John Poulin

FIELD NOTES: SERVING THE COMMUNITY AND TRAINING SOCIAL WORKERS: SERVICE OUTPUTS AND STUDENT OUTCOMES

This article presents evaluation findings on an innovative field placement agency that extends the traditional social work internship by incorporating principles of service learning and civic engagement. Qualitative and quantitative student outcome data are presented on the learning experiences of MSW students placed in traditional agency field placements with those placed in a university developed generalist field placement agency. The implications of the findings for social work field education are discussed.

Development of a Helping Relationship Inventory for Social Work Practice

The authors report the development of an instrument to assess the strength of the helping relationship in social work The Helping Relationship Inventory has both client (HRI:C) and worker (HRI: W) versions. The HRI:C measures the strength of the helping relationship m social work practice from the perspective of the client, and the HRI: W measures the strength of the helping relationship from the perspective of the worker. The HRI:C is composed of items that capture those aspects of the helping relationship that are most salient to clients. The HRI: W is composed of items that capture those aspects of the helping relationship that are most salient to workers providing help. Both the client and worker versions of the inventory have acceptable reliability and validity estimates.

Perceived Family and Friend Support and the Psychological Well-Being of American and Chinese Elderly Persons

This study examines two sources of informal support—perceived family and friend support—and the psychological well-being—self-esteem, depression and loneliness—of 150 Chinese and 145 American elders. There were no significant differences between the elderly American and Chinese persons’ mean scores on family and friend support. The multiple linear regression analyses with interaction terms (country x family support and country x friend support), however, indicated that the relationship between family support and depression and family support and loneliness was stronger for the Chinese elderly than the US elderly. Conversely, the relationship between friend support and depression and friend support and loneliness is stronger for US elderly than Chinese elderly. The implications of these findings for social work practice in both countries is discussed.

Citizen participation in prevention activities: A path model

Effective, community-wide AOD prevention activities require a broad base of citizen involvement in program planning and implementation. Yet what influences an individuals decision to participate in these activities, particularly in a socially distressed community, is not well known. In a previous study, the authors developed a three-factor path model of participation. These factors were participation accessibility, the desire to participate, and knowledge about participation. The present investigation is a replication of that study with two purposes: (1) expansion of the initial findings by adding additional indicators of the model constructs, and (2) examination of the adequacy of the model for predicting participation in an economically and socially distressed community. The findings of this study were based upon random digit dialing telephone interviews of 250 residents of Chester, PA. The respondents were interviewed about their knowledge of and participation in prevention activities, their perception of the seriousness of AOD and other problems, and their demographic characteristics. Data were analyzed by multiple regression. Findings indicate that knowledge had the strongest direct effect on participation, with desire and accessibility adding important indirect effects. Overall, 34% of the variance was explained. The primary implications drawn from this study are: (1) the model, at variance with previous research by the authors, requires additional testing under a variety of social conditions and with an expansion of construct indicators; and (2) citizen participation programs in low-income neighborhoods should focus on building awareness of these programs.

The Helping Relationship Inventory: A Clinical Appraisal

The Helping Relationship Inventory (HRI) is a newly developed measure of the strength of the helping relationship. It is designed for use by social workers and their clients in a variety of helping contexts. An appraisal of its clinical utility, based on nine pairs of clients and their MSW student workers, showed that the HRI worked well in a number of different settings and that using it can improve the worker-client relationship and facilitate the helping process. Three case examples are provided, and the significance of differences between ratings of clients and workers are discussed. For those helping professionals and agencies facing managed market pressures to provide briefer, more effective services, the Helping Relationship Inventory provides an easily administered means of assessing and improving the working relationship between consumers and their providers.

Goals for Undergraduate Social Work Research: A Survey of BSW Program Directors

Abstract This study examines research curricular goals for undergraduate social work education. Two hundred fifty-six BSW program directors were surveyed about the appropriateness of eight research goals derived from CSWEs Curriculum Policy Statement (CPS). The findings indicate a very high level of support for seven of the eight goals. The goal to prepare students to contribute to the generation of knowledge for practice received the least amount of support. Implications of the findings for possible revisions of the CPS and for undergraduate social work education are discussed.

Older Chinese Adults' Fear of Intimacy with Helping Professionals

The purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes older Chinese adults have about engaging in counseling-based services as measured by a fear of intimacy with helping professionals scale. Data were collected from 150 older adults living in Chongqing, China. Information from this study will be helpful in developing effective strategies for the provision of social work services in China. In contrast with previous research, attitudes about intimacy with helping professionals varied and were normally distributed. Significant predictors of fear of intimacy were level of trust, mental health stigma, family support and friend support. Surprisingly, family and friend support had opposite associations with fear of intimacy. Family support was related to higher fear and friend support to lower fear. The cultural implications of these findings for researchers and social workers working with elderly Chinese clients are discussed.

Interdisciplinary Team Membership

This article reports the findings on interdisciplinary team membership of 817 direct service gerontological social workers. The data indicate that a very large percentage of geronto- logical social workers in a variely of social service systems are members of interdisciplinary teams (42.5%-96.6%) and the majority are highly satisfied with team membership (61.1%). Analysis of variancc found significant differences between those on teams and those not on teams. Team members have more influence over their job tasks, greater time pressure, spend more time in meetings and on paper work and less time with clients then non-team members. How- ever, no differences were found in terms of job autonomy, job flexi- bility and importance of job tasks. The authors conclude that profes- sional social work education needs to incorporate more content on collaborative practice models. Organizations need to provide staff development and training to enhance the communication, coordina- tion and cooperation skills of interdisc...

Fear of Intimacy with Helping Professionals Scale: Reliability and Validity of English and Mandarin Versions

In this study the authors examine the reliability and validity of the Fear of Intimacy with Helping Professionals Scale (FIS–HP) with Chinese (N = 150) and American (N = 145) elderly persons. Factor analysis using principal component analysis with a varimax rotation was used to examine the FIS–HP factor structure for both samples. A three factor solution emerged for both samples. The FIS–HP has acceptable internal consistency reliability with both the United States and China samples. Correlation analysis supported five of the six hypotheses related to convergent validity. English and Mandarin versions of the scale are presented.

Social Work Competencies and Multidimensional Assessment

The authors review the Council on Social Work Educations 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) related to the assessment of social work competencies. The 2015 EPAS focuses on ...