Implementing reverse mentoring to address social isolation among older adults

ABSTRACT

Reverse mentoring is a means to address the social work Grand Challenge of social isolation. Among older adults, reverse mentoring can improve social connection by increasing the digital competence of older adults so they can use technology for social benefit, and by facilitating intergenerational connections with young adult mentors. In this paper, reverse mentoring is examined within an intergenerational program that serves older adults and utilizes the native technological knowledge and skills of young adults who mentor older adult participants. Qualitative data were collected through young adult mentor logs of each session, and through open-ended questions on the post-surveys collected from older adults and young adult mentors. Qualitative analysis revealed three themes related to social connection: (1) an increased sense of self-efficacy for older adults as they build confidence in technological use, and for young adults as they develop leadership skills through mentoring, (2) the breaking down of age-related stereotypes, and (3) intergenerational engagement and connection. The findings demonstrate that reverse mentoring can be used in various settings to decrease the social isolation of older adults by developing intergenerational connections and increasing older adult usage of technology.     

Does what happens in group care stay in group care? The relationship between problem behaviour trajectories during care and post‐placement functioning

Residential programmes for youth may improve youth behaviour during placement, but it is not clear whether there is an association between a youth's behaviour pattern during placement and post‐placement outcomes. Life course perspective has been used to understand longitudinal patterns and pathways, and new statistical methods have been developed to identify latent trajectory groups. This study used administrative data from a family‐style group care programme to assess whether a youth's externalizing behaviour trajectory while in placement can significantly predict delinquency and adjustment outcomes at discharge and 6‐month follow‐up. Findings from multinomial logistic regression revealed a statistically significant relationship between a youth's behaviour trajectory class and outcomes. Behaviour pattern during care was a stronger predictor of outcome than cross‐sectional measures such as other demographic factors, placement history or mental‐health need indicators.     

Towards an interactional approach to reflective practice in social work

Reflective practice is a key aspiration within social work; being a reflective practitioner is considered to be a foundational attribute of the social work professional. However, achieving reflective practice is not straightforward. Reflection is inevitably subject to issues of memory and recall, so that the recollection of a case is likely to differ in important ways from the original instance. Moreover, giving an account of an event to one's peers or supervisors involves aspects of justification and self-presentation that may emphasise selectively and ignore key details of the original event, whether through a process of conscious omission or subconscious forgetting. This article reports on a knowledge exchange project that sought to enhance criminal justice social workers’ reflective practice through the use of the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method, an approach that is methodologically and theoretically grounded in the study of talk-in-interaction, drawing on video re-enactments of real encounters between practitioners and service users. We argue that by engaging collaboratively in this way, the practitioners and researchers learned a great deal about how practice in criminal justice social work is ‘done’ and also about the wider context within which criminal justice social work is practised.     

Youth Advisors Driving Action: hearing the youth voice in mental health systems of care

The Children's Mental Health Initiative (CMHI) is funded by the Center for Mental Health Services within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. CMHI assists communities in developing comprehensive, coordinated services for children with serious emotional disturbances and their families. Broadly speaking, these systems are designed to be child centered, youth guided, family driven, community based, and culturally competent. To assure implementation of the "youth-guided" core value in the national evaluation, an advisory group of youth coordinator/youth teams representing communities across the country was developed. This group chose the name YADA-Youth Advisors Driving Action. YADA has made a substantive contribution to national evaluation efforts by bringing the youth perspective and voice to its audience at the community and national levels. This article describes YADA's founding and development, as well as related implications for psychosocial nurses.     

Know thy self,know thy leader: Contributions of a pattern-oriented approach to examining leader perceptions

This study investigated how patterns of traits in self and ideal leader profiles were related to one another, beyond the individual effects of each trait. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify and describe profiles of self leader and ideal leader perceptions. Four profiles for self leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Narcissistic, Anti-Prototypical) and four profiles for ideal leader perceptions (Prototypical, Laissez-Faire, Autocratic, Anti-Prototypical) were identified. Additional analyses examined the association between self and ideal leader profiles; gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were added to the model as predictors of that association. Prototypical and Laissez-Faire self leaders tended to prefer an ideal leader who was similar to themselves, whereas Narcissistic and Anti-Prototypical self leaders had more diffuse preferences in ideal leaders. Gender, leadership self efficacy, and narcissism were only associated with self leader profiles. Results support, yet contribute beyond, previous findings for the similarity hypothesis.     

“How Can You Retire When You Still Got a Kid in School?”: Economics of Raising Grandchildren in Rural Areas

Increasingly, grandparents are being called on to rear their grandchildren when parents are unable or unwilling to fulfill their parenting role. These grandparent caregivers often find themselves in an economic bind. Financially, most are at a stage in life where they are looking toward retirement and reduced family spending and are unprepared for their new economic reality as second-time-around caregivers. Here, we use a framework of family financial well-being to examine the economic consequences of rearing grandchildren. Based on family life interviews with 26 grandfamilies residing in Montana, we explore the challenges grandparents experience generating and shifting income streams in later life, the variability in received income, and the array of expected and unexpected expenses incurred as a result of taking in their grandchildren. As custodial grandparents strive for financial well-being, there are few resources—especially in rural areas—to help them navigate these new financial waters.     

Preventing hepatitis C virus transmission among young people in the justice system

Young people involved with the criminal justice system have been identified as a group at high risk of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This study was designed to explore the feasibility of assessing an individualised structured HCV prevention intervention among young people recruited from post release agencies and youth drug and alcohol services in Victoria, Australia.