Balancing required resources and neighborhood opposition in community-based treatment center neighborhoods.

This paper analyzes the compatibility of two characteristics of neighborhoods containing community-based treatment centers (CBTCs): the availability of resources that can be used in treatment and the likelihood of neighborhood opposition. Do CBTC neighborhoods having high levels of geographically based resources also have characteristics associated with low opposition to these centers? The findings suggest that among neighborhoods with centers serving adults, inner-city transitional neighborhoods where low opposition would be expected have significantly higher levels of treatment resources than do more affluent, suburban neighborhoods. The implications of these findings for selecting sites for community-based treatment centers are discussed.     

Services for urban poor families in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: a case study

With 25% of its population living in over 148 squatter settlements, with a high incidence of communicable diseases, teenage pregnancies, and psychological and familial stress, the city of Kuala Lumpur has sought ways to improve conditions. This article describes one particularly promising approach: community-based centers integrating three socioeconomic components--preschool education, maternal and child health clinics, and income-generating activities.     

Shanghai: Front-Runner of Community-Based Eldercare in China

Facing dramatic growth in its elderly population, Shanghai, China’s economic center, has strategically exercised decentralized policy-making power to develop community-based service centers for the elderly. A growing number of elders have been using such services, particular dining services, since 2007. We discuss the evolution in community-based eldercare services in Shanghai, using dining services as an example. We also compare these service centers in Shanghai to multipurpose senior centers in the United States to offer policy recommendations for Shanghai and China’s growing eldercare industry. Tailored policy recommendations are discussed.     

Art as therapy: an effective way of promoting positive mental health?

The aim of this study is to evaluate the contribution that creative arts can play in promoting positive mental health and well-being. The research is based on a case study of an innovative art therapy programme delivered by a community-based mental health organisation in Northern Ireland, as part of a supported recovery programme. The study reported here explored the experiences and perceptions of the service users through in-depth interviews and focus groups. The art as therapy course was credited with improvements in self-esteem and self-confidence. It provided a safe space for reflection on mental health issues. Participants described the programme as cathartic and a springboard for engagement in a wide range of further projects. It is concluded that this type of project which addresses mental health issues in a supportive, positive, non-clinical environment can encourage and facilitate empowerment and recovery through accessible creative programmes. However, to date these programmes are time-limited, small-scale and marginal to the approach adopted by statutory service providers.     

Location of community-based treatment centers

Neighborhood opposition to community-based treatment centers (CBTCs) has prompted fears that these centers will become concentrated in inner city, "transitional neighborhoods." These neighborhoods are thought to lack the willingness and/or resources to oppose CBTCs. This paper examines the distribution of CBTCs in a northern metropolitan county. The findings suggests that the fears of "ghettoization" may be real only for certain types of centers. Most centers were located in higher-status city and suburban neighborhoods. However, these centers were physically or visually isolated from the surrounding housing, making them less likely to attract attention and therefore less likely to arouse neighborhood opposition.     

Complementing SBIRT for Alcohol Misuse with SBIRT for Trauma: A Feasibility Study

Reducing alcohol misuse is a priority for U.S. health officials considering that misuse of alcohol is a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. Consequently, health centers are integrating Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for alcohol misuse within usual care. Although SBIRT is well validated among general patient samples, results have not generalized to drinkers with probable alcohol use disorder; moreover, little is known about the efficacy of SBIRT with patients who are of low-income or ethnic or racial minority status. Members of these groups are of particular concern because they are at risk to experience trauma, potentially in concert with alcohol misuse. Therefore, translational approaches to delivering SBIRT particularly with these groups of interest might be needed to meet the Grand Challenge of reducing alcohol misuse. Accordingly, this study combined SBIRT with a model designed to address psychological trauma: T-SBIRT. With a sample of 112 adults, most of whom were African American or Latino/a, authors analyzed multiple indicators of feasibility. Results indicated that T-SBIRT is suitable for and acceptable to patients accessing community-based health services, and T-SBIRT can promote high referral acceptance rates to specialty treatment, particularly among patients with probable alcohol use disorder.     

Promoting young people’s musical identities to facilitate recovery from mental illness

The new ‘youth mental health paradigm’ (IAYMH. 2015. “International Association for Youth Mental Health.” Accessed February 15, http://www.iaymh.org/) promotes the need for youth-friendly mental health options. Music therapy initiatives offer innovative modes of working towards young people’s recovery in ways that align with the ethos of these services (McCaffrey, Edwards, and Fannon. 2011. “Is There a Role for Music Therapy in the Recovery Approach in Mental Health?” The Arts in Psychotherapy 38 (3): 185–189). This paper details a participatory research project investigating how and why promoting young people’s musical identities can facilitate their recovery from mental illness. Young people accessing a music therapy programme in a youth mental health service in Australia participated in collaborative qualitative interviews that were analysed using constructivist grounded theory techniques. Cycles of action and reflection resulted in a grounded theory explaining the recovery of musical identity, and mapping young people’s community-based music needs for wellbeing. We propose that promoting young people’s musical identities facilitates recovery through: the construction of a health-based identity; facilitating meaning-making; and supporting social participation. Findings are discussed in relation to recovery literature and social justice issues that arise in response to findings about young people’s needs for appropriate music access.     

University-Community Partnership Centers

Abstract

In academic settings, community research, and the service that goes along with it, is often not valued as much as other methods of research. The more qualitative and labor intensive nature of applied research often raises concerns about whether pre-tenured faculty can publish the sufficient quantity and quality of work necessary to achieve tenure. This paper describes successful collaborations through a university-based Community Partnership Center with members of community-based organizations in low-income inner-city neighborhoods, social work students, and faculty. Two case examples illustrate the co-authors' involvement with the Center as pre-tenured faculty. The article outlines the challenges and benefits of involvement with an established center for university-community partnerships. With careful planning and coordination, such centers can be excellent vehicles through which to achieve important mutual benefits for community-based organizations, student learning, and faculty responsibilities in research, teaching and service.     

Integrating creative art into a community-based mental health program for Asian American transition age youth

This paper advocates for the use of creative art as an adjunct in the delivery of mental health care for Asian American transition age youth in the United States. A case study of a participant in a community-based mental health program called Project FOCUS in Orange County, California details how art was used to assist a young woman to identify and achieve her personal goals, mitigate her emotional and behavioral problems, and reach a sense of overall well-being. The findings in this paper lay the groundwork for future research into how art can be systematically incorporated into community-based mental health programs to facilitate service utilization. Further, this study demonstrates that Asian American transition age youth face mental health challenges typical of their cohorts, despite being putative members of a “model minority.” The use of creative art transcends cultural and language barriers, and empowers Asian American transition age youth to explore their identity and express their emotions, which ultimately promotes their mental well-being.     

Mental health professionals in children's advocacy centers: is there role conflict?

Two recent chapters in professional books have criticized children's advocacy centers for creating role conflict for mental health professionals because of their work with criminal justice and child protection professionals in children's advocacy centers as part of a coordinated response to child abuse. This article argues that these critiques misunderstand children's advocacy center practice and overestimate the risk of role conflict. Children's advocacy center standards set a boundary between forensic interviewing and therapy, which in most children's advocacy centers are done by separate professionals and never by the same professional for a given child. Many mental health professionals serve children's advocacy centers as consultants with no treatment role. Children's advocacy center therapists are rarely involved in investigation, and their participation in multidisciplinary teams focuses on children's interests and well-being.     

Reproductive health technologies and gender: Is participation the key?

This article discusses the impact of a community-based contraceptive distribution (CBD) project in Eastern Province, Zambia, on reproductive health and gender relations. Participatory learning action techniques with peer groups analysis were used in the evaluation. Both men and women appreciated the modern contraceptives because they were easy to use, free and reliable. The most frequently cited negative effects of contraceptive technologies were menstrual irregularities, infertility, and side effects associated with pill and injectable hormonal methods. Both sexes cited more harmonious marital relations as the most positive impact of the service-delivery component on sexual and gender relations. The impact of involvement in the CBD project on the CBD agents themselves was also assessed. Many felt that their training helped improve gender relations with their marital partners. Participatory approaches can enable providers of reproductive health services to gain a better understanding of their clients' needs.     

From Adoption to Residential Treatment Centers

Although children who have been adopted are referred for mental health services more often than their non-adopted peers and might be overrepresented within residential treatment centers (RTCs), little is known about adoptive families' experiences with RTCs. The present study sought to understand the experiences of families whose children were placed in residential treatment facilities after a finalized adoption. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a total of ten families who had adopted 21 children. Of these, 13 children had been placed in an RTC after the finalized adoption. Most of the children in the sample were between zero and five years of age at placement. Adoptive families reported the need for in-the-trenches training and community-based services that could provide ongoing support post-adoption. Implications from these findings include increasing in-home services and other options within the adoptive families' own communities. Future research could incorporate a larger sample to assess whether the experiences of families in this study are similar to other adoptive families.     

A Review of: “Dattilio,Frank M. (2010). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with Couples and Families: A Comprehensive Guide for Clinicians.”

This conceptual study focuses on health disparities among African Americans in the Arkansas Delta. The author uses an ecosocial perspective to explore several social and individual-level influences upon patients' perceptions of health care quality, including health beliefs and life experiences of discrimination that can lead to not accessing health care systems. The study findings identify community-based strengths that can inform the development of strategies and programs to reduce rural health disparities. The discussion includes the potential implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for progress in health care quality and health equality, especially for rural racial/ethnic minorities.     

A case study in defining developmental costs for quality assurance in mental health center programs

Issues related to the state-of-the-art of ambulatory mental health care review as well as to the resources necessary for planning and operating a quality assurance program may be hampering development of such programs in community mental health centers nationwide. Faced with the problem of responsible and prudent program management, it has become increasingly difficult for CMHC directors to implement innovative, but unproven, and often unpriced programs which have the potential to draw scarce professional resources away from direct service delivery. Pressure to implement CMHC program requirements that are not ordinarily considered revenue-producing in nature, for example, consultation and education services and quality assurance activities, may further create anxiety for mental health program directors, especially during periods when they are ostensibly confronted with the need to maximize CMHC revenues. Before mental health professionals and administrators of mental health programs can be expected to introduce quality assurance programs, they need to have some idea how much the system costs. The figures reported from three North Carolina mental health centers may offer some indication of what other mental health centers might expect to spend in developing a quality assurance program. Salary expenses for multidisciplinary staff participation in quality assurance activities are presented.     

Targeting the worst-off for free health care: a process evaluation in Burkina Faso

Effective mechanisms to exempt the indigent from user fees at health care facilities are rare in Africa. A State-led intervention (2004-2005) and two action research projects (2007-2010) were implemented in a health district in Burkina Faso to exempt the indigent from user fees. This article presents the results of the process evaluation of these three interventions. Individual and group interviews were organized with the key stakeholders (health staff, community members) to document the strengths and weaknesses of key components of the interventions (relevance and uptake of the intervention, worst-off selection and information, financial arrangements). Data was subjected to content analysis and thematic analysis. The results show that all three intervention processes can be improved. Community-based targeting was better accepted by the stakeholders than was the State-led intervention. The strengths of the community-based approach were in clearly defining the selection criteria, informing the waiver beneficiaries, using a participative process and using endogenous funding. A weakness was that using endogenous funding led to restrictive selection by the community. The community-based approach appears to be the most effective, but it needs to be improved and retested to generate more knowledge before scaling up.     

Anchors of the community: community schools in Chicago

In partnership with Chicago's public and private sectors, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has successfully implemented a citywide education reform effort, designed to transform Chicago's neighborhood schools into vibrant centers of the community. Mayor Richard M. Daley and Arne Duncan, CEO of CPS, launched the Community Schools Initiative in January 2002. What started as an idea that was developed by a local foundation has now grown into the largest-scale community school effort in the nation, with sixty-seven schools in operation and a plan to move to one hundred community schools by 2007. This initiative currently involves seventeen private funders, ten technical assistance providers, thirty-four community-based organizations that offer on-site services to children and families, and over three hundred additional community partnerships that provide one-day events such as health fairs and violence prevention workshops.     

Matching needs and services: an assessment tool for community-based service systems

This article presents results from an outcomes-based needs assessment in an urban service district, using case record data to profile service needs in different communities. The methodology emphasizes consistent collection of data from actual case records and explicitly includes line staff and clients in the planning process. Such reviews could benefit a variety of community-based child welfare, health, and education systems, although implementing identified service strategies can be challenging.     

Mental health interventions for children in foster care: A systematic review

Children in foster care have high rates of adverse childhood experiences and are at risk for mental health problems. These problems can be difficult to ameliorate, creating a need for rigorous intervention research. Previous research suggests that intervening with children in foster care can be challenging for several reasons, including the severity and complexity of their mental health problems, and challenges engaging this often transitory population in mental health services. The goal of this article was to systematically review the intervention research that has been conducted with children in foster care, and to identify future research directions. This review was conducted on mental health interventions for children, ages 0 to 12, in foster care, using ERIC, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed, ProQuest's Dissertation and Theses Database, Social Services Abstracts, and Social Work Abstracts. It was restricted to interventions that are at least “possibly efficacious” (i.e., supported by evidence from at least one randomized controlled trial). Studies were evaluated for risk of bias. Ten interventions were identified, with diverse outcomes, including mental health and physiological. Six interventions were developed for children in foster care. Interventions not developed for children in foster care were typically adapted to the foster context. Most interventions have yet to be rigorously evaluated in community-based settings with children in foster care. Little research has been conducted on child and family engagement within these interventions, and there is a need for more research on moderators of intervention outcomes and subgroups that benefit most from these interventions. In addition, there is no consensus regarding how to adapt interventions to this population. Future research should focus on developing and testing more interventions with this population, rigorously evaluating their effectiveness in community-based settings, determining necessary adaptations, and identifying which interventions work best for whom.     

A model of collaborative programming to address wildlife issues: The northeast wildlife damage management research and outreach cooperative

Wildlife abundance has grown for several species that are adapted to human-dominated landscapes. Overabundant wildlife may cause nuisance concerns and property damage, or spread zoonotic diseases such as West Nile virus, particularly at the suburban-rural interface of many communities. Consequently, wildlife damage management has become an important component of the wildlife profession. The complicated biological and human dimensions of human-wildlife conflicts often require partnerships between state and federal agencies, universities, local governments, communities, and private wildlife control professionals. The Northeast Wildlife Damage Management Research and Outreach Cooperative (WDM Coop) was formed to enhance coordination and collaboration among wildlife agencies, universities, and other cooperators to promote consistent, multi-state approaches for resolving wildlife-related concerns. During 2001–2004, 12 projects have been funded to examine issues associated with white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), black bear (Ursus americanus), Canada geese (Branta canadensis), and beaver (Castor canadensis). These projects have focused on a diverse array topics from community-based efforts to control deer populations, to aversive conditioning techniques for black bears. The Northeast Fish and Wildlife Agency Directors decided to exclude projects focusing on zoonotic diseases and human health issues from the list of WDM Coop activities. There have been focused efforts concerning human dimensions inquiry and outreach publications for wildlife management professionals. As state fish and wildlife agency budgets grow tighter and staff numbers are reduced, we believe more regional centers or wildlife management cooperatives will be formed to meet the increasing demand for services from multiple states with shared issues and concerns.