Exploring the Concept of Moral Distress with Community-Based Researchers: An Australian Study

ABSTRACT

Community-based research (CBR) refers to an applied research methodology that is conducted in community settings in partnership between academic and nonacademic participants in research. This article reports on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with 11 Australian CBR researchers between 2008 and 2009. The interviews were designed to explore whether university-employed CBR researchers experience the particular phenomenon of “moral distress,” or feelings of helplessness to act in accordance with one's moral values due to systemic or institutional constraints. Study results found that the CBR researchers experienced unavoidable moral distress at varying levels of intensity related to blurred boundaries between settings, participants, and stakeholders. Based on the outcomes of this study, further research and enhanced professional development and training practices are recommended.     

Easing the Transition for Queer Student Teachers From Program to Field: Implications for Teacher Education

Tensions exist between what some queer student teachers experience in the university setting, their lives in schools during field placements, and upon graduation. We describe a series of workshops designed for queer student teachers and their allies that were conducted prior to field placement. Participants revealed high degrees of satisfaction with the program and increased feelings of personal and professional self-efficacy. Participants reported high levels of experienced homophobia in their academic programs; as such, the workshops were a valuable “safe space.” These workshops appear to fill a significant gap for queer students and their allies in teacher preparation programs.     

The impact of a stress management programme on staff well-being and performance at work

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate whether employees experience emotional drain when they witness unpleasant interactions between coworkers. This was tested in a sample of staff in a UK hospital department, which included nurses, doctors, specialists and administrative staff. The study used a diary method in which participants recorded their reactions to over 1000 interpersonal interactions between coworkers across 15 work days. Multilevel analyses indicated that staff felt significantly more emotionally drained after witnessing unpleasant interactions compared to pleasant ones. This effect was mediated both by what the staff felt in response to what they witnessed and by the extent to which they controlled their feelings. Staff felt more emotionally drained when they took the perspective of the target to a greater extent and when they witnessed interactions directly (first-hand) rather than indirectly (hearsay). Witnesses appear to be vulnerable to emotional depletion because they experience an affective reaction and self-regulate their own emotional response to what they have seen or heard. This third-party effect on the witnesses of unpleasant interactions has the potential not only to have a negative effect on the individual but to pervade the organisation.     

Social Workers’ Perspectives Regarding the DSM: Implications for Social Work Education

There is a decades-old debate in social work regarding the appropriateness of the use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) by clinicians in this profession. Despite often contentious perspectives, there has been very little study regarding clinical social workers’ experiences, attitudes, and beliefs about the use of the DSM in their work. In this qualitative inquiry, 20 clinical social workers who had recently completed master’s of social work coursework and were working with children were interviewed using grounded theory methods. Results of the inquiry are presented and implications for social work education are discussed.     

The Journey of Hope: A Group Work Intervention for Children Who Have Experienced a Collective Trauma

This article presents the Journey of Hope, a school-based group work intervention for children and early adolescents who have experienced a collective trauma such as a natural disaster. This broad-based intervention takes an ecological approach to prevention and treatment and focuses on normalizing emotions and building coping skills after a disaster. Through the use of group work interventions such as use of rituals, group problem solving, and experiential and reflective learning, children and early adolescents work toward enhancing protective factors to help them in their recovery. Considering the short- and long-term emotional strains children may experience after a disaster, such group programs should be more widely accessible in schools.     

Sexual orientation and gender identity: an administrative approach to diversity

Research indicates that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) teens in the care of a northeastern child welfare department do not receive adequate services due to the workers' homophobic attitudes. These teens are at high risk for alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, prostitution, and suicide. A training module was developed for administrators. Pretest and posttest instruments measured their education and support of GLBTQ issues before and after the training.     

Missing discourses: concepts of joy and happiness in disability

This paper analyses a series of representations of disability and rehabilitation taken from research and policy settings in Australia. The purpose of the analysis is to (a) identify the presence or absence of discourses of happiness and joy in the contexts analysed and (b) to analyse the various treatments and interpretations of happiness and joy that are present. Through this analysis we show that while official professional and public discourses on disability and rehabilitation exhibit predominantly negative discursive patterns and features (i.e. aspirations to achieve ‘normality’ and a negative lexicon, such as disability, coping, rehabilitation, burden, abnormality, etc.) there are many other potentially positive and empowering discursive and narrative patterns and features that remain hidden beneath negatively oriented ways of seeing, being, acting and describing in academic, policy and practice settings. We argue that policy‐makers and academics alike need to be sensitive to the dynamics of discourse when constructing research and developing policy.     

Attitudinal and normative predictors of alcohol use by older adolescents and young adults

A model of alcohol use based on the theory of planned behavior, expectancy theory, and the developmental literature on the influence of parents and peers was examined with 87 eleventh grade students, 105 college freshmen, and 107 college juniors. Specifically, the influence of attitudes about the positive and negative consequences of drinking, perceived parental and peer norms about alcohol consumption, and perceived control over drinking predicted self-reported alcohol use. The results suggest that, during adolescence, decisions to consume alcohol are rational, based on the consideration of the positive consequences of alcohol use and perceptions of control over drinking; however, the negative consequences of alcohol use are discounted. While perceived peer norms predicted alcohol consumption in all three age groups, the influence of perceived parental norms varied such that they predicted alcohol use only among the college juniors. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.