: (i) The need for a specialist short-break service; (ii) Decision making when using or delivering the service; (iii) Challenges of staffing and financing the service (iv) Meeting young adults' complex needs and preferences (v) Suggestions for how to improve the service.The young adults described how they benefitted from access to specialist, age-appropriate, on-site clinical skills facilities and opportunities to socialise with peers. Mothers said they benefitted from time alone or with other family members in the knowledge that the specialist short break service met the needs and preferences of their child as they made the transition to adult services. However, all participating mothers and staff expressed concern about the future well-being of young adults when they left the service at 24 years old.Major conclusionsThis study provides new information to inform ongoing development of short-break services for the increasing number of young adults with life-limiting conditions who are surviving longer than they would previously have done. This will help to ensure that UK services are responsive to users' needs and preferences.     

Conveying campus sexual misconduct policy information to college and university students: Results from a 7-campus study

ABSTRACT

Objective: To examine the efficacy of different methods (ie, in-class policy reading; in-class policy reading and discussion; no reading or discussion) to deliver campus sexual misconduct policy information to students on 7 campuses. Participants: A total of 1,195 participants at 7 colleges and universities participated in the study from August to October 2014. Participants were randomly assigned at the class level and completed pretest and posttest surveys assessing knowledge of campus policy and resources and confidence to seek help for sexual assault. Results: Students exposed to a larger dosage of material (in-class policy reading plus discussion) showed greater positive changes in attitudes and knowledge than students who did not receive information or were only read the policy. However, on some indices, students who were only read the policy showed positive outcomes compared with students receiving no intervention. Conclusion: Colleges and universities must use engaging methods to disseminate campus sexual misconduct policies to students.