NCWWI Tribal Traineeship Programs: Promoting Diversity in the Child Welfare Workforce

Twelve universities and one American Indian (AI) tribal college were selected for the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute’s 5-year stipend traineeship program. These tribal traineeships were designed to provide social work child welfare education for tribal and nontribal students. Twenty-two AI students and 58 nontribal students completed a bachelor or master’s of social work degree. The students’ field placements were in tribal agencies or public agencies that served a segment of the AI population. These programs were enhanced through the use of valuable relationships (i.e., partnerships, mentorships, allies), and cultural competence was a key aspect of the students’ education. The students’ education was enriched with a specific child welfare curriculum, cultural teachings, tribal traineeship collaborations, and tribal community events.     

American Indians’ Response to Physical Pain: Functional Limitations and Help-Seeking Behaviors

Seventy-five American Indians, ages 25 to 84, representing 14 tribal nations, participated in this study. The historical, cultural, and behavioral responses to physical pain were examined. Data were collected over a 7-month period with a survey instrument that included the Universal Pain Scale, activities of daily living, causes of pain, cultural beliefs, and self-help-seeking behaviors. Also, recommendations for Western biomedical health care professionals are offered to improve services for the American Indian population. Findings demonstrate that culture plays a crucial role in wellness and significantly affects help-seeking behaviors, treatment regimens, responses to pain, and pain management.     

Leadership in Social Work Education and the Social Change Model of Leadership

Leadership is a topic of international debate in both social work education and practice. Questions remain, however, regarding what specific models of leadership should be emphasized and how leadership content should be infused within the social work curriculum. This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the infusion of leadership within social work education. Specifically, this paper shares the design and development of a graduate-level social work course in program evaluation that infused education around the social change model of leadership (SCM) and then explores qualitatively how 39 graduate students interpreted and applied this model of leadership through an experiential community-based evaluation project. Findings of this study suggest that students utilized the values identified in the SCM in a range of ways to understand and interpret their leadership experience both in their collaborative groups and in their partnerships with community-based organizations. Community organizations also reported benefiting from the experience in partnership with the students. Implications are discussed in relation to the potential value and impact of this model for social work education.     

Incentivising inter-municipal collaboration: the Lombard experience

The purpose of this exploratory research is to show how incentive policies have helped to shape the scenario of inter-municipal partnerships in the Italian region of Lombardy. Do these policies really work? Have they been the driver of greater collaboration among municipalities? Overall, the impact of the financial subsidies can be seen mainly when the intended beneficiaries are involved in the stages of negotiation and commitment that precede the setting-up of the collaborative arrangements. However, the capacity of the incentives to ensure that collaborative efforts are effectively maintained and developed over time is questionable. Importantly, the incentives do not seem to make a real difference in the collaborative choices aimed at joint policy-making and regulation. This qualitative study extends the evaluation research on implementation and contributes to the partnership management debate.     

Placentophagy’s effects on mood,bonding, and fatigue: A pilot trial,part 2

Background

Human maternal placentophagy is gaining popularity among a growing number of women who believe it provides maternal benefits, including prevention of postpartum blues/depression, improved maternal bonding, and reduced fatigue.

Overview of Outcome Research in Family Therapy: Methodological Considerations1

This paper recognizes that establishing the effectiveness of therapy is important for practitioners and researchers alike, but that to date, there has generally been a failure in family therapy research to demonstrate efficacy. This is essentially due to the complexity of variables interacting in therapy and the practical realities of implementing research in the field setting which has, in turn, produced studies of poor methodology typically leading to ambiguous results and conclusions. A more rigorous approach to experimentation together with single-case methodology (which currently is under-utilized) can assist in providing clearer demonstrations of therapeutic efficacy.