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Social workers play an important role in the field of mental health and addictions, but there are concerns about the level of training and education offered by social work programs. The purpose of ...

Social workers and other professionals providing mental health services are regularly required to make high-stakes decisions in situations characterised by conflicting demands. To better understand the factors that drive clinical decision making in situations of risk and uncertainty, we used a design-based research framework to pilot a new approach for improving professional decision making. The programme, which combined simulated interviews, a master class series and personal monitoring of real-time decisions, was designed to focus explicit attention on biological, emotional, cognitive and contextual influences on decision making. Preliminary results from a pilot study suggest that during and immediately following the intervention, clinicians demonstrated new insights into their decision making processes. In addition, they reported benefitting both from the opportunity to reflect individually and share reflections with others. Physiological data demonstrated an association between stressful decisions in real-world clinical practice, elevated heart rate and emotional responses. Qualitative data suggested that client risk represented only one aspect of decision making that resulted in emotional and physical responses, and others included team dynamics, socio-evaluative stressors and organisational and societal factors. This innovative decision making programme creates new opportunities for integrating research, practice and education and shows promise of improving social work practice.

Social work programs need to prepare students for practice in assessing mental health, addictions, and suicide risk assessment. In response to a call for increased training, we partnered with commu...

Researchers have documented diminishing staff supervision in health care settings, while noting the complexity and dynamic nature of health care systems. A secondary data analysis of a survey of the Ontario Association of Social Workers (N=666) explored the contemporary receipt of different types of supervision in frontline health care. Most social worker participants were involved in supervision, receiving administrative and supportive supervision. Only 52% engaged in clinical supervision, even though most spent over 50% of work time with clients with complex needs. Factors related to the receipt of clinical supervision included setting, experience, gender, and availability of clinical practice leaders.

Contributing to the understanding of supervision within evidence-based interventions (EBIs), this paper presents a feasibility study implementing a workplace-based clinical supervision model within...

Teaching students about culture and diversity in social work practice is a complex and important task for social work educators. In this study, we assessed students’ conceptualization of culture an...

This article reports a scoping review designed to synthesize current literature that used simulation as an investigative methodology (simulation-based research; SBR) in researching practice competencies in clinical social work. Following Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework, 24 articles were included in this scoping review. The majority of articles reported SBR studies conducted in Canada and the U.S. and were published in the last 10 years, signifying that this is a burgeoning area of research in clinical social work. Areas of clinical competencies included professional decision-making (33%), the role of cognition and emotion (21%), attending to culture and diversity (21%), and others, such as supervision skills (8%). Using qualitative (46%), quantitative (42%), and mixed methods (13%) in research design, more than half of the SBR studies reported in the selected articles used live actors (54%) to simulate a realistic practice situation for research. Selected articles also offered both benefits and limitations of SBR in social work. We offer suggestions for when to use SBR for research on clinical social work practice and strengthening a collaboration between clinicians and researchers in advancing practice-informed research.

For children and their families who have experienced success in middle years mental health interventions, adolescence represents a developmental period when additional challenges can emerge and potentially threaten positive gains. For youth who have a history of disruptive behaviors, addressing risks and balancing interventions with a focus on skill development, leadership, and resiliency can serve to support these youth in reaching their potential. This paper will present the development of the Canadian SNAP-Boys Youth Leadership Services, a continuing-care component for youth who have had previous involvement in children’s mental health services, designed to enhance protective factors or developmental assets. This exploratory qualitative study was conducted in 2017 and examined 12 youths’ perspectives on what they have gained from participation in the program, and why they consider this program to be of value. We used thematic analysis to analyse interview transcripts. We identified themes of motivation, “second home”, and personal growth. What youth value and their investment in the program can be linked to key positive youth development components of a skills focus, explicit leadership and employment opportunities, program structure, supportive relationships and a sense that they matter. Implications for practice, research, and policy are shared.

Social workers engage with and hold the emotional context of clients, while managing their own cognitive and affective reactions. As such, the importance of attending to social work students’ emoti...

Purpose: In this paper, we present an exploratory, qualitative strand of a multiphase program evaluation of the Canadian-based SNAP® Youth Justice (SNAP YJ) model for males involved with th...

Social workers play a critical role in assessing and treating individuals and families with mental health and addiction concerns. Although social workers are key professionals in the mental health ...

Social work students are tasked with learning the meta and procedural competencies required of the profession while facing their own emotional responses to vulnerable populations and managing clien...

Objective:University has been identified as an important time to develop exercise habits. The aim of this study was to examine factors that enhanced exercise participation among a diverse set of undergraduate students and their perceived facilitators as well as barriers to exercising regularly.Setting:A large public university in one of the largest and most ethno-culturally diverse regions of Canada.Method:A mixed-methods design was employed to examine factors associated with regular exercise participation among diverse Canadian undergraduate students ( N = 477). Survey data were analysed using logistic regression analyses to predict regular exercise participation. In addition, six focus group sessions explored barriers and facilitators to regular engagement in exercise ( n = 41).Results:Survey findings indicated that being male, having a parent that attended college, and religious affiliation were predictive of exercising regularly. Thematic analysis of qualitative findings highlighted the complex roles that religion, intimidation, peer support and priority-setting played in college students’ exercise participation.Conclusion:Findings can inform ongoing strategies to promote exercise participation in early adulthood, particularly among diverse college students.

There has been a call for social work programs to better prepare students for field education. This qualitative study examined an innovation titled Practice Fridays developed to enhance competence ...

Two Special Issues of the Clinical Social Work Journal have been dedicated to building on the social work discipline’s tradition and commitment to the supervision of staff and field education of students. The first issue included papers on the supervision of professional social work staff. The focus of this issue is field education of students, the signature pedagogy of social work (CSWE in Educational policy and accreditation standards, CWSE, Alexandria, 2008, 2015a). Attention is given to macro structural issues impinging on the profession’s capacity to provide quality learning experiences, in addition to the integration of concepts into our educational practices, and research studies that provide systematic approaches to training practicing field instructors and providing clinical supervision for students. In this Introduction, we share the salient aspects of the articles published, as they relate to contemporary field education, with implications to guide field instructors as they provide learning experiences for students.

Supervision of staff has a rich history within the social work profession, and is widely valued internationally for the support, knowledge, and skill it is perceived to provide. Moreover, quality supervision is championed for ensuring good client care. However, supervisors practicing within the social work profession have not typically had access to best practice information, nor accessed the parallel research related to the supervision of staff. A supervision primer provides an orientation to the supervision literature, including definitions and disciplinary perspectives. This sets the stage for a scoping review of social work supervision articles for the purpose of supporting supervisors in keeping current, locating, understanding, and applying literature to their practice. Seventy-nine conceptual and empirical articles first-authored by social workers were published in 36 journals between 2013 and 2017. The volume, location, context and nature of these articles are presented, pointing to an increased social work presence in the literature. Implications for supervisory practice, scholarship, and research are discussed.

Feedback is an important mechanism that enhances student learning in supervision and field education. Constructive feedback that is specific, timely, and based on observations; bridges theory and practice, enhances self-awareness, and builds holistic competence in social work students. There is scant social work research examining how this teaching mechanism facilitates student learning. In this qualitative study we examined the role of feedback in student learning using a simulation-based learning activity aimed at developing holistic competence in the classroom to prepare students for field learning. The study examined the impact of feedback on student learning and the key elements that facilitated learning related to feedback. We identified four themes that described the impact of feedback on student learning: (1) feedback enhanced knowledge, (2) feedback improved skills, (3) feedback developed professional judgment, and (4) feedback increased self-reflection. The processes influencing the impact of feedback were the source of the feedback, type of feedback given, and delivery of feedback. The results deepen our understanding of feedback as a learning mechanism with implications for field education.

In an interview with Dr. Lawrence Shulman, he presents his insights on clinical supervision from a social work and interdisciplinary perspective. Dr. Shulman is a luminary in social work and interdisciplinary supervision, developing the Interactional Model of Supervision. In reflecting on his career in social work research, education, and practice, he shares his thoughts regarding the importance of process-oriented supervision as a needed focus for research and practice. Supportive of integrating art and science in social work practice, he offers his perspectives on the current state of supervision in the evidence-based era.

A theoretically grounded, evidence-informed, integrated model of clinical supervision for staff in agency settings is presented for a Canadian evidence-based program for children with severe disrup...

Two Special Issues of the Clinical Social Work Journal have been dedicated to building on the social work discipline’s tradition and commitment to the supervision of staff and field education of students. These issues bring together contemporary theorizing, clinical supervisory and field education practice experience and wisdom, and research studies to contribute to the knowledge base for practicing supervisors and field educators. As the first of the Special Issues, this issue has been dedicated to the supervision of staff. In this Introduction, we share the salient aspects of the articles published, as they relate to contemporary social work supervision, relational considerations within the supervisory dyad, models of supervision for fields of specialization, as well as measurement and evaluation. Implications are shared, with highlights and connections for practicing supervisors made throughout.