Social Work Supervision of Staff: A Primer and Scoping Review (2013–2017)

Supervision of staff has a rich history within the social work profession, and is widely valued internationally for the support, knowledge, and skill it is perceived to provide. Moreover, quality supervision is championed for ensuring good client care. However, supervisors practicing within the social work profession have not typically had access to best practice information, nor accessed the parallel research related to the supervision of staff. A supervision primer provides an orientation to the supervision literature, including definitions and disciplinary perspectives. This sets the stage for a scoping review of social work supervision articles for the purpose of supporting supervisors in keeping current, locating, understanding, and applying literature to their practice. Seventy-nine conceptual and empirical articles first-authored by social workers were published in 36 journals between 2013 and 2017. The volume, location, context and nature of these articles are presented, pointing to an increased social work presence in the literature. Implications for supervisory practice, scholarship, and research are discussed.     

Alcohol Use Among Concerned Partners of Heavy Drinking Service Members and Veterans

Heavy drinking in relationships is complex and we focus on an understudied sample of concerned partners (CPs) worried about their U.S. service member/veteran partner's drinking. We evaluated the link between CP drinking and their own mental health, and how CP drinking moderated the efficacy of a web‐based intervention designed to address CPs' mental health and communication. CPs (N = 234) were randomly assigned to intervention or control and completed assessments at baseline and 5 months later. CP drinking was associated with greater CP depression, anxiety, and anger independent of partner drinking. Moreover, the intervention was more efficacious in reducing depression for heavy drinking CPs. CPs are often an overlooked population and resources to help support them are needed.     

The Family Experience of the Crisis of Involuntary Treatment in Mental Health

While policy and practice standards emphasise the importance of engaging and supporting families of people with mental health problems, many families have reported feeling unsupported and distanced from treatment and care planning in acute inpatient units. There has been little systematic interest in the changing role and experiences of families throughout the emergence of illness, crisis, seeking of treatment, and subsequent recovery. Nineteen in-depth interviews were conducted with the next of kin of 17 people who had been admitted under an Involuntary Treatment Order in a large metropolitan hospital in the Brisbane region. A general inductive approach was used to analyse the data. While hospital admission was described as a time where, ideally, families were able to let go of being responsible for their relative's behaviour and let the health care professionals take over, for many this did not occur. We suggest four critical elements for providing recovery-oriented support to families. These include: (a) ensuring that families feel that their relative is safe and receiving the care needed; (b) keeping the family informed about their relative's progress; (c) ensuring families have access to information about the mental health system, and (d) working in partnership with the families.

IMPLICATIONS

• Family wellbeing is improved when they feel part of a supportive team.

• Instituting an open policy where families can contact ward staff easily and access information about the person they care for may alleviate families’ anxieties and minimise stress.

• Family work is enhanced when health professionals acknowledge families’ relationships, expertise, and understanding of their family member.

     

Perceptions of Long-Term Community Adaptation of Delinquent Young Adults Who Graduated from Children’s Residential Mental Health Treatment

Purpose

This article presents results from one part of a longitudinal study into the post-discharge community adaptation of youth involved in residential mental health treatment. The focus is on young adults interviewed in Phase 3 of the research who have been identified as experiencing delinquent behaviour in their communities which brings them into contact with the law. This research is unique as young adult graduates of residential treatment were interviewed and they describe in detail how they are currently functioning in their lives.

Method

Qualitative interviews were completed with a convenience sample of 59 young adults between 18 and 25 years of age who had accessed children’s residential mental health treatment up to 10 years prior to data collection.

Results

The results demonstrate that delinquent behaviour post-discharge from residential treatment is a real concern and, for a sub-set of young adults, relates to negative outcomes in multiple domains of living, such as substance abuse, personal well-being, education and employment, and social networks and relationships.

Conclusions

The results indicate there is a need to improve long term community adaptation for this group, and that improving community living outcomes is much more a function of ongoing support and caring than short-term treatment and cure.

     

A pilot test of a self-guided,home-based intervention to improve condom-related sexual experiences,attitudes, and behaviors among young women

Objective: To conduct a pilot test of a brief, self-guided, home-based program designed to improve male condom use attitudes and behaviors among young women. Participants: Women aged 18–24 years from a large Midwestern University reporting having had penile–vaginal sex with two or more partners in the past 3 months. Sixty-seven enrolled; 91.0% completed the study. Methods: A repeated measures design was used, with assessments occurring at baseline, immediately post intervention (T2), and 30 days subsequent (T3). Results: Condom use errors and problems decreased, condom-related attitudes and self-efficacy improved, and experiences of condom-protected sex were rated more positively when comparing baseline with T2 and T3 scores. Further, the proportion of condom-protected episodes more than doubled between T1 and T3 for those in the lowest quartile for condom use at baseline. Conclusion: This low-resource, home-based program improved condom-related attitudes and promoted the correct and consistent use of condoms.     

Rhythms of moving in and between digital media: a study on video diaries of young people with physical disabilities

This article develops a new framework for analysing digital media use and access by drawing on the concepts of ‘rhythm’ and ‘wayfaring.’ It unravels how young people with physical disabilities move in and between digital media devices, online sites and activities in an embodied and rhythmic way that happens at a fast or slow pace. The framework is used to analyse the video diaries of three male secondary school students with physical disabilities on their use of digital media at home. We propose methodological advances in studying digital media use as dynamic movement and provide alternative insights on digital inequalities.     

Review and appraisal of guidelines for the management of asthma during pregnancy

Background

Asthma affects 12.7% of pregnancies in Australia. Poorly controlled asthma is associated with increased maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Optimal antenatal management of asthma during pregnancy has the potential to reduce complications relating to asthma. Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines help to translate health research findings into practice and when implemented can improve health outcomes. National and International guidelines currently provide recommendations for optimal asthma care in pregnancy.

Media framing of trolling and online abuse: silencing strategies,symbolic violence,and victim blaming

This article draws on British newspaper reports in order to demonstrate that trolling, and the media’s subsequent framing of trolling, involves “silencing strategies.” It is important to examine how trolling is discussed within the media to understand how it might frame public opinion, debate, and action, and implicitly victim blame. The article presents findings on the forms of (online) abuse and behaviours related to trolling in media reports, including rape threats, death threats, and body shaming. It also explores the media portrayal of victims of trolling, and the advice given concerning how to respond to trolls. To comply with the message to women, which is propagated in media and popular discourses: “do not feed the troll” means that “symbolic violence” is exercised with the complicity of the victim(s) of trolling, which has broader implications.     

Dose‐Response Modeling with Summary Data from Developmental Toxicity Studies

Dose‐response analysis of binary developmental data (e.g., implant loss, fetal abnormalities) is best done using individual fetus data (identified to litter) or litter‐specific statistics such as number of offspring per litter and proportion abnormal. However, such data are not often available to risk assessors. Scientific articles usually present only dose‐group summaries for the number or average proportion abnormal and the total number of fetuses. Without litter‐specific data, it is not possible to estimate variances correctly (often characterized as a problem of overdispersion, intralitter correlation, or “litter effect”). However, it is possible to use group summary data when the design effect has been estimated for each dose group. Previous studies have demonstrated useful dose‐response and trend test analyses based on design effect estimates using litter‐specific data from the same study. This simplifies the analysis but does not help when litter‐specific data are unavailable. In the present study, we show that summary data on fetal malformations can be adjusted satisfactorily using estimates of the design effect based on historical data. When adjusted data are then analyzed with models designed for binomial responses, the resulting benchmark doses are similar to those obtained from analyzing litter‐level data with nested dichotomous models.