A Collaboratively Designed Child Mental Health Service Model: Multiple Family Groups for Urban Children with Conduct Difficulties

This paper presents preliminary outcomes associated with an experimental, longitudinal study of a Multiple Family Group (MFG) service delivery approach set within thirteen urban outpatient clinics serving children and their families living in inner-city, primarily African American and Latino communities. Specifically, this paper focuses on parent reports of child oppositional behavior and parenting stress over time. MFG is a flexible, protocol-driven approach designed to address the most common reason for referral to outpatient child mental health clinics, childhood behavioral difficulties. The MFG also aims to enhance family-level engagement and retention in ongoing care. Further, the service delivery model was collaboratively developed with intensive input from parents rearing children with conduct difficulties, parent advocates, community-based child mental health providers and services research staff in order to ultimately expand the number of effective service models that can be situated within "real world," urban child mental health settings.     

Testing the reciprocal associations among co-worker incivility,organisational inefficiency,and work-related exhaustion: A one-year,cross-lagged study

ABSTRACT

In spite of the considerable number of studies on co-worker incivility, knowledge on this topic needs to be further enhanced. In particular, no studies have focused on the reciprocal nature of the relationship of incivility with other important aspects of working life, i.e. employee well-being and the quality of the working process. The aim of the present study was to examine the cross-lagged associations among co-worker incivility, work-related exhaustion, and organisational efficiency in a sample of healthcare workers. Based on the conservation of resource theory, we hypothesised that those three variables affect each other reciprocally over the time. Data from a two-wave study design (with a one-year time lag) were utilised, and cross-lagged structural equation models were performed. Results confirmed that incivility and efficiency affected each other reciprocally over time. On the other hand, whereas incivility positively predicted exhaustion and exhaustion at inversely predicted organisational efficiency, the opposite paths were found to be not significant. The study suggests that efficiency is crucial for understanding incivility because it operates both as its cause and as its outcome. Interventions aimed at promoting civility and respect in the workplace may help prevent co-worker incivility, work-related exhaustion, and enhance organisational efficiency.     

Enhancing Social Work Students’ Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Substance-Using Clients Through SBIRT Training

ABSTRACT

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an evidence-based protocol that addresses both moderate-risk and high-risk substance use problems for individuals. In an urban college’s master’s and bachelor’s social work programs with 218 students, SBIRT training was introduced into core course curricula, with many students subsequently using SBIRT in their field placements. Evaluation of the initiative demonstrated increases in the students’ knowledge and favorable attitudes regarding working with substance using clients. Students’ ratings of the usefulness and effectiveness of SBIRT were high. In response to studies indicating the lack of preparedness of graduating social work students to work with substance users, this study demonstrated the effectiveness of SBIRT training to educate students to work with this population.     

Family Environment,Personality, and Psychological Symptoms in Adults Sexually Abused as Children

The current study examined the relationships between family environment characteristics, personality traits, and current psychological symptoms in adults with a history of child sexual abuse. Family environment characteristics, personality traits, and psychological symptoms in 18 abused and 18 nonabused college students were examined using ANOVAs and MANOVAs. Pearson product moment correlations were also performed. Results indicated significantly more dysfunctional family environment characteristics (inflexibility, poor cohesion, family dissatisfaction, and poor family communication) in the abused versus the nonabused group. There were significantly higher levels in the personality traits of neuroticism and openness to experience in the abused group; however, there were no significant differences in psychological symptoms when comparing the two groups. The implications of the results and areas of future research are discussed.     

Nonprofit entrepreneurial orientation: A systematic literature review and conceptual framework

The purpose of this study is to propose a set of factors that characterize the manifestation of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs), and we performed a systematic review of the literature. Initially, 17 studies were identified in different databases, and after a full reading of the documents that met the objective of this study, we selected and qualitatively analyzed 14 theoretical and empirical studies about EO in the nonprofit context. The studies analyzed allowed us to understand the characteristics of organizational entrepreneurship in NPOs, through the dimensions of innovativeness, proactivity, risk‐taking, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness, in addition to the reciprocity dimension, which emerged from the literature. By adding reciprocity as the sixth dimension of the EO construct, it was possible to group a set factors related to each dimension which, after being refined, supported the proposition of a conceptual framework for an empirical analysis of entrepreneurial behavior in different contexts of NPOs. This study contributes to the systematization of factors that configure the manifestation of EO in the nonprofit sector, by proposing a conceptual framework entailing six dimensions of EO and propositions for future studies.     

BIMBY’s first steps: a pilot study on the contribution of residential front-yards in Phoenix and Maastricht to biodiversity,ecosystem services and urban sustainability

Large parts of urban space around the world exist of small-scale plots such as domestic gardens. These small-scale urban spaces carry potential for enhancing biodiversity, sustainability and ecosystem services in and beyond cities. However, domestic gardening and residential garden designs are often guided by aesthetics and ease more than by the aim to create habitat and biological diversity. Yard-management decisions impact socio-ecological systems in various ways, for example through irrigation patterns, fertilization or the use of pesticides or through the choice for exotic species that may become invasive over time. Yard-management decisions can also positively influence the presence of pollinators, improve soil quality or even foster small scale ‘Wildlife Habitats’ that can function as ecological stepping stones to the wider environment. In this paper a pilot assessment is presented of the contribution of residential front-yards in Phoenix (Arizona) and Maastricht (The Netherlands) to biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainability by applying the BIMBY (Biodiversity in My (Back) Yard) framework.     

Assessment of Integration of Disability Content into Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

Three hundred members of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) responded to a survey regarding the inclusion of disability content in social work courses and supports needed to increase disability content. Although respondents generally agreed that disability content is important in social work education, its inclusion is inconsistent, with most frequent inclusion in courses on diversity and least frequent inclusion in courses on research. Respondents identified barriers to increasing disability content, including lack of resources for teaching, lack of relevant faculty expertise, and an overcrowded curriculum. Strategies and resources for infusing disability content into social work education are discussed.     

‘It's People's Whole Lives’: Gender,Class and the Emotion Work of User Involvement in Mental Health Services

The concept of emotion work has been widely applied to the study of service work. Yet its use in understanding the social dynamics of user involvement in public services remains under explored. Drawing on a study of user involvement in mental health service development, I show its utility for understanding this social and political realm. The article discusses findings from a critical discursive and contextual emotional labour perspective, taking into account organizational and institutional factors as well as social structural dimensions of gender and social class. It shows how discourses on emotion, constructed through articulation of personal experiences of service usage both reflected and constructed the ideological and structural positionings of women service users, while emotional discourse — displays of anger in user involvement forums — worked to constitute traditionally male and ideologically masculine elements of the field, as well as the working‐class identities of some participants. These forms of emotion work, and the ways in which they elicited further emotion management from service users and workers alike, are located in relation to the rules of engagement of user involvement and the bureaucratic institutional forms within which this took place. The article concludes that the emotion work of user involvement ultimately helped to reproduce the dominant institutional and social order, including its gender and class dimensions. Implications for policies and practices of user involvement in mental health services are provided.     

Does defending affect adolescents' peer status,or vice versa? Testing the moderating effects of empathy,gender, and anti-bullying norms

This study examined bidirectional associations between students' bully-directed defending behavior and their peer status (being liked or popular) and tested for the moderating role of empathy, gender, and classroom anti-bullying norms. Three waves of data were collected at 4–5-month time intervals among 3680 Finnish adolescents (M_age = 13.94, 53.0% girls). Cross-lagged panel analyses showed that defending positively predicted popularity and, to a larger degree, being liked over time. No moderating effect of empathy was found. Popularity was more strongly predictive of defending, and defending was more strongly predictive of status among girls than among boys. Moreover, the positive effects of both types of status on defending were—albeit to a limited extent—stronger in classrooms with higher anti-bullying norms.     

Visiting the Allotment Garden—A Complete Experience

This study explored the experiences of healthy elderly regularly visiting the allotment gardens (AGs) in a large city of Norway. Semistructured interviews with eight elderly visitors were analyzed by applying Malterud's strategy for systematic text condensation. Three main themes evolved: AG as a context for social experience; AG as a context for restorative experiences; and AG as a context for reminiscence experiences. The findings underline the importance of AGs as a natural and cultural context and may encourage politicians and planners to take into consideration the importance of neighborhood outdoor contexts offering social, nature, and reminiscence experiences for elderly people.