Social Group Work for Young Offenders with Learning Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Despite the high incidence of learning disabilities among young offenders, research suggests that young offenders with learning disabilities do not receive interventions that address their learning disabilities. Group treatment approaches for young offenders typically utilize a cognitive-behavioral orientation. Cognitive behavioral techniques have been found to be effective with the young offender population by targeting their faulty thinking. However, cognitive behavioral treatment is less effective with youth who have academic delays. Individuals with learning disabilities may have difficulties with the cognitive tasks used in cognitive behavioral treatment. This paper describes a treatment group, with illustrations, adapted for young offenders with learning disabilities, combining cognitive-behavioral and mutual-aid principles.     

Abstracts of Doctoral Dissertations, 2005 Smith College School for Social Work

Abstract

This essay reflects on personal transformative experiences as explored using ideas from transformative learning, developmental perspectives and the practice of spiritual direction. This reflects the multi-disciplinary, relationally based perspectives that are useful in exploring transformation when spirituality is an essential dimension of understanding the meaning of critical incidents or events in one's life. Using the metaphor of spinning a kaleidoscope to identify memories that elucidate critical transitions in a personal narrative, there are memories from childhood, early professional life and recent events which afford an opportunity to revisit and explore the meaning of those events. The essay provides insight into the practice of spiritual direction that has similar parallels in clinical practice. These parallels include: the importance of attending to the relationship; of paying attention to one's own stillness and silence; and of engaging the other in owning the transformative power of insights from their explorations.     

Social Support for Mothers of Children With Disabilities in China

ABSTRACT.

This article analyzes the gendered parenting experiences of mothers of children with disabilities in China. These mothers struggle to meet their children's needs, including daily care, financial security, and child development. In the context of China's social welfare development, are social services responding to their needs, so that mothers can share responsibility for the needs of their children with disabilities? The research analyzed qualitative data about 6 case-study children in rural and urban China. The data were derived from observation and interviews with their parents and other family and community members. The analysis revealed that the capacity of the mother, community, and local social services had an impact on the rights of the children and mothers. They experienced social discrimination, insufficient social support, and local failure to implement central policy social services and income support. These findings are consistent with international research about disability rights. They reinforce the importance of economic redistribution to enable local implementation of the national disability rights policies, rather than merely relying on ephemeral concepts of cultural change. Further research about the comparative impact of economic and social change in China on mothers and children with disabilities would extend these findings.     

Family touch practices and learning experiences in the museum

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how family museum visitors crafted learning through interaction with one another and the touch objects of an exhibition. Through a case study of seven families’ interaction, we show how families used touch to bring their interests and resources into dialogue with museum expectations and resources. Using a multimodal approach to analyze observational data, we generate a fine-grained account of differently configured family touch practices and ways of experiencing and knowing objects through their material, sensory tactile and affective qualities. We conclude by highlighting how our findings can inform the design of touch exhibits to support family learning, with attention to engagement, narrative creation, and embodied learning, and point to the paper’s methodological contribution to the analysis of visitor situated real-time interaction and learning in museums.     

Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Develop a Series of Core Competency Trainings Within a Developmental Disability Program

ABSTRACT

The New York State Talent Development Consortium at the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) mandated developmental disability programs to train and evaluate direct service providers (DSPs) on seven core competencies. Utilizing community-based participatory research (CPBR) – an approach where clients, providers, and researchers share their knowledge and experience to identify study areas, formulate research questions, and use results to improve practice – a needs assessment was conducted by a New York-based developmental disability program to inform a training curriculum. Six focus groups were conducted from a purposive sample of 14 DSPs, and 19 managers/supervisors. Staff identified skills that corresponded with six out of seven competencies. Staff recommended hands-on training on: appropriate communication to deal with individuals with severe disabilities; professionalism; person-centered care; and education on terminology in behavioral health plans, medication, and mental health illnesses. Empowering DSPs through CBPR allows for a training curriculum catered toward staff needs, which may be well-received and utilized. The CBPR process employed may be beneficial to other agencies within the intellectual and developmental disabilities field, particularly at a time when the demand for nonlicensure providers such as DSPs is increasing, and there is a need to train them to render quality and effective services.     

Group work over a digital platform: Understanding middle-class struggle in pandemic

ABSTRACT

This narrative is about how a WhatsApp friendship group was turned into a process reminiscent of social group work and how it became a promising practice for its group members during the coronavirus pandemic. The narrative portrays the struggles of middle-class families of Indian society in this crisis situation and how some of their issues were addressed using the digital platform in a group context.     

Strawberry feel forever: understanding metaphor as sensorimotor dynamics

ABSTRACT

Metaphor is a useful way of explaining how to do things. The literature on metaphor in the learning of physical skill has generally explicated its efficacy by examining its actionable directives for motor enactment. And yet from the perspectives of phenomenological philosophy, ecological psychology, and enactivism, action is immanently intertwined with perception, so that models of metaphor-based learning should foreground the role of sensory activity modulating motor behavior. As such, metaphor is retheorized as a sensorial constraint one imaginarily projects into one’s action–perception phenomenological landscape. I present two metaphors from an instructional video on cello technique. Whereas these metaphors are couched in action language (what one should do), their potential impact, I argue, lies in emergent goal sensations (what one should feel). These explorative sensorimotor accommodations may, in turn, bring forth yet new scopes of latent sensations coupled to unanticipated performance possibilities, which suggest further modifying and calibrating enactment in the target domain. Attending to, achieving, and maintaining emergent intermediary goal sensations regulates instrumented action by forging new affordances that bring forth new motor coordination. As teacher and student co-imagine images for action, they should attend to sensory perceptions. And the same goes for scholars of metaphor.     

Using Community-Based Participatory Research Strategies in Age-Friendly Communities to Solve Mobility Challenges

ABSTRACT

The number of older adults is steadily increasing in the United States and across the globe. Aging is linked to an increased risk of disability. Disabilities that limit one or more major life activities such as seeing, hearing, walking, and motor skills impact a person’s ability to drive a car. Low utilization of alternative transportation by older adults and people with disabilities may put them at risk for social isolation. Social isolation is associated with a variety of negative health outcomes. While communities are challenged to create available, acceptable, accessible, adaptable and affordable mobility options, there are widely held, inaccurate biases around older adults’ abilities to contribute to the development and improvement of alternative transportation options. Gerontological social workers are well-positioned to address this bias. This paper presents a case study of a large metropolitan county in the Midwest where community-based participatory research (CBPR) strategies were used to engage older residents to support the development of alternative transportation options supporting the tenets of environmental justice.     

Living with a developmentally disabled child: attitude of family members in India

This study sought to create an in-depth understanding of the experiences of living with a family member suffering from developmental disabilities from the social as well as personal point of view through qualitative research. The study used phenomenological methodology. Sixteen participants were recruited through purposive and snowball method. Data were collected via an open-ended narrative inviting the informants to focus on the experiences of living with a family member suffering from the disorder and analyzed thematically. The issue of personal context emerged as a key theme in understanding perceptions of the respondents. Another important theme was that from the social context. This study explores the emotional sufferings faced by family members of the sufferer. It also provides insights into the Indian social culture and its impact on the family.     

The People Shall Rule by Fisher,R. (Ed)

ABSTRACT

Meals Made Easy was introduced as an interactive group cooking program at a food bank to help food bank clients learn to prepare economical and nutritious meals. Cognitive behavior strategies were used to alter their prevailing negative attitudes about participating in an on site cooking program, and to overcome self-defeating notions about their capabilities. Self-efficacy and mutual aid were promoted through the group program. Classes were open-ended to accommodate persons with a wide range of social, mental and physical disabilities. Over a two year period, 100 clients enrolled in the program, which comprised 10 series of 3 to 6 cooking classes. Analyses of self-evaluations and an independent focus group assessment showed that the participants not only benefited by learning to prepare nutritional meals, but also by improving their self-esteem and self-efficacy.     

Kinship Foster Care and Its Impact on Grandmother Caregivers

Summary

Kinship foster care programs are designed to address the needs of relatives, usually grandparents, who have taken in children who have been removed from their homes voluntarily, or following a substantiated report of neglect and/or abuse. The author reviews the history of kinship foster care nationally and examines related research. Reported are findings on a survey of kinship foster care programs nationwide and from qualitative interviews with nine grandmothers from New York City who were kinship foster care providers. Particular attention was paid in these surveys to the impact of kinship foster care on families caring for children with disabilities.     

The Panchshil Buddha Vihar Group: Dalit migrant life and group solidarity during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

This narrative is based on my previous experience and telephonic discussions with Dalit (Dalits are an ex-untouchable caste of India, who have been subject to discrimination and exclusion historically and placed at the bottom on the Indian social system) migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative aims to highlight the life and trajectory of Dalit migrants pre- and during the pandemic. In addition, the narrative illustrates their everyday strategy as a group in response to the pandemic. Further, the narrative describes various means and methods of Dalit migrants to advance community solidarity, which has helped them to survive and escape the city, to return to their villages.     

Effects of the war on marriage relationships 1

Abstract

This article discusses the major themes that emerged from a Smith College School for Social Work student's Master's thesis, “Communication Styles in Wind River Native American Clients and the Therapeutic Responses of their Clinicians”. The project explores differences in communication styles between Wind River native people and Anglo‐Americans. Secondly, it seeks to discover therapeutic approaches and styles that are effective with Wind River native people.

Semi‐structured, exploratory interviews were conducted with ten clinicians who worked with Native American clients on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The participants included mental health care professionals and paraprofessionals from the following professions: psychology, social work, counseling, nursing, and community action.

The findings of the research revealed the importance of understanding cultural differences in human interaction and meaning making as conveyed in communication style. As clinicians, these complex and often subtle differences play a crucial role in our ability to establish a therapeutic alliance and conduct sensitive, effective therapy. Many theoretical models, such as psychodynamic, cognitive and behavioral, family systems, ecological, constructionist, and narrative theories support the successful approaches discussed in the article.     

John Coltrane and Me

Abstract

In this essay, I consider the role that cultural objects play in one's personal development by taking a closer look at the relationship between people and the creative products of their fellows. As a launching point to this study, I examine my own relationship with the music of two jazz icons, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, viewing the differences in my reactions to, and uses of, their musical offerings over times as a reflection of my own personal growth. My contention is that under the right conditions people can use cultural objects to reconnect with disavowed aspects of their experiences.     

He wahine tangi tikapa 1 …: Statutory investigative processes and the grieving of Maori families who have lost a baby to SIDS

Abstract

Among Maori families, the loss of an infant to SIDS is a terrible burden that reverberates through social networks for years after the event. The statutory services that investigate the death have a huge impact on such processes. This qualitative investigation studied the experiences of whanau following a SIDS death by reporting narrative data, gathered from families, police officers, coroners, and pathologists. Thematic analyses revealed multiple domains of high significance—police actions, post‐mortem, and coronial process—to bereaved whanau, and this paper considers their implications for grieving, service provision, and social justice.     

Did we do our assessment holistically,thoroughly, and continuously?

ABSTRACT

This paper presents assessment work and practice of the welfare workers in assessing their service users in various child welfare settings in Sarawak, Malaysia. It draws on a qualitative research based on in-depth interview with respondents selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was one of the major methods of data analysis in the study besides narrative analysis. Findings revealed that assessment work and practice of welfare workers are not being done holistically, thoroughly, and continuously. Issues concerning their assessment work and practice show that the underlying challenges are due to lack of proper training/courses specifically in assessment work provided for them and no assessment framework available as a guideline for their assessment work.     

Remembering with and Without Awareness Through Poetry to Better Understand Aging and Disability

SUMMARY

Poetry has been described as a universal translator. I offer three poems that are evocative of my experience as a child with my grandfathers and their disabilities; and as an adult attempting to deal with the impending death of my father. My wish is that the first poem will reinforce the idea that connecting with one's own memories of aged and disabled family members might support our interactions with people who are aged and disabled in the here and now. I present the final two poems to encourage those working with family members of seriously ill aged people in a hospital setting to better understand the stress of decision-making and to consider devising short-term mutual aid groups to support them during a time for which no preparation exists.     

Impact of Mid-Life Symptoms of Alcoholism on the Health and Wellbeing of Aging Parents of Adults with Disabilities

The study examined the effect of adult children’s disability on parents’ physical health in later life and the extent to which parents’ symptoms of alcoholism in mid-life moderates the link between children’s disability and later life parental health. Analyses are based on data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. The analytic sample included parents of children with developmental disabilities (n = 145) or mental health problems (n = 200) and 2,432 parents of unaffected children. The results showed that the negative health consequences in later life of having a child with a developmental disability were greater for those who showed more symptoms of alcoholism in mid-life. However, symptoms of alcoholism in mid-life did not significantly moderate the impact of an adult child’s mental health problems on parents’ later life physical health. The findings suggest a potential area where gerontological social workers could intervene, given the negative impact of symptoms of alcoholism on the health of aging parents of children with a disability who may be significantly more susceptible to the negative health impacts of alcohol compared to their younger counterparts.     

The impact of familism on future care planning for Korean parents caring for their children living with disabilities

ABSTRACT

Future care provision is a pervasive concern of parents with children living with disabilities. This article aims to provide an overview of the impact of familism on future care planning for Korean parents. For this qualitative study, data were collected using semi-structured interviews with parents (n = 9) and professionals (n = 9). Using conventional analysis, the study revealed there is strong emphasis on familial care with minimal governmental service provision and intervention; ultimately, this has a negative impact on the planning process. In support of the planning process taking its place as a standard phase of caring, a number of recommendations are made.     

Informational Asymmetries and Observational Learning in Search

As economics modeling moves from super rational decision makers to considering boundedly rational agents, some economic problems deserve a second look. This paper studies the effects of learning on the efficiency of search. Once learning is taken into account, the structure of information flow becomes important. In particular, I highlight the truncated information structure in the search problem. Agents stop searching once a sufficiently attractive price is found. Therefore, they observe the performance of shorter searches, but do not directly observe the performance of longer searches. I design and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis that this asymmetric flow of information leads agents to search too little. I find strong evidence in its favor. This suggests that in the presence of learning, the provision of a more symmetric information structure will make search more efficient.JEL Classification: C91, D83