scholarly journals COPING, RESILIENCE AND POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH: ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35
Author(s):  
Glynnis Dykes
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Posttraumatic Growth ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
Life Lessons

This qualitative case study explored the perceptions of third-year social work students at a selected university in South Africa regarding the effects of having endured adverse childhood experiences. Findings showed the beginnings of positive life lessons that can emerge from having endured adverse experiences. Findings also confirmed the process of coping with these experiences that included outcomes of resilience and burgeoning posttraumatic growth. Implications are discussed especially regarding the place and development of coping, resilience and posttraumatic growth in social work education and social work practice. Recommendations include the professional use of self and self-awareness through mindfulness teaching practices.

scholarly journals PHRONESIS AND ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES OF SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-348
Author(s):  
Glynnis Dykes
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Adverse Childhood

This article examines the relevance of (Aristotelian) phronesis (Breier, 2007), denoting practical wisdom, in an attempt to respond to the question: How can phronesis assist in understanding and teaching social work students with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)?This article foregrounds family-of-origin experiences of a cohort of social work first year students published previously (Dykes, 2011) exploring identity formation in an assignment entitled: Who am I?” In Dykes (2011) students had been required to reflect family and social issues that had shaped their lives. Approximately 33 (34%) students had volunteered their assignments. The overall outcome had been to explore themes from the initial data emanating from students’ childhood experiences. The first objective explored the implications of ACEs for the professional requirements of social work practice (Dykes, 2011).In this article the researcher broadened the discussion to focus on a second objective which is to explore the ACEs of social work students and the significance of the concept of phronesis in the ACEs of students being trained as social workers.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Social Work: Relationship-based Practice Responses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Frederick ◽  
Trevor Spratt ◽  
John Devaney
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fundamental Misunderstanding

Abstract Individuals with higher numbers of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been found to be overrepresented amongst users of social services. This poses challenges for service providers in seeking ways to incorporate knowledge about ACEs in the calibration of service provision, and for social workers as to how they might use such knowledge in their day-to-day practice. The key contribution of this article is as a position piece that aims to map out a possible response to the ACEs evidence from social work. Practice needs to be informed by an understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma in the lives of individuals and groups. Short-term interventions based on proximal causes have resulted in a fundamental misunderstanding as to the aetiology of the problems experienced and to the types of interventions required to facilitate their amelioration. ACEs research offers a new understanding of how connecting trajectories are formed and maintained in ways that integrate biological, psychological and sociological concepts. In this article, we have made selective use of key texts and studies in the social work literature to illustrate how relationship-based social work may be appropriated and repurposed to align with interventions to mitigate the effects of ACEs.

Including Adverse Childhood Experiences Content in the HBSE Course for BSW Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-166
Author(s):  
Lisa S. Panisch ◽  
Karen A. Randolph ◽  
Shamra Boel-Studt
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Childhood Adversity ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Standard Requirement ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
History Of ◽  
Generalist Practice ◽  
Work Education

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) negatively affect biopsychosocial development and functioning across the lifespan. Social workers in generalist practice are likely to serve individuals with a history of childhood adversity. Currently, there is no standard requirement for the topic of ACEs to be addressed in baccalaureate social work education. Our teaching note addresses this gap in the curriculum by establishing a need for baccalaureate social work students to receive trauma-specific education early in their academic careers. Human Behavior in the Social Environment is proposed as a course in which this content can be easily incorporated. Recommendations for future directions are provided.

scholarly journals Enhancing Self-Awareness: A Practical Strategy to Train Culturally Responsive Social Work Students

10.18060/482 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nalini J. Negi ◽  
Kimberly A. Bender ◽  
Rich Furman ◽  
Dawnovise N. Fowler ◽  
Julia Clark Prickett
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Culturally Responsive Practice ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Competence Training ◽  
Self Discovery

A primary goal of social justice educators is to engage students in a process of self-discovery, with the goal of helping them recognize their own biases, develop empathy, and become better prepared for culturally responsive practice. While social work educators are mandated with the important task of training future social workers in culturally responsive practice with diverse populations, practical strategies on how to do so are scant. This article introduces a teaching exercise, the Ethnic Roots Assignment, which has been shown qualitatively to aid students in developing self-awareness, a key component of culturally competent social work practice. Practical suggestions for classroom utilization, common challenges, and past student responses to participating in the exercise are provided. The dissemination of such a teaching exercise can increase the field’s resources for addressing the important goal of cultural competence training.

Cultural Competence and Critical Consciousness in Social Work Pedagogy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Pitner ◽  
Izumi Sakamoto
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Classroom Setting ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Fundamental Building Block ◽  
Identity Paper

For social workers, developing cultural competence is a necessary hallmark for interacting with our increasingly diverse and complex world. Developing cultural competence, however, requires continuously raising one’s level of critical consciousness. Critical consciousness and related concepts such as reflexivity, critical self-reflection, and critical self-awareness are widely recognized as a fundamental building block of human service practice, including social work practice. However, the dynamics involved in raising our own levels of critical consciousness are lengthy and messy because we often encounter cognitive and affective roadblocks. Thus, there is no single pedagogical strategy that could help all social work students effectively engage with this process. In this article the concept of critical consciousness postulated by Pitner and Sakamoto is applied specifically to the social work classroom setting. Their Critical Consciousness Conceptual Model (CCCM), which describes the process of developing critical consciousness by engaging one’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains, is presented. How this model can be incorporated as a pedagogical tool to help social work students develop and further strengthen their own levels of critical consciousness in the classroom setting is discussed, as are various pedagogical methods, including classroom debate, identity paper assignment, “creating a world map” exercise, and mindfulness-based pedagogy. Finally, implications for social work education are explored.

Adverse Childhood Experiences Scores: When Social Work Students and Trauma Mix

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana C. Branson ◽  
Monica Bixby Radu ◽  
Jamila D. Loving
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Resiliency Training ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
Work Programs ◽  
Social Work Programs

This study compares the presence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scores among social work students with other majors and predicts the likelihood of majoring in social work. Results from a Midwestern, 4-year university indicate that on average, social work students (n=81) are more likely to have higher ACE scores in all assessed items compared to students of other university majors (n=269). Findings from the logistic regression analyses suggest that students who report at least one category of adversity were more likely to major in social work compared to other university majors. Using the person-in-environment perspective lens, these findings may account for gravitation of some students toward social work as a major. Resulting implications to baccalaureate social work programs concerning curriculum, trauma awareness, and resiliency training of students are discussed.

Using a Strengths-Based Perspective to Change Perceptions: An Exploratory Study

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Karen Rice ◽  
Heather Girvin
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Negative Perceptions

Child welfare is a field plagued with negative perceptions, which have the potential to influence how caseworkers approach their practice with families. As a result, a child welfare course emphasizing the strengths-based approach to practice with families was developed to better prepare students for engaging families and building a helping alliance. The researchers sought to examine whether this new course exerted a positive influence on undergraduate social work students' perception of the parent/caseworker relationship. Compared to undergraduate students not enrolled in this course, at post-test students enrolled in the Child Welfare course more positively perceived the parent/caseworker relationship than they did at pretest. Implications for social work practice and pedagogy are discussed.

scholarly journals Roles of Positive Psychology for Mental Health in UK Social Work Students: Self-Compassion as a Predictor of Better Mental Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 2002-2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y Kotera ◽  
P Green ◽  
D Sheffield
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Mental Health Symptoms ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Health Symptoms ◽  
Self Compassion

Abstract Despite high shame about mental health symptoms among UK social work students, positive psychological approaches to their mental health have not been investigated in depth. Emotional resilience has been a core skill in social work practice; however, its relationship with mental health is still unclear. Therefore, the primary purposes of this cross-sectional study were to (i) examine the relationships between mental health and positive psychological constructs, namely resilience, self-compassion, motivation and engagement and (ii) determine predictors of mental health in UK social work students. An opportunity sampling of 116 UK social work students (102 females, 14 males; 96 undergraduates, 20 postgraduates) completed 5 measures about these constructs. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted. Mental health was associated with resilience, self-compassion and engagement. Self-compassion was a negative predictor, and intrinsic motivation was a positive predictor of mental health symptoms. Resilience did not predict mental health symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of self-compassion to the challenging mental health of UK social work students; they caution against the overuse and misunderstanding of resilience in the social work field.

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