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Gaining an understanding as to why youth engage or disengage with Early Psychosis Services (EPS) is important for social workers providing interventions to young people. The aim of the focus group ...

Social workers provide much of the mental health treatment in the United States, and, given the ubiquity of trauma, most clinical social workers will provide treatment to trauma survivors during their careers. Therefore, trauma theory and practice must be included in MSW curricula and taught as a clinical course. This paper suggests that experienced clinician instructors teach trauma theory and practice classes using a case-based method. Bringing case material into the classroom helps prepare students for the complexities and challenges of treating survivors of trauma. To demonstrate how cases can help students connect theory to practice, the paper presents the treatment of a Central African asylum seeker recovering from trauma. The case emphasizes the centrality of the therapeutic relationship and illustrates the use of several evidence-supported trauma interventions along with core principles of social work practice. Finally, the paper suggests that social work educators consider developing a structured method of integrating cases into the trauma curriculum.

In response to the new ‘outcomes movement’ in health care settings internationally, social workers are increasingly expected to communicate their practice using the language of outcomes. Yet, little research has focused on the language that social workers use to describe their practice and how they identify appropriate interventions and link them to clearly defined evaluative outcomes. This paper is part of a large programme of research exploring and identifying issues associated with social work practice in the Australian health context. Specifically, the paper draws on qualitative data from the first stage of the project that explores issues associated with customary social work practice. Findings from the paper suggest clear evidence of tensions and difficulties experienced by social workers in attempting to communicate the critical expertise behind their practice and that practitioners have only rudimentary understanding of the concepts of outcomes and evaluation. A key challenge for social work research concerns how to encourage the profession actively to engage with the outcomes movement whilst maintaining the core principles and values of social work.

There is said to be a "new paradigm in business" proposing that business has far broader social and environmental responsibilities than simply making profits for shareholders. This paper examines the concept of corporate responsibility to see how far Australian business has moved towards the new paradigm. Fifty-four different stakeholders from one large business were interviewed about the meaning of corporate responsibility. Most acknowledged that business has a responsibility beyond simply making profits, however, profit remained the primary motivation in moves towards corporate citizenship, community involvement and social responsibility.

This study documents the types and extent of social support messages exchanged by children and adolescents who participated in a computer-based support group. Using qualitative content analysis, the electronic mail posted in a 3-month period on a support listserv for young siblings of children with chronic health needs were observed and described. The content of the postings sent to Sibkids was analyzed to identify themes in how the young people used the listserv for support. Examples of social support types identified on the site are described. The largest percentage of these messages offered social companionship and emotional or informational support. Tangible assistance was not offered. The implications of this study for social support researchers and human service professionals are discussed.

Capturing the voices of women when the issue is of a sensitive nature has been a major concern of feminist researchers. It has often been argued that interpretive methods are the most appropriate way to collect such information, but there are other appropriate ways to approach the design of research. This article explores the use of a mixed-method approach to collect data on incontinence in older women and argues for the use of a variety of creative approaches to collect and analyze data.

It has been suggested that older people are a rich potential source of volunteers, as prior literature has highlighted the benefits and rewards of volunteering in later life. This article examines differences between volunteers and nonvolunteers in a random sample of older people resident in Brisbane, Australia. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework, the article focuses on the beliefs that distinguish those who volunteer from those who do not. Findings from the study allowed for an assessment of both the costs and benefits associated with volunteering; beliefs about the support of others, including the broader community, to volunteer; and beliefs about the barriers that might prevent volunteering. The implications of these findings to a country with an aging population are discussed.

This article addresses the therapeutic importance of discussing money at every stage of a couple's relationship, both as a concrete reality and as a metaphor for security, adequacy, competence, commitment, acceptance, and acknowledgment in a relationship. I will present a developmental schema looking at financial issues that couples confront at various stages in the adult life cycle and how these affect and reflect relationship problems. The article also presents a money questionnaire as a useful tool for exploring family-of-origin financial history, affect, and behavior.

Occupational violence is of growing interest to both individuals and organisations in the health field.Not surprisingly, staff who work directly on the front line are more vulnerable to episodes of physical violence from the general public. However, violence manifests in a number of ways,and any person in the workplace can experience it at anytime. Occupational violence should be viewed as an event to be identified, understood and managed, with a consequent need to identify types of violence in order to provide policy direction and preventive strategies to enhance workplace safety. Violence cannot be totally prevented but the risk of violence and its negative impacts on the individual can be reduced with carefully considered planning and swift action following a violent event. This paper reports various types of violence, the magnitude of the problem and who is at risk. Policy initiatives are suggested and methods of prevention discussed.

In order to make training more relevant to community needs, medical educators throughout Thailand have been attempting to address issues concerning the training of their undergraduates. Support for a reorientation of medical education and acceptance of the frame-work put forward by the World Health Organization are evident in national health plans and in national medical education conferences. This paper outlines some of the basic problems faced by health policy makers in Thailand and presents a brief chronology of recent events in the history of medical education in Thailand.

Hb Koln ( β 98 Val → Met) was found to precipitate rapidly during mechanical shaking. The rate of precipitation of Hb Koln is 5–6 times faster than that of Hb S. The kinetics of precipitation of the patient's hemolysate, which is a mixture of Hb Koln and Hb A, showed a biphasic curve indicating that Hb Koln precipitates independently from Hb A. The instability of Hb Koln may be attributed to the conformational change in the vicinity of heme. The mechanical shaking may be used as a new method for detection and quantitation of hemoglobin Koln and other unstable hemoglobins.

Students entering three Australian medical schools were followed over a 15-year period to trace both movement into the profession and the longer-term outcomes of early career aspirations. A variety of student entry characteristics are examined together with aspirations, attainments and self-images. The results indicate that women, rather than men, are more likely to enter medical school with aspirations that involve specialty training. As they proceed through medical school, both groups move away from the idea of pursuing specialty training, although women tend to decide earlier than men that specialty practice is not for them. Women students are more likely than men to attain career goals if these involve general practice and less likely to if these involve specialization. The results indicate that although at graduation women medical practitioners have the same career goals and desires as men, if additional training is required women are unlikely to have their aspirations fulfilled.

Interactions between doctor and patient involve participants with unequal power and possibly different interests. While a number of studies have focused upon the doctor/patient relationship, few have examined the utility of the concept of power and its capacity to help us understand the outcome of these interactions. The information sought by pregnant women from their obstetricians is used to provide a case study of one conceptualization and test of the utility of the concept of power. Pregnant women and their obstetricians are found to have different perceptions of the information that should be exchanged during their interactions. Women generally fail to obtain the information they want. Lower social class patients desire more and obtain less information than their higher status counterparts.