Teaching self-care: The utilization of self-care in social work practicum to prevent compassion fatigue,burnout, and vicarious trauma

ABSTRACT

Field practicum is paramount to social work pedagogy in the preparation of emerging direct practice professionals. Field students integrate foundational knowledge as they implement practice skills learned in the classroom during the social work practicum experience. Working with clients who are suffering is inevitable in direct social work practice and field practicum students can be exposed to a broad range of intense emotional experiences as they assist clients in need. Integrating self-care skills, techniques and strategies into daily social work practice becomes essential to prevent compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma. Incorporating self-care skills into the field practicum enhances opportunities for transformative student learning and helps to strengthen professional socialization during this critical educational experience. This article highlights the implementation of professional self-care instruction, use of activities and written student critical reflection assignments designed to enhance the practice experience through incorporating self-care education and strategies among undergraduate students within the field practicum seminar.     

Novel biotechnologies for eradicating wasps: seeking Māori studies students’ perspectives with Q method

Aligned with the New Zealand government’s ‘Predator-Free 2050’ target for Aotearoa New Zealand, National Science Challenge: Our Biological Heritage supports research into five distinct ‘novel biotechnological controls’ of exotic wasps. A framing question within this project is which controls are considered ‘socially acceptable’ and thus suitable for further development to control and potentially eradicate introduced wasps? How can the public answer this question without first engaging with complex technologies? Can they develop and express an informed view that still reflects their ‘gut’ reactions and unique positions? To model and explore the views of an ‘informed public’, university students in Māori studies engaged in reflection, writing and mapping activities; choice and ranking exercises; Q Method; and focus group interviews. Amongst the interviewees, Q Method analysis distinguished three ‘factors’, describing unique viewpoints: those who see the potential of biotechnologies, those who are in doubt about them and those in a position of trust in scientists. Overall, the group see potential in new biotechnologies for wasps but are wary of political, economic and social decision-making mechanisms.     

‘It’s so scary how common this is now:’ frames in media coverage of the opioid epidemic by Ohio newspapers and themes in Facebook user reactions

ABSTRACT

Deaths from opioid overdose in the US have increased five-fold since 1999. Ohio ranks second among states in drug overdose deaths, with more than 39 deaths for every 100,000 people. In light of this, opioid addiction and related issues have garnered substantial media attention. However, few studies have examined the content and framing of opioid-related media coverage or explored ways that audiences react to coverage of the crisis within their communities. This study attempts to fill this gap through an analysis of opioid-related posts and comments on the public-facing Facebook pages of 42 Ohio newspapers between 2013 and 2017 (N?=?397). Content analysis was used to identify frames in posted newspaper content and themes in comments. Four frames were identified in posted stories: (1) Awareness of the Opioid Epidemic and Affected Populations (34.0% of all posted content; n?=?135); (2) Programs, Policies, and Interventions (29.5%; n?=?117); (3) Crime, Punishment, Legal Cases, and Law Enforcement (28.2%; n?=?112); and (4) Narratives of Addiction and the Long Road to Recovery (8.3%; n?=?33). Analyses of Facebook user comments on posted newspaper content revealed five themes: Emotion and Support, Choice and Responsibility, Disease and Treatment, Worthiness, and Attention and Action. Findings indicate both the intensive and diverse efforts of newspapers to cover the epidemic as well as the varied reactions of community members to opioid use and addiction.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Spouse Abuse: A Meta‐Analysis

This study uses meta‐analytic procedures to examine the relationship between growing up in a violent home and subsequently becoming part of a violent marital relationship. Our meta‐analysis examines published and unpublished research studies that investigate the relationship between witnessing or experiencing family violence in childhood and receiving or perpetrating violence in an adult heterosexual cohabiting or marital relationship. The findings of this meta‐analysis suggest there is a weak‐to‐moderate relationship between growing up in an abusive family and becoming involved in a violent marital relationship. Differential effects of gender and sample type are also discussed.     

AN EVALUATION OF SEQUENCING RULES FOR AN ASSEMBLY SHOP

Research relating to sequencing rules in simple job shops has proliferated, but there has not been a corresponding proliferation of research evaluating similar sequencing rules in more complex assembly job shops. In a simple job shop, all operations are performed serially; but an assembly shop encompasses both serial and parallel operations. As a result of the increased complexity of assembly shops, the results associated with the performance of sequencing rules in simple job shops cannot be expected for an assembly shop. In this paper, 11 sequencing rules (some of which are common to simple job shops and some decigned specifically for assembly shops) are evaluated using a simulation analysis of a hypothetical assembly shop. The simulation results are analyzed using an ANOVA procedure that identifies significant differences in the results of several performance measures. Sensitivity analysis also is performed to determine the effect of job structure on the performance of the sequencing rules.     

Residential Satisfaction of Elderly Tenants in Apartment Housing

Previous research has demonstrated the persistently lower residential satisfaction of tenants as compared to homeowners. However, analysis of data from 41,198 US households indicates that this gap is heavily age dependent. After middle age, the residential satisfaction of apartment housing tenants increases dramatically—eventually exceeding that of both single-family housing tenants and homeowners. Although elderly tenants are less likely to indicate dissatisfaction with building maintenance or the neighborhood, these factors are particularly important to elderly tenant satisfaction. These age differences in housing satisfaction may relate to the increasing difficulty of managing residential maintenance and the growing importance of nearby services.     

Competing risk analysis in a large cardiovascular clinical trial: An APEX substudy

Competing risk methods are time‐to‐event analyses that account for fatal and/or nonfatal events that may potentially alter or prevent a subject from experiencing the primary endpoint. Competing risk methods may provide a more accurate and less biased estimate of the incidence of an outcome but are rarely applied in cardiology trials. APEX investigated the efficacy of extended‐duration betrixaban versus standard‐duration enoxaparin to prevent a composite of symptomatic deep‐vein thrombosis (proximal or distal), nonfatal pulmonary embolism, or venous thromboembolism (VTE)–related death in acute medically ill patients (n = 7513). The aim of the current analysis was to determine the efficacy of betrixaban vs standard‐duration enoxaparin accounting for non‐VTE–related deaths using the Fine and Gray method for competing risks. The proportion of non‐VTE–related death was similar in both the betrixaban (133, 3.6%) and enoxaparin (136, 3.7%) arms, P = .85. Both the traditional Kaplan‐Meier method and the Fine and Gray method accounting for non‐VTE–related death as a competing risk showed equal reduction of VTE events when comparing betrixaban to enoxaparin (HR/SHR = 0.65, 95% 0.42‐0.99, P = 0.046). Due to the similar proportion of non‐VTE–related deaths in both treatment arms and the use of a univariate model, the Fine and Gray method provided identical results to the traditional Cox model. Using the Fine and Gray method in addition to the traditional Cox proportional hazards method can indicate whether the presence of a competing risk, which is dependent of the outcome, altered the risk estimate.     

Getting Under the Skin: Children’s Health Disparities as Embodiment of Social Class

Social class gradients in children’s health and development are ubiquitous across time and geography. The authors develop a conceptual framework relating three actions of class—material allocation, salient group identity, and inter-group conflict—to the reproduction of class-based disparities in child health. A core proposition is that the actions of class stratification create variation in children’s mesosystems and microsystems in distinct locations in the ecology of everyday life. Variation in mesosystems (e.g., health care, neighborhoods) and microsystems (e.g., family structure, housing) become manifest in a wide variety of specific experiences and environments that produce the behavioral and biological antecedents to health and disease among children. The framework is explored via a review of theoretical and empirical contributions from multiple disciplines, and high-priority areas for future research are highlighted.