Resources Ancillary Services and Classroom Instruction

Abstract

This article is the story of a social work instructor and her deaf-blind student. The chapter includes: (a) an overview of Gallaudet University, focusing on the Social Work Program and the Office of Students with Disabilities program, (b) personal background information about the student and her professor, and (c) perspectives of the educational process by both the student and her instructor. The article concludes with recommendations to both students and instructors for addressing the needs of deaf-blind students in the classroom and university setting.     

Unmet service needs of families of young children with chronic illnesses and disabilities

Data about health and educational services were collected from 187 families with young children (under two years) who have chronic illnesses and disabilities. The purpose was to assess parents' satisfaction with services their families received and to identify families' unmet service needs as well as the reasons for these unmet needs. Although families' ratings of the adequacy of services are relatively high, 28% of the families report unmet service needs. The unmet needs most often reported are occupational, physical, or speech therapy; respite care/child care; and special education. Lack of funding is the most commonly given reason for unmet needs. Children with multiple impairments are at highest risk for unmet needs. Only 22% of unmet needs reported at the initial interview have been met by the time of the six-month follow-up. Increased coordination and monitoring of services across service sectors are indicated. Her research interests include the effects of disability on family identity and families' responses to minority stress. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She gratefully acknowledges Shelley Blazis and Nadav Casuto for statistical consulting. Her research interests focus on the impact of chronic illness and disability on families. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include families and health and chronic illness and disability in children. She received her Ph.D. in Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. His areas of interest include neurodevelopmental outcomes of low birth weight infants and training in developmental pediatrics. He was graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School. His areas of interest include adolescents with chronic illness and disabilities, adolescent sexual decision making, and international adolescent health care issues. He was graduated from Howard University College of Medicine was awarded his earned doctorate in Health Policy from the University of Minnesota. Preparation of this article was supported by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research Grant #H133890012.     

Building an Institution Second to None: Dr. Inabel Burns Lindsay—A Social Work Leader in the Academy

ABSTRACT

This article describes Dr. Inabel Burns Lindsay's leadership as the founding dean at Howard University School of Social Work during her 30 years of service from 1937 to 1967. It chronicles her efforts to build the School as well as her efforts to highlight social injustices of the time. Her lifelong efforts promoted the inclusion of African American social workers in the workforce and the need to understand sociocultural factors in working with different ethnic and racial groups. As a female dean, Dr. Lindsay was an avid promoter of social justice and a prolific writer and speaker on the topic. This article introduces the reader to this under-recognized social work pioneer, with emphases on the challenges of her time and her leadership style.     

“A Woman's Nature is Like a Great House Full of Rooms”: Edith Wharton's Personal and Fictional Representation of Homes

ABSTRACT

All of her life, the turn-of-the-century American novelist Edith Wharton was extremely sensitive to her environment. This preoccupation resulted in a professional interest in houses and their interior decoration. She created homes for herself, both in America and in France, in which she ensured the conditions for the development of her authorship. She moreover published books in which she expressed her opinions on how a home should be constructed and decorated, which contributed to her reputation as a professional author, but also as an intellectual, a connoisseur, and a cosmopolitan. The average American bourgeois home, which she abhorred, formed a source of inspiration for her literary imagery in the depiction of characters who find themselves entrapped in patriarchal society.     

Women's perceived stress and well-being following voluntary and involuntary relocation

This study investigated the relationship between voluntary and involuntary relocation and women's perceptions of stress and amount of control, as well as their satisfaction with personal well-being. Results indicated that involuntary movers felt significantly less control and had lower levels of satisfaction with the relationship with their spouses than did voluntary movers. Educational level and employment status were also explored in relation to the dependent variables. Women with high school/trade school education had significantly higher levels of perceived stress, feelings of less control, and lower levels of satisfaction with family life than women with more education.This paper was supported by the Colorado State University and University of Wyoming Experiment Stations and published as Scientific Series Paper No. 290.Paula P. Makowsky received her M.S. from Colorado State University. She is currently a Counselor, Catholic Social Services, Phoenix, AZ.Alicia Skinner Cook is a Professor, Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO 80523. Her research interests include grief and loss issues related to relocation. She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University.Peggy S. Berger received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. She is an Associate Professor, Department of Consumer Science & Housing, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO 80523. Her research interests include socioeconomic issues related to geographic mobility and to gender.Judith Powell received her Ed.D. from Oklahoma State University. She is a Professor, Child & Family Studies, and Head, Department of Home Economics, Division of Home Economics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071. Her research interests include parent-child relations and effects of relocation on families.     

From local to global: Making social policy more effective for rural community capacity building

Abstract

In the context of a discussion of globalisation this paper examines developments in social policy aimed at building civil society and enhancing social capital. It notes that policy driven by a desire for minimal government intervention and market dominance has resulted in a clear disadvantage in rural Australia and growing inequities between urban and rural communities. Clearly poverty has a postcode and overwhelmingly the postcodes are rural. At the same time the demography of ‘rural’ Australia is changing as the inland empties and the coastal regions experience population overload with its accompanying environmental problems. This paper discusses the need for more effective targeted involvement of the state in rural policy development if we are to preserve quality of life, address inequities and overcome the divide between city and country. There is a strong role for social work in forging rural community development. However, the profession has to be much more politically astute in its dealings with governments and community groups if it is to carve out a central role. Strategies are discussed to develop such a role.

Margaret Alston is an Associate Professor in social work and is Director of the Centre for Rural Social Research at Charles Sturt University, New South Wales. She is a Director for the Foundation for Australian Agricultural Women, a member of the Advisory Board for the Social Sciences Unit, Bureau of Rural Sciences, a member of the Board of General Practice Education Australia and on the Editorial Committee for Australian Social Work     

Social work with vulnerable families and children in 11 Russian regions

Purpose. The purpose of the study was to describe and analyse how key actors in the social sector in Russian regions identify problems, objectives and social work achievements in connection with vulnerable families and children.

Methods. University personnel conducted 209 interviews using semi-structured questionnaires.

Results. Family problems were reported to be related to poverty, parents’ alcohol abuse, the child's behaviour, the child's lack of social skills, domestic conflicts and problems getting adequate housing. The view of the majority of the respondents was that social orphanhood depends on poverty, alcohol abuse and the family's diminished role in society. Family incomes have improved but services have become more expensive. The social workers mostly put the child, not the family, in focus. Alcohol abuse was considered to be a greater problem in wealthier regions. Analyses between key groups showed that the respondents ranked problems differently, had similar ways of defining important objectives, but had divergent opinions on what social work could achieve concerning, for example, re-establishing the child's contacts with his/her biological parents.

Conclusions. The respondents seem to be highly ambivalent toward alcohol abuse as a social problem and toward biological parents in vulnerable families. Social work in the regions is a profession in the process of formation.     

Electronic Technology for Social Work Education and Practice: The Application of Telephone Technology to Counseling

SUMMARY

The author in this article argues for the legitimization of the telephone in one-on-one and group professional practice in social work. She contrasts telephone hotline work and face-to-face counseling with her view of telephone counseling.     

Mabel Agnes Elliott,We Hardly Knew You

Sociologist Mabel Agnes Elliott was elected the fourth president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1956–1957 and was the first woman to hold this position. She was an anti-war activist, a feminist and a creative and diligent writer. Yet she experienced many challenges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept an active file on Elliott for approximately 30 years, she was the victim of discrimination by her male colleagues at the University of Kansas where she spent much of her career and Professor Robert E. L. Faris used many of the ideas from her Social Disorganization textbook without attribution. In spite of her research productivity her salary was frozen for 18 years. Once she began teaching women at Chatham College she found an institution that appreciated her many talents and rewarded her appropriately. Even so, in a male-dominated discipline, her contributions to criminology and social disorganization have been nearly forgotten.     

The majority legal status of women in southern Africa: implications for women and families

Women in many countries of southern Africa do not have majority status or have only recently gained this right. Majority status grants individuals adult legal status and the right to bring matters to court, own and administer property, have legal custody of children, and contract for marriage. This article summarizes the legal status of women in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Lack of majority status contributes to the ongoing risk of poverty for women and makes them overly dependent on men. Compounding the situation in these countries is the presence of a dual legal system. Improving the situation of women and their families involves targeting changes in the legal system, influencing implementation of laws, educating women about their rights, and giving women needed support to seek their legal rights. The legal status of women must be viewed in the context of historical changes in the economic, educational, political, and cultural developments of society.The research for this paper was conducted during her previous faculty affiliation with the University of Michigan, School of Social Work. Her research interests include the impact of social change on women and families, rural mental health services, and health and mental health linkages. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University and her M.S.W. from the Columbia University School of Social Work.Her research interests are gender, work and family, culture and power, social transformations in rural and peri-urban communities, critical education, women and community politics, history of women, family and kinship issues, and community-based program development and evaluation. She received her M.S.W. from Dalhousie University, Halifax.     

Remembering Muriel

ABSTRACT

Muriel Dimen was singular—but also multiple. A brave risk taker, wearing her vulnerability. A mentor showing her uncertainty. She created a hybrid form of written address in which the formal and the colloquial, the public and the intimate, the erotic and the traumatic, the put-together and the broken-up shared the stage, speaking not as one but as multiples. The world without her feels like an endless absence.     

On my own terms

Abstract

Carol Conaway prepared this excerpt from her political memoir-in-progress. She examines her experiences as an African American lesbian living her dream of becoming a Jew. The work focuses on how she navigated her initial naïveté about the prejudices she encountered in response to her combination of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and mental illness. Conaway’s work to co-found a community of lesbian and gay Jews in Boston marked a defining moment in her history.     

Must Schools of Social Work be Freestanding? Yes!

Abstract

Point/Counterpoint is a regular feature of the Journal of Social Work Education. Its purpose is to provide a vehicle for the expression of contrasting views on controversial topics in social work education. Our goal is to illuminate important debates and explore the diverse perspectives that are shaping social work education.

In each issue of the Journal, social work educators are invited to comment on a topic about which they have differing viewpoints. Each commentator is given an opportunity to make a brief rebuttal. In this issue, Barbara Shank (Chair, Department of Social Work, University of St. Thomas and the College of St. Catherine), Irving Piliavin (Director, School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Marsha Seltzer (Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison) address the question: Must schools of social work be freestanding?     

Challenging Endings: First Year MSW Interns’ Experiences with Forced Termination and Discussion Points for Supervisory Guidance

Every year, students prematurely end their work with some clients due to the completion of their internship, rather than the client’s achievement of goals and thus a more natural endpoint of treatment. It is important to understand students’ experiences with forced termination to provide them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and support to optimally manage this complex phenomenon. This paper reviews the social work literature on forced termination arising from the ending of students’ internships and presents, in their own words, the experiences of four first-year MSW interns with forced termination. Finally, based on the literature and as borne out by these students’ experiences, some areas for discussion and reflection between interns and their supervisors in handling forced termination are offered. Caroline Rosenthal Gelman, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at New York University’s School of Social Work. She received her M.S.W. in 1991 from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in 1998 from the Smith College School for Social Work. Phyllis Fernandez, Nathalie Hausman, Sarah Miller and Michael Weiner received their MSW in 2004 from New York University’s School of Social Work.     

Perceived risk associated with apparel purchasing in discount stores

Consumer discount store patronage preferences for apparel are investigated using the concept of perceived risk. Apparel items are assigned a type and level of risk: low social, low economic; high social, low economic; and high social, high economic. Females (N=222) responding to a mail survey rate their willingness to purchase each item in a discount store on a scale ofprefer to buy, may buy, ornever buy. Results suggest that consumer preference for purchasing in discount stores declines more sharply when economic risk increases than when social risk increases.Teresa A. Summers is Associate Professor of the School of Human Ecology, Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. She received her Ph.D. from Texas Woman's University. Her research interest includes rural/urban consumer responses to changes in the marketplace.Frances C. Lawrence is Professor of the School of Human Ecology, Family, Child, and Consumer Sciences at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. She received her Ph.D. from Florida State University. Her research interests include family financial decision-making and family time use.Janice L. Haynes is Assistant Professor of the School of Human Ecology, Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. She received her Ph.D. from Texas Woman's University. Her research interest includes retail patronage of specialized consumer market segments.Patricia J. Wozniak is Associate Professor of the Department of Experimental Statistics at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include survey methodology and rural families.     

Book reviews

Abstract

TO HA VE AND TO HOLD: Marriage, the First Baby and Preparing for Parenthood

CHRISTOPHER F. CLULOW. Aberdeen University Press, 1982. (Reviewed by Jeanne A. Bertrand)

THE STEP FAMILY: A Growing Challenge for Social Work by DIANA BROWN, Social Work Monograph no.4, 1982

RESPONSIBILITY FOR INCEST: A Feminist View by ANNA FAIRTLOUGH, Social Work Monograph no. 16, 1983

THE PERMANENCY PRINCIPLE IN CHILD CARE SOCIAL WORK by CATRIONA MORRIS, Social Work Monograph no. 21, 1984.

SOCIAL WORK AND MENTAL ILLNESS ALAN BUTLER AND COLIN PRITCHARD

SOCIAL WORK WITH THE FAMILIES OF CHILDREN AWAY FROM HOME SYLVIA MASSEY AND MARY PEALEY

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS (6) Working with Children Editor: JOYCE LISHMAN

H. KARNAC (BOOKS) LTD.

56/58 GLOUCESTER ROAD, LONDON. SW7 4QY

Specialists in the literature of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and related fields.

BOOKS POSTED TO ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD     

Staying With The Client

Abstract

Since the early seventies there have been widespread assumptions in social work that: (a) effective therapy is necessarily brief-lasting, at most, eight to ten sessions, and (b) that we should only deal with the problems that the client wants help with.

The author challenges the universality of these assumptions, and their basis in research and considerations about supposed cost-effectiveness. He illustrates through a single case study of a depressed adolescent girl and her unhappy mother that although contact could have been terminated after ten sessions, when the identified patient was better, in fact it would probably have achieved very little, since intervention up to that point had had the effect of making the mother only too painfully aware of her life predicament and reducing her almost to despair.

At the mother's request, social work contact continued for a further eleven sessions, spread over five months. She appeared to use this to achieve a considerable degree of acceptance of her painful and deprived childhood, and adopt a very much more positive attitude to her future. Her depression lifted, and her anxiety diminished. Follow-up eighteen months later strongly suggested that the gains made had been maintained for both mother and daughter.     

Family policy in Korea

In Korea, family policy as a public policy gained interest in the 1980s, when the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (since January 1995 the Ministry of Health and Welfare) renamed the Maternal and Child Bureau the Family Welfare Bureau. This paper first presents a brief overview of the traditional family system and values in Korea and examines changes in economic and social indicators, changes in family functions and roles, and changes in attitudes toward family that have occurred following industrialization and urbanization. The paper then briefly explains some of the problems Korean families face today. It next examines the Family Planning Program and its results. Finally, it turns to an examination and critique of the policies and programs administered by the Family Welfare Bureau.Yeonoak Baik is a Family Advocacy Therapist for the 8th U.S. Army c/o Commander, 43rd Surgical Hospital (MA), ATTN: EAMC-SH-FAP, Room D-108, Unit #15190, APO AP, 96271-0126. She works in Korea with U.S. military soldiers and their dependents. Her research interests include child welfare, single-parent families, and domestic violence. Her MSW was received from the School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Her research interests include children of divorced families, social welfare policy, and social work administration in Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare at Seoul National University in Korea.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Human Services at Risk: Administrative Strategies for Survival , edited by Felice Davidson Permutter. Boston, MA: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, 1984. Reviewed by Mona Struhsaker Schatz

Supervising Student Internships in Human Services , edited by Carlton E. Munson. New York: The Haworth Press, 1984. Reviewed by Harvey Bertcher

Transactional Analysis for Social Workers and Counsellors: An Introduction , by Elizabeth Pitman. London and Boston: Library of Social Work, Routhledge and Kegan Paul, 1984. Reviewed by Edward G. Kuhlmann

Ages in Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Inequality Between Old and Young , by Nancy Foner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. Reviewed by Bruce A. Thyer

Clinical Social Work in Health Settings , by Thomas Owen Carlton. New York: Springer Publishing Co., 1984. Reviewed by John R. Ball     

Family Experiences of Caring for Relatives Who Have Received Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

The research literature on family members’ experiences of the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is limited. This article explores the perspectives of family members whose relatives had received ECT. Drawing on a social constructionist perspective, this qualitative study collected data using in-depth interviews with nine families in South Australia, to examine how family members constructed the supports and challenges they experienced. The research found that families experienced a range of social and service system barriers, including social stigma and isolation, and limited support from health professionals. They had to negotiate caring expectations within a social context that stigmatised both mental illness and ECT. A need for ECT-specific mental health support groups was identified.

IMPLICATIONS

• Social workers’ roles in Australian hospitals could be further expanded to accommodate supporting families whose relatives have received ECT, referring families to community support, and advocating for specialist support post-ECT treatment.

• Social workers can further articulate their unique contribution to community care post-ECT treatment and advocate for supporting families.

• Increased focus on ongoing and preventative care for supporting families is a potential growth area for social workers in mental health.