Community Social Service Agencies Research Articles

Opioid Misuse Harm Reduction.

The misuse of opioids by the public is a major health issue. Prescription opioids and nonprescription opioids, such as heroin and opium, are misused in epidemic proportions. When opioids are used incorrectly or illegally, they can lead to drug dependence, addiction, morbidity, and mortality. This program is in collaboration with the Jolt Foundation that provides resources to prevent opioid overdose deaths. This program involves community education on the dangers of opioid use and training on the use of naloxone rescue procedures to prevent overdose deaths. A pretest-posttest design was employed to determine if participants gained knowledge regarding the naloxone administration procedures. The researcher presented 10 community naloxone trainings that included staff from 20 different social service agencies, two schools, and three local churches. Each agency received at least one naloxone kit. The outcomes were met and included educating 137 participants on the risk factors and signs and symptoms of opioid overdose and the proper procedure to administer naloxone. One hundred twenty-eight posttests were returned and showed that the objectives for the project were met. The overall mean score for the pretests was 65.00 ( n = 126) with a standard deviation of 19.01, and the overall mean for the posttests was 86.64 ( n = 128) with a standard deviation of 14.60. Community social service agency staff were successfully educated to respond appropriately to overdose situations in a group training setting as evidenced by significant posttest scores.

Population Health Innovations and Payment to Address SocialNeeds Among Patients and Communities With Diabetes.

Increasingly, health care organizations are implementing interventions to improve outcomes for patients with complex health and social needs, including diabetes, through cross-sector partnerships with nonmedical organizations. However, fee-for-service and many value-based payment systems constrain options to implement models of care that address social and medical needs in an integrated fashion. We present experiences of eight grantee organizations from the Bridging the Gap: Reducing Disparities in Diabetes Care initiative to improve diabetes outcomes by transforming primary care and addressing social needs within evolving payment models. Analysis of eight grantees through site visits, technical assistance calls, grant applications, and publicly available data from US census data (2017) and from Health Resources and Services Administration Uniform Data System Resources data (2018). Organizations represent a range of payment models, health care settings, market factors, geographies, populations, and community resources. Grantees are implementing strategies to address medical and social needs through augmented staffing models to support high-risk patients with diabetes (e.g., community health workers, behavioral health specialists), information technology innovations (e.g., software for social needs referrals), and system-wide protocols to identify high-risk populations with gaps in care. Sites identify and address social needs (e.g., food insecurity, housing), invest in human capital to support social needs referrals and coordination (e.g., embedding social service employees in clinics), and work with organizations to connect to community resources. Sites encounter challenges accessing flexible up-front funding to support infrastructure for interventions. Value-based payment mechanisms usually reward clinical performance metrics rather than measures of population health or social needs interventions. Federal, state, and private payers should support critical infrastructure to address social needs and incentivize care that addresses social needs and outcomes sensitive to social risk. Population health strategies that address medical and social needs for populations living with diabetes will need to be tailored to a range of health care organizations, geographies, populations, community partners, and market factors. Payment models should support and incentivize these strategies for sustainability.

Alternative education in Aotearoa New Zealand

Secondary students who become disenfranchised from mainstream schools are directed to attend Alternative Education (AE) centres. AE was a grassroots’ initiative in the 1990s led by youth organisations, iwi, community social service agencies and churches to meet the education and pastoral needs of rangatahi. Due to the tenuous links held between AE and the mainstream system and with no government policy work occurring within the sector for the decade prior to 2009, the sector struggled for adequate resourcing and professional recognition. Through a poetic inquiry approach this paper explores three key AE government policy directions over a ten-year period, from 2009 to 2019. Unbuckling prose found within official documents, concrete (visual) poems were created to perform a critical reading of policy. The policy poems form a narrative arc that show the discrediting of AE providers and demonising of students in AE has recently given way to more hopeful directions in policy.

Gender-Responsive Services for Women Leaving Prison: The IF Project’s Seattle Women’s Reentry Initiative

ABSTRACT With increasing numbers of women entering and exiting prison, gender-responsive services are needed to address unique challenges women face when reentering society. Seattle Women’s Reentry (SWR), a gender-responsive reentry initiative, was implemented in 2017–2018 in King County, Washington. SWR is a collaborative partnership between the Seattle Police Department’s IF Project, the Washington State Department of Corrections, and community social service agencies to address the needs of women leaving the Washington Corrections Center for Women. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined 85 women (60 in the experimental group and 25 in the comparison group) released from the Washington Corrections Center for Women in 2017 and 2018. Results show a significant difference between groups with respect to violations and arrests. Factors associated with rearrest/violations were the number of post-release SWR contacts, age, and LS/CMI scores. Qualitative findings reveal program satisfaction among participants and themes that tell a story about how women navigate the reentry process showing distinct stages in the reentry process characterized by support stability, and responsibility. Research and policy implications for gender-responsive services for women leaving prison are discussed.

Psychiatric Sequelae Among Community Social Service Agency Staff 1 Year After a Mass Shooting

This cross-sectional study examines the prevalence of mental health disorders and substance use among professional staff members at community social service agencies 1 year after a mass shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Experts Offer Guidance on Helping Seniors Handle COVID-19 Stresses

Experts Offer Guidance on Helping Seniors Handle COVID-19 Stresses

ADDRESSING SOCIAL ISOLATION AND LONELINESS AMONG LOW-INCOME SENIORS IN SAN FRANCISCO

Felton Institute has been working to eliminate isolation and loneliness in San Francisco since its inception as a community social service agency 130 years ago. Felton offers culturally and linguistically appropriate programs and services that foster community and social connections among socially isolated, low income older adults, including those living with serious mental illness and those residing in local long-term care facilities. Examples include workforce programs for older adults; the foster grandparent program; and the senior companion program which includes friendly visiting, senior counseling, and peer escort services. This session will highlight lessons learned from these successful programs as well as how they have led to the development of new initiatives focused on conducting outreach, providing trauma-informed services, offering wellness classes, and organizing meaningful activities including a choir, intergenerational gardening, arts and dance classes, and cultural exchange opportunities to isolated older adults living in poverty in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley.

What really happens in the home: a comparison of parent-reported and observed tooth brushing behaviors for young children

BackgroundMost studies of tooth brushing behaviors rely on self-report or demonstrations of behaviors conducted in clinical settings. This study aimed to determine the feasibility of objective assessment of tooth brushing behaviors in the homes of high-risk children under three years old. We compared parent self-report to observations to determine the accuracy of self-report in this population.MethodsForty-five families were recruited from dental and medical clinics and a community social service agency. Research staff asked questions about oral health behaviors and observed tooth brushing in the homes. Brushing was also video-recorded. Video-recordings were coded for brushing behaviors by staff that did not collect the primary data; these abstracted data were compared to those directly observed in homes.ResultsMost families were Hispanic (76%) or Black (16%) race/ethnicity. The majority of parents had a high school education (42%) or less (24%). The mean age of children was 21 months. About half of parents reported brushing their child’s teeth twice a day (58%). All parents tried to have their children brush, but three children refused. For brushing duration, 70% of parents reported differently than was observed. The average duration of brushing was 62.4 s. Parent report of fluoride in toothpaste frequently did not match observations; 39% said they used toothpaste with fluoride while 71% actually did. Sixty-eight percent of parents reported using a smear of toothpaste, while 61% actually did. Brushing occurred in a variety of locations and routines varied. ed data from videos were high in agreement for some behaviors (rinse with water, floss used, brushing location, and parent involvement: Kappa 0.74–1.0). Behaviors related to type of brushing equipment (brushes and toothpaste), equipment storage, and bathroom organization and clutter had poor to no agreement.ConclusionsObservation and video-recording of brushing routines and equipment are feasible and acceptable to families. Observed behaviors are more accurate than self-report for most components of brushing and serve to highlight some of the knowledge issues facing parents, such as the role of fluoride.

A Family-Centered Program to Break the Cycle of Addiction

Celebrating Families!™ (CF!) is a manualized family-centered program focused on the goal of breaking the cycle of generational substance use disorders (SUDs). It is one of the few evidence-based family-focused practices listed on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices. Compared to another evidence-based program, Strengthening Families, CF! showed significant impact on family organization, positive parenting, parent involvement, and alcohol and drug use reduction. CF! is shown to be successful in unifying families from family dependency courts and as a prevention program for SUDs when offered by community social service agencies. A preliminary efficacy study illustrates changes within participating families consistent with the goal. The study’s purpose was to test the hypothesis that a family skills program such as CF! changed behavior by reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors. Data from 20 cycles of the program revealed that parents ( N = 263), referred from family drug court, expressed significant behavior changes toward their children in ways that increased protective factors after the 16-week program, and youth ( N = 106) showed better understanding of SUDs. Results suggest that this family skills program can be an intervention program for families at-risk for perpetuating the cycle of addiction, as well as prevention of family violence, abuse, and neglect. Agencies that serve families at risk can use the program to prevent costly foster care placements and SUDs by providing such programs.

Development and Evaluation of a Train-the-Trainer Workshop for Hong Kong Community Social Service Agency Staff.

Capacity building approaches are useful in large-scale community-based health promotion interventions. However, models to guide and evaluate capacity building among social service agency staff in community settings are rare in the literature. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a 1-day (7 h) train-the-trainer (TTT) workshop for the "Enhancing Family Well-Being Project". The workshop aimed at equipping staff from different community agencies with the knowledge and skills to design, implement, and evaluate positive psychology-based interventions for their clients in Sham Shui Po, an over-crowded and low-income district in Hong Kong. The current TTT extended and improved on our previous successful model by adding research and evaluation methods (including the Logic Model, process evaluation, and randomized controlled trial), which are important to plan and evaluate the community interventions. Evaluation of the TTT was guided by the Integrated Model of Training Evaluation and Effectiveness (IMTEE), with quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data were collected from pretraining (T1), post-training (T2), and 6-month (T3) and 12-month (T4) follow-up surveys. Qualitative data were collected from four focus groups of agency staff after the intervention. Ninety-three staff from 30 community agencies attended the training, and 90 completed the baseline survey. Eighty-eight, 63, and 57 staff performed the evaluations at T2, T3, and T4, respectively. Agency staff were satisfied with the TTT. Immediate enhancement of knowledge, self-efficacy, and positive attitudes toward the training content was found at T2 (Cohen's d ranged from 0.24 to 1.22, all p < 0.05). Enhancement of knowledge of all training contents persisted at T3 and T4 (Cohen's d ranged from 0.34 to 0.63, all p < 0.05). Enhancement of self-efficacy in the use of positive psychology in intervention design persisted at T3 (Cohen's d = 0.22, p = 0.04). The skills learned were utilized to plan and develop subsequent interventions. Twenty-nine interventions were successfully designed and implemented by the agency staff, and delivered to 1,586 participants. The agency staff indicated their intention to utilize the skills they had learned for other interventions (score ≥4 out of 6) and to share these skills with their colleagues. Qualitative feedbacks from 23 agency staff supported the quantitative results. Our brief TTT was effectively delivered to a large number of agency staff and showed effects that persisted up to 12 months. Our training and evaluation models may offer a template for capacity building among social service agency staff for community brief, universal family health promotion interventions in diverse settings.

Can randomized controlled trials be conducted in community social service settings?

In November 2007, a Hong Kong charitable foundation funded the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health to develop and implement a program entitled: ‘FAMILY: a Jockey Club Initiative for a Harmonious Society’ (referred hereafter as ‘The FAMILY Project’). One component was the development and testing of preventive interventions to promote family relationships. An essential mandate was that the interventions be conducted in partnership with local community social service agencies. The difficulties of academiccommunity partnerships are well known and documented. For three years, the authors worked with four separate community (and one government) agencies, and effectively completed four (plus one) randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The approach and experience may be worthy of dissemination to help others seeking to implement programs in the community. In Hong Kong, social services are widely available through numerous agencies, which are mostly non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who receive funding predominantly from

The Nurse's First Visit

Home visiting was an important component of the Public Health Nurse's (PHN) role in the early twentieth century. In this reprint, originally published in 1918 and reprinted in 1926, Edna Foley discusses the significance of the first visit the PHN makes to a family. Critical themes in the paper include the importance of first impressions, communication and observation skills, obtaining the statistical data needed by the agency and collaboration with other community social service agencies. Many of the themes and strategies discussed by Foley are cogent to PHNs and visiting nurses in the contemporary health care arena.

Public History and Liberal Learning: Making the Case for the Undergraduate Practicum Experience

Abstract This article explores a collaborative public history project between a small liberal arts undergraduate institution and a community social service agency. Drawing on evidence from student reflections and other course materials, it argues that undergraduate students gained important skills through the public history practicum including teamwork and problemsolving skills, intercultural awareness, and reflective practices, as well as discipline-specific learning outcomes. In documenting the student outcomes, it also demonstrates the potential of public history to contribute to undergraduate students' civic capabilities.

Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University

Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University

Agency Social Workers Could Monitor Hypertension in the Community

Uncontrolled hypertension is highly prevalent, presents without symptoms, and constitutes a major risk factor for atherosclerosis, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Several factors impede individuals from adhering to treatment, while others work against physician monitoring and medication adjustment as the condition changes. As family counselors and leaders of self-help and mutual aid groups, social workers are among the best positioned professionals to help individuals, couples, and families improve psychosocial dynamics associated with hypertension, secure support, and overcome barriers to lifestyle changes or medication adherence. An important case is made for training social workers from community social service agencies to engage and guide their clients in accurate self-screenings for hypertension and to refer those with elevated blood pressure for follow-up care.

Practice Constraints, Behavioral Problems, and Dementia Care: Primary Care Physicians’ Perspectives

To examine how practice constraints contribute to barriers in the health care of persons with dementia and their families, particularly with respect to behavioral aspects of care. Cross-sectional qualitative interview study of primary care physicians. Physicians' offices. Forty primary care physicians in Northern California. Open-ended interviews lasted 30-60 minutes and were structured by an interview guide covering clinician background and practice setting, clinical care of a particular patient, and general approach to managing patients with AD or dementia. Interviews were transcribed and themes reflecting constraints of practice were identified through a systematic coding process. Recurring themes (i.e., those present in > or = 25% of physician interviews) included insufficient time, difficulty in accessing and communicating with specialists, low reimbursement, poor connections with community social service agencies, and lack of interdisciplinary teams. Physician narratives suggest that these constraints may lead to delayed detection of behavior problems, "reactive" as opposed to proactive management of dementia, and increased reliance on pharmacological rather than psychosocial approaches. Physicians often feel challenged in caring for dementia patients, particularly those who are more behaviorally complex, because of time and reimbursement constraints as well as other perceived barriers. Our results suggest that more effective educational interventions (for families and physicians) and broader structural changes are needed to better meet the needs of the elderly with dementia and their families now and in the future. Without these changes, dementia care is likely to continue to fall short.

Primary health care for Korean immigrants: sustaining a culturally sensitive model.

This report describes a 4-year long bilingual interdisciplinary primary health care project that was designed to make culturally sensitive services available to underserved Korean immigrants in Chicago. It also describes some of the particular needs of this population and the strategies that the project staff adopted to identify and address the population's mental health needs. The project reflected the successful collaborative efforts of four participating principals: the Korean community, the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing, the Chicago Department of Public Health, and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The model of service demonstrated in the project paired a bilingual advanced practice nurse, a certified family nurse practitioner, with a bilingual community advocate to conduct a program emphasizing community outreach and health promotion and prevention. A bilingual physician provided consultation for the nurse and attended to patients in need of medical care. Patients were referred to bilingual community social service agencies for assistance with a variety of other problems. A central goal of the project was for the services developed during its course to be assimilated into the regular programming of the Chicago Department of Public Health, a goal that was achieved. Finally, some of the challenges of introducing role change into an organization are discussed.

Reaching Inner-City Children

One of the obstacles faced by community social service agencies is difficulty in attracting adolescents to the services offered them. Adolescents typically do not walk in or keep appointments at outpatient clinics and can be difficult to engage even for outreach programs. One solution to this dilemma is to go where the children are: the public schools. This paper describes the group work component of a collaborative program at an inner-city school.

Educational models and their influence on executive development

Performance + InstructionVolume 31, Issue 4 p. 13-15 Article Educational models and their influence on executive development Mark A. Rogers, Mark A. Rogers 480 North McClurg Court, Suite 812, Chicago, IL 60611 Mark is enrolled in a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a Senior Clinician in the Mental Health Program at the Association House of Chicago, a privately funded, not-for-profit community social service agency. He provides individual, family, and group therapy from adults to children with diverse racial, ethic, and cultural differences. Current research interests are organizational behavior, the influence of manager's personality and cognitive orientations on corporate strategy and culture, and employee training.Search for more papers by this author Mark A. Rogers, Mark A. Rogers 480 North McClurg Court, Suite 812, Chicago, IL 60611 Mark is enrolled in a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a Senior Clinician in the Mental Health Program at the Association House of Chicago, a privately funded, not-for-profit community social service agency. He provides individual, family, and group therapy from adults to children with diverse racial, ethic, and cultural differences. Current research interests are organizational behavior, the influence of manager's personality and cognitive orientations on corporate strategy and culture, and employee training.Search for more papers by this author First published: April 1992 https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.4170310406 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume31, Issue4April 1992Pages 13-15 RelatedInformation

Older Worker-Older Client:

Untrained older workers, providing concrete services in the community to physically and mentally frail older adults, are often handicapped not only by a lack of training, but also by the fears engendered by their own personal losses, increasing frailty and advancing age. This paper explores one community social service agency's attempt to design and execute a training program to simultaneously address the needs of both older and younger volunteer workers and also foster a sense of worker self-esteem that would result, ultimately, in an improvement in worker-client contacts.