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As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, more African Americans than whites are falling ill and dying from the virus and more are losing livelihoods from the accompanying recession. The virus thereby exploits structural disadvantages, rooted partly in historical and contemporary anti-Black sentiments, working against African Americans. These include higher rates of comorbid illness and more limited health care access, higher rates of disadvantageous labor market positioning and community and housing conditions, greater exposure to long-term care residence, and higher incarceration rates. COVID-19 also exposes African Americans' greater vulnerability to recession, and possibly greater susceptibility to accompanying behavioral health problems. If they are left unaddressed, the very vulnerabilities COVID-19 exploits may perpetuate themselves. However, continuing and supplementing health and economic COVID mitigation policies can disproportionately benefit African Americans and reduce short- and long-term adverse effects. The greater impact of COVID-19 on African Americans demonstrates the consequences of pervasive social and economic inequality and marks this as a critical time to prevent further compounding of adverse effects.

Objectives This study describes rates of perceived and unmet need for family support services (care coordination, respite care, and family mental health care) among a national sample of children with special health care needs (CSHCN), distinguishing children with emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems (EBDPs) from children with primarily physical chronic conditions. It also examines if a child having EBDPs is associated with perceived and unmet family support service needs and investigates public versus private health insurance's moderating effect on this association. Methods Using data from the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (2005/2006 and 2009/2010), this cross-sectional study uses multi-level, fixed effects logistic regression. Results When compared to CSHCN with no EBDPs, parents of CSHCN with EBDPs report greater need for all family support services and greater rates of unmet need for all support services. This pattern of greater need for CSHCN with EBDPs versus those without is similar among those with public and private health insurance. Among CSHCN with family support needs, however, the pattern differs. For CSHCN with EBDPs, having public insurance is associated with lower probabilities of unmet needs compared to private insurance. For CSHCN without EBDPs, having public insurance has a mixed effect on probability of reporting unmet need. Conclusion Having EBDPs and public insurance is associated with increased perceived need, but public insurance also confers particular benefit for children with EBDPs., Author(s): Genevieve Graaf [sup.1] , Izabela Annis [sup.2] , Regina Martinez [sup.1] , Kathleen C. Thomas [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.267315.4, 0000 0001 2181 9515, School of Social Work, University [...]

Social workers have an ethical obligation to the consumers and communities they serve to draw on practice-relevant research evidence in planning and executing interventions. A model for using evidence in social work practice is proposed, which rests on a foundation of competence in the common factors of helping relationships. The model integrates the use of evidenced-informed resources in executing a treatment plan created through a modified evidence-based practice process. This practice framework is presented, followed by a discussion of how relevant training can be incorporated into generalist and specialist educational curricula while fulfilling requirements of the Council on Social Work Education accreditation standards.

Although studies have investigated and found an association between adverse childhood experiences and poor health and mental health outcomes, there is a dearth of studies investigating the association between adverse childhood experiences and unmet health care needs among children. The objective of this study is to examine the association between adverse childhood experiences and unmet health care needs after adjusting for predisposing, enabling, and need factors of health care service utilization. Data for this study came from the 2016–2017 National Survey of Children's Health. An analytic sample of 46,081 children (51.3% males; average age 11.5 years) was analyzed using negative binomial regression. Based on parent reports, about 3.5% of children had unmet health care needs, and half (50%) of the sample had experienced at least one childhood adversity. Controlling for other factors, children who experienced three or more childhood adversities had 4.51 times higher odds of having unmet health care needs (AOR = 4.51, p <.001, 95% CI = 3.15–6.45) when compared to their counterparts with no childhood adversity. Children with parents who have someone to turn to for everyday emotional support were 31% less likely to have unmet health care needs (AOR =.69, p <.01, 95% CI =.54–.89). Adverse childhood experiences have a detrimental effect on unmet health care needs. The findings of this study offer an important opportunity for further research on how best to prevent adverse childhood experiences and mitigate their impact on families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on teaching research methods to social work students identifies many challenges, such as dealing with the tensions related to producing research relevant to practice, access to data to teach practice-based research, and limited student interest in learning research methods. This is an exploratory study of the learning experiences of ten MSW students involved in a yearlong research methods course that utilized research data in a research unit located inside a school of social welfare and facilitated by doctoral level project coordinators. Based on hands-on experiences related to data analysis, interpretation of findings, and report writing, three themes emerged from the students' learning experiences: "interaction between research and practice, research supervision, and peer collaboration." These themes provided the foundation for identifying the facilitators and obstacles of learning and engagement that inform the study's implications for integrating student learning based on the use of agency data that can inform agency practitioners through participatory approaches to learning.

The origins of the questions comprising the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) measure in the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) and its psychometric properties are not well documented. We conducted a narrative review to identify the origins of the PCMH questions and summarize the existing literature on the psychometrics of the PCMH measure. We found that the PCMH measure is a composite of questions from five other surveys. There is limited literature regarding the validity and reliability of the measure, though the existing evidence supports confidence in the PCMH measure; however, important questions remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides the first nationally representative estimates of parent-reported barriers to mental health services for children with mental health conditions in the United States. It identifies individual, family, and environmental characteristics associated with the most common barriers to mental health care for children with common mental health disorders reporting the need for mental health services. Cost barriers, inconvenient service times, and lack of service availability or transportation barriers were the most reported barriers to mental health services. Children with more severe conditions reported these barriers at significantly higher rates than children with less severe conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]