The mental and physical health of caregivers impacts more than just that individual worker. It affects the health of their patients, it impacts their families, it shapes communities, it influences politics, and it plays into international relations. Medical and nursing professionals working in today's health care settings must be prepared to offer support in dangerous times despite staffing shortages, financial pressures, and complex legal requirements. The nature of this work puts these professionals in harm's way not only physically, but at greater risk for secondary stress, trauma, burnout and other emotional impacts exacerbating the need for self-care. There is no better time to revisit the problem of secondary stress among caregivers than on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Times of challenge and change test health care professionals' self-care insights, strategy, and reserves. New learnings and ways of maneuvering through difficult professional practice situations and life in general can become permanent elements in our self-care cache. This book will enrich the reader's insights and strategies with respect to secondary stress leading to enhanced resilience of mind, body and spirit. This second edition draws on content in the first edition and information from classic literature and research findings about the phenomenon of secondary stress experienced by nurses, physicians and physician assistants. This book highlights the importance of interprofessional communication and support in ameliorating the stressors of clinical work, an effort enhanced by interdisciplinary co-authorship. Educators and front line clinicians have come to the realization that the recognition and self-management of secondary stress and burnout will contribute to a high functioning, caring health care delivery system in the future that prevents attrition and major health problems for those in clinical careers. Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice is an indispensable resource for medical and nursing professionals, students, and the counselors and therapists who work with them.

This innovative book discusses current findings on regulatory disorders in infants and offers practical guidelines for diagnosis and intervention. Focusing on core infant and toddler concerns including crying, sleeping, feeding, clinginess, and aggression, it presents a developmental continuum from normal to disturbed behavior regulation and examines science-based strategies for halting this trajectory. Case examples and widely used tools illustrate diverse approaches to assessment and diagnosis, emphasizing nuances of parent-infant interactions and parents' reactions that may fail to answer, or may even exacerbate, the child's distress. And chapters outline counseling and therapy options for infants and parents, so that persistent problems do not become entrenched in children's future behavior or lead to long-term family dysfunction. Among the topics covered: Approaches to diagnosing regulatory disorders in infants. Feeding disorders in infants and young children. Developmentally appropriate vs. persistent defiant and aggressive behavior. Treatment approaches for regulatory disorders. Video and video feedback in counseling and therapy. Regulatory Disorders in Infants is an essential resource for clinicians and practitioners as well as researchers and graduate students in clinical child and school psychology, pediatrics, social work, psychiatry, and family studies.

This engaging book paints a picture of passionate grassroots youth workers, at a time when their practice is threatened by spending cuts, target cultures and market imperatives. Using interviews, dialogue and research diary excerpts the author brings youth work practice and theory to life. The book will interest researchers and practitioners in youth and community work, education, social work, and health and social care and its rich, empirical research will resonate internationally.

This book focuses on children and the impact of neurotoxins on the developing brain to guide the practice of psychologists working with children in clinical and school settings. Each chapter covers a distinct neurotoxin or group of neurotoxins, with particular emphasis on the impact of the neurotoxin exposure on the developing brain and long-term cognitive and psychosocial outcomes. This is more complex than studying neurotoxins with adults because of the rapid development occurring in the child's brain. Further, children are more susceptible than adults to the effects of neurotoxins due to their developmental status. Many of the effects discussed in this volume occur in utero, thus setting the stage for an altered developmental trajectory.

Social Work in the Community offers practice guidance to students, practice assessors, and practitioners within a political, theoretical, methodological, and ethical framework. The book is written from an experiential learning perspective, enabling the reader not only to understand the ideas and methods, but to test them out in their own practice, which additionally provides an element of problem-based learning. It is a practical textbook, covering a holistic approach to making a difference through social work. Written within the framework of the practice curriculum for the social work degree in the UK, including the National Occupational Standards, the book enables students to make sense of their practice in relation to the knowledge, skills, and values of social work practice in its community context. It contains many textbook features, including chapter summaries, 'reflection boxes,' and open-ended UK case studies.

Families today often face a range of urgent problems, and practitioners need to intervene with the most effective methods possible, methods which have been tested and that have proven clinical utility. Mental health service delivery systems are increasingly moving toward these empirically-validated approaches, and practitioners need guidelines as to how such treatments may be implemented in daily practice. Evidence-Based Family Interventions reviews the empirically validated treatments that are relevant for family practice in the social work setting.

The advent of computerized data systems, the growth of managed care, the AIDS epidemic, mandatory reporting requirements for child abuse, workplace drug testing, and various laws requiring that social workers maintain confidential communications in some situations yet disclose them in others have made confidentiality a vital, changing area of the law.

Practitioners, administrators, and those studying for these professions need to know how to use these laws to protect their clients, themselves, and their agencies. Mental health practitioners need authoritative guidance in these areas when working with clients -- children as well as adults -- in both individual and group settings. Administrators must be aware of the laws that protect worker and client privacy, and those that permit legitimate access to information.

This handbook examines state-of-the-art research and clinical findings on attenuated psychosis syndrome (APS) across the globe. It addresses symptoms, assessment methods, and treatment approaches as they differ and converge across countries and cultures. The handbook explores how the illness impairs many aspects of daily functioning, with high rates of suicide and a reduced life span. It details how early detection is critical and may greatly reduce the public health burden of the illness. Chapters describe the early identification and intervention efforts that are currently underway across the world. The book offers international findings from prominent researchers, elaborating culturally relevant illness symptoms, help-seeking behaviors, and assessment and intervention strategies. In addition, chapters illustrate wide variations in symptom expression and experience, reinforcing the necessity of culturally attuned practice in patient-centered care. The book concludes by examining the implications - challenges and opportunities - for future research and clinical practices from an international perspective. Topics featured in the Handbook include: Barriers to service in low-resourced countries. The role of traditional or culturally acceptable care in developing early intervention models. The reliability and validity of tools for assessing and identifying APS. Possible medical diagnoses that can present with APS symptoms and how to differentiate these conditions from APS. The Handbook of Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome Across Cultures is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians, and related professionals as well as graduate students in child and school psychology, psychiatry, social work, and related disciplines.

At a time of acute student placement shortages for all professions, this book proposes original solutions to creating and maintaining high quality opportunities for students. Chapters will explore key concerns including sustainability, food security and preparing social workers for global challenges; supporting students to undertake international placements; working with service users and carers as placement supervisors; developing support for students from minority ethnic groups; raising the profile of men in social work; and service provision through student labour; as well as the pedagogy informing practice learning.Doing fieldwork education will be essential reading for all those responsible for fieldwork education, both in social work worldwide and other professions where practical learning in the workplace is a requirement. With an emphasis on creativity and innovation the book will also appeal to educators charged with developing work-based learning opportunities in wider disciplines such as Health and Social Care studies.

Radical social work is a tradition often identified exclusively with the movement which developed in the UK in the 1970s, yet as this much-needed new textbook demonstrates, the relevance of radical approaches to contemporary social work practice have never been stronger. Challenges to a neoliberal approach to social work have been gaining ground academically, and, to a lesser extent, in practice circles. This book provides a fresh understanding of the radical tradition and shows how it can be developed in contemporary social work. Using case studies and real life scenarios to illustrate the type of dilemmas faced by workers in their day-to-day practice, this book sets out the ways in which a radical social work approach can inform constructive responses.This book emphasises the need to understand the diverse lives of service users, encouraging readers to share experience and knowledge and to discuss past and present events, to build confidence in tackling injustice at individual and societal levels. As many social workers are becoming disillusioned and dissatisfied with the profession, this book promotes a practice that is rooted in a commitment to positive change and to social justice that will offer a breathe of fresh air to students and practitioners alike.

No other book has studied the phenomenon of burnout among child- and youth-care workers across so many cultures using a standard measure to pinpoint the dimensions of culture that increase or decrease burnout. This work examines the problem across 13 cultures, including England, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Israel, Canada, and the United States. Among the consistent themes that emerge are workload, work environment, social support, and coping skills. Recommendations for prevention, remediation, and recovery are offered based on research findings and a theoretical approach emphasizing positive psychology.

This volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers studying burnout in any population, as well as those focused on the more general topic of cross-cultural psychology. Human service professionals, especially those in the field of child- and youth-care work, will also find the book helpful. It will appeal also to professors and students in higher education programs training human service workers in the fields of psychology, social work, and counseling.

The compensating construct of resiliency, itself, has not been compared to the problem of loss of relevancy. Therefore, there is an open corridor for the enlightened therapist, career coach, or mentor to appropriately guide a troubled person with targeted challenges to transform themselves into a newly thriving being. This book explores the topic in detail with references to the literature where prior theory can be applied to advance this topic further. Anecdotal evidence supporting the authors' perspective is presented, including several brief case studies of individuals who have thrived following cessation of their prior careers.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2009

Relational Theory for Social Work Practice introduces social workers to the burgeoning feminist scholarship on relational theories and the practical application of these theories with diverse populations. It emphasizes the practical application of the basic relational concepts in a readable and comprehensive way, developing an approach to practice which is useful for both male and female social workers and clients.

Relational theory argues that the fundamental feature of healthy human development is the ability to form connections through relationships. Within this perspective, growth is seen as occurring within relationships rather than apart from them. Full case studies viewed through a feminist lens are integrated throughout the book. This work builds explicitly on the professional foundation of social work: mission, theory, practice skills, ethics, and values.

Helpful pedagogical features include a list of best practices for the social worker and a relational questionnaire. It will be of interest to students, researchers and professionals of social work.

Since its first issue in 1988, much interesting and inspiring material has been published in "Groupwork." Most of this still says much of use to today's groupworkers, and there is a steady stream of requests for reprints. We are therefore making back volumes of "Groupwork" available in volume form. Authors in this volume include leading academic figures in the field as well as practitioners working in the field. Any groupworker will find this material of enduring interest.

Challenging dominant discourses in neoliberal marketized societies about working with disconnected young people, this book argues that alternative, radical approaches to formal and informal education are necessary to challenge repressive practices, and to help build a more equal, socially-just society.

Furthering social justice and human rights is a fundamental principle underlying the social work profession. Engaging in social policy formulation processes is a major route through which social workers can realise this goal. This type of social work activity has been termed 'policy practice'. The aim of this book is to shed light on policy practice in social work discourse, education and practice in eight liberal democracies. This is the first effort to undertake a cross-national study of social worker engagement in social policy formulation processes. The book offers insights into questions such as 'what is the importance attributed to social worker involvement in policy change in the social work discourse and education in different countries?' and 'how do social workers influence social policy in various national settings?' These issues are relevant to social worker practitioners, students, educators and researchers, as well as to social policy scholars, who are interested in the role of professionals in social policy formulation.

This book provides a timely synthesis and discussion of recent developments in mindfulness research and practice within mental health and addiction domains. The book also discusses other Buddhist-derived interventions - such as loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation - that are gaining momentum in clinical settings. It will be an essential text for researchers and mental health practitioners wishing to keep up-to-date with developments in mindfulness clinical research, as well as any professionals wishing to equip themselves with the necessary theoretical and practical tools to effectively utilize mindfulness in mental health and addiction settings.

This groundbreaking volume introduces the theoretical base and clinical methods of Neurocognitive Learning Therapy, an integrative framework for client-centered intervention. The model unifies psychology and neuroscience in revisiting the connections between brain and behavior, replacing the cognitive-versus-affective binary traditional to clinical thinking with a scenario of the cognitive and emotional learning processes that work together to shape adaptive and pathological behavior. This foundation in learning theory illuminates the therapeutic relationship, synching how therapists teach with how clients learn, with guidelines for educating to encourage change. The unique flexibility of the NCLT model allows practitioners across clinical orientations the freedom to apply eclectic intervention strategies that fit clients' learning styles and therapeutic needs. Included in the coverage: Neurocognitive Learning Therapy and Life Course Theory. Reward recognition in Neurocognitive Learning Therapy. Memory reconsolidation and Neurocognitive Learning Therapy. How to be an NCLT therapist. Neurocognitive Learning Therapy clinical procedures. Treating children with Neurocognitive Learning Therapy. Plus practice handouts and forms for therapists and patients. Neuropsychologists, child and school psychologists, and social workers will welcome Neurocognitive Learning Therapy not only as a source of theoretical insight into the brain and behavior, but also as an innovative system for enhancing their capacity for therapeutic teaching and their clients' capacity for learning.

A timely look at the epidemic of military suicide-and an assessment of what can be done to prevent it. Nearly every day an active-duty soldier in the United States military resorts to suicide, and nearly every hour a veteran does the same. In recent years the problem of military suicides has reached epidemic proportions, but it's all too easy for most of us to gloss over the headlines or tune out the details. In The Last and Greatest Battle-the first book devoted exclusively to the problem of military suicides-John Bateson brings this neglected crisis into the spotlight. Bateson, the former executive director of a nationally certified suicide prevention center, surveys the history of suicide in the United States military from the Civil War to the present day and outlines a plan to save lives-and ultimately end the tragedy of military suicides. He uses the stories of individual soldiers to illuminate the unique challenges faced by American troops today. Transitioning from the front lines to the home front is difficult for many service members, and many need help both during and after their deployments. But even though the military is spending millions of dollars on suicide prevention programs, record numbers of soldiers continue to take their lives. To that end, Bateson outlines a plan of action. If the military works to remove stigma, to make treatment more effective and more accessible, and to limit risk factors for suicide in the first place by taking measures like reducing the number and length of deployments and adjusting pre-deployment training to take into account the way that wars are waged today, an end to the problem of military suicide is as possible as it is essential.

Normally, our relationships with our brothers and sisters are the longest relationships in our lives, outlasting time with our parents, and most marriages today. The sibling relationship is emotionally powerful and critically important, giving us a sense of continuity throughout life. So what happens when a child loses contact not only with his or her parents, but with siblings too? That is what happens in thousands of cases each year inside the child welfare system. Children are surrendered by parents - or taken by the government - and placed in the foster care system. There, they are often separated and sent to different foster families, or adopted by different couples. In this work, a team of top experts details for us how this added separation futher traumatizes children. This stellar team of internationally known researchers - some of whom are themselves adoptees - shares with us hard, poignant, and personal insights, as well as ways we might act to solve this widespread problem.

Contributors address not only the importance of nurturing sibling bonds and mental health strategies to support those relationships, but also the legal rights of siblings to be together, as well as issues in international adoptions. Emerging and standing programs to encourage and facilitate adoptions that keep siblings together are featured, as are programs that at least enable them to stay in contact.

Religion was a vital part of women's experience in Victorian Britain. This book is the first real study of the social history and cultural significance of the sisterhoods which sprang up within Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century, where women abandoned the domestic sphere to become the prototype of the modern social worker as well as pushing back the boundaries of what women could do within the structures of the Anglican church. The sisterhood movement began with the establishment of the first convent in 1845 and grew rapidly. By 1900 more than 10,000 women had joined the only Anglican organization which offered full-time work for women of all social classes. Even more impressive than the sisterhood's rapid growth was the degree of fascination that 'protestant nunneries' had for the general public -- the movement was the focus of a vigorous and heated public debate that lasted beyond the end of the century. Based upon years of research into the archives of twenty-eight religious communities, the book offers a unique breadth of coverage which allows for the formation of a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the movement than has been possible previously. Above all, the book shows that these sisterhoods were not refuges for women who failed to find husbands; rather, they attracted women who were interested in moulding careers. So successful were they in recruiting women that by the 1860s they threatened to undermine the hegemony of the ideal of domestic life as the proper sphere for women.

Social services are under pressure from Government and the public to demonstrate the effectiveness of what they do. If the search for useable and relevant measures of effectiveness is to succeed, practitioners, managers, and policymakers must have an understanding of the underlying social science concepts such as Evidence-based practice (EBP). This concept is now promoted as a 'scientific' approach to policy and practice. However, the concept was developed in the field of medicine, and many would ask whether we can safely apply it to the messy process of social problem solving? The promotion of evidence-based practice also has implications for the content and focus of social work education and training, and for the selection and recruitment of staff and students. Evidence-based Practice and Social Work provides a comprehensive overview of developments in this field and highlight many important debates and dilemmas. Writers give clear pointers to the need for a new partnership between research, policy and practice, able to promote effective services. They suggest a more inclusive version of EBP that is better able to respond to the uncertainties of social work practice in the real world. Contents include: An empirical study of the obstacles to evidence-based practice Brian Sheldon, Professor of Applied Social Research/Director, Rupatharshini Chilvers, Annemarie Ellis, Alice Moseley, and Stephen Tierney, CEBSS, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter.The limits of positivism revisited David Smith, Professor of Social Work, Dept of Applied Social Science, University of Lancaster.A problematic relationship? Evidence and practice in the workplace Nick Frost, Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education, University of Leeds.Promoting evidence based practice in a child care charity: The Barnardo's experience Tony Newman, Principal Officer, Research and Development, and Di McNeish, Head of Research, Barnardo's, Cardiff.The Social Care Institute for Excellence: The role of a national institute in developing knowledge and practice in social care Mike Fisher Professor and Director of Research and Reviews, Social Care Institute for Excellence, London.Evidence based social work practice: A reachable goal? Frank Ainsworth, Research Scholar and Lecturer (Adjunct), School of International, Cultural and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University and Patricia Hansen, Head, Department of Social Work, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.Reframing an evidence-based approach to practice Stephanie Tierney, Research Assistant, CEBSS, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter.What works about what works? Fashion, fad and EBP Carolyn Taylor, Lecturer in Social Work, and Susan White, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Manchester

Millions of people and their families are affected by mental illness; it causes untold pain and severely impairs their ability to function in the world. In recent years, we have begun to understand and develop a range of effective treatments for mental illness. Even with this shift from moralistic views to those emphasizing the biological and genetic origins of mental illness, punitive treatment and outright rejection remain strong. Public attitudes toward mental illness are still more negative than they were half a century ago, and the majority of those afflicted either do not receive or cannot afford adequate care. As a result of all of these troubling facts, applying the term "stigma" to mental illness is particularly appropriate because stigma conveys the mark of shame borne by those in any highly devalued group.
Mental illness tops the list of stigmatized conditions in current society, generating the kinds of stereotypes, fear, and rejection that are reminiscent of longstanding attitudes toward leprosy. Mental disorders threaten stability and order, and media coverage exacerbates this situation by equating mental illness with violence. As a result, stigma is rampant, spurring family silence, discriminatory laws, and social isolation. The pain of mental illness is searing enough, but adding the layer of stigma affects personal well being, economic productivity, and public health, fueling a vicious cycle of lowered expectations, deep shame, and hopelessness.
In this groundbreaking book, Stephen Hinshaw examines the longstanding tendency to stigmatize those with mental illness. He also provides practical strategies for overcoming this serious problem, including enlightenedsocial policies that encourage, rather than discourage, contact with those afflicted, media coverage emphasizing their underlying humanity, family education, and responsive treatment.
Stigma is a deeply inspiring and passionate work that is realistic and filled with hope. It combines personal accounts with information from social and evolutionary psychology, sociology, and public policy to provide messages that are essential for anyone afflicted or familiar with mental illness.