Kristin Whitehill Bolton

Automating and Supporting Care Management Using Web-phone Technology: Results of the 5-Year Teleherence Project

This article describes the development and implementation of a web-phone system to support care managers in delivering services to clients. The cloud-based system, called Teleherence, delivered a series of voice or text statements as well as questions that could accept responses from clients. Based on these responses the system branched to additional statements or questions or performed other tasks such as playing an audio file. The four Teleherence applications described point to the potentials and challenges of implementing new technology into existing services. Potentials were for more effective services especially with clients who had the time and capability to handle more extensive care management communications. Key challenges included integrating Teleherence into antiquated agency technology, the changes in work habits and policies required to handle increased care manager–client communications, including support for unstructured treatment communications and practices, protecting the security and privacy of client data and digital communications, agency staff turnover and reorganizations due to budget cuts, and developing a system using university resources in the context of rapid changes in mobile phone technology. This report suggests the road ahead in human services web-phone automation offers much potential, but is typically difficult, time consuming, and can substantially change how services are delivered.

Multisectoral approaches to addressing youth violence

ABSTRACT Youth violence is a public health concern that has devastating consequences for communities and requires a collaborative community response. While public health approaches underscore the importance of collaborative efforts to address public health concerns, violence prevention programs are often siloed and lack a multisectored response that includes the education system, criminal justice system, local government, university, and service providers. This article explores the successes and lessons learned from the emergence of a multisectoral community-based initiative to address youth violence in southeastern North Carolina. The model for this initiative evolved from the Harlem Children’s Zone and includes identifying existing resources and coordinating a continuum of support and services to increase availability of after-school, summer enrichment, life-skills, and parenting programs to reduce youth violence. Implications of applying multisectoral community-based interventions are discussed in terms of capacity building, promotion of well-being, and research.

Effects of Goal Commitment and Solution Building on the Completion Rates for a Juvenile Diversion Program

Strengths-based, goal-focused approaches to working with at-risk youth have been successfully used by mentoring programs, therapeutic interventions, prevention programs, and self-help groups. However, few such approaches have been used to inform juvenile diversion programs. This is partially explained by limited empirical research on mechanisms of change used by goal-focused interventions in populations of young offenders. The authors use goal-setting theory to explore the effects of goal commitment and solution building on program completion, in a sample of violent first-time offenders (N = 159). Mediation effects of solution building in the relationship between goal commitment and program completion were tested using both Baron and Kenny’s and Preacher and Hayes’s approaches. Results showed that high goal commitment and solution building were significant predictors of program completion. In addition, solution building fully mediated the impact of goal commitment on program completion. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Self-identified strengths among youth offenders charged with assault against a non-intimate family member

ABSTRACT Youth involved in the criminal justice system are particularly vulnerable to increased risk for continuing offending behaviors since aggressive and/or violent behavior compromise developmental growth. The present study seeks to build on the current literature related to youth offenders by using an exploratory qualitative approach to analyze strength-based asset interviews completed by youth referred to a diversion program. Results revealed four distinctive themes: 1) hardiness, 2) grit, 3) social competence, and 4) empathy. Broadening the scope of research focusing on youth offenders, the present study offers a number of implications for social work practice.

Self-determined goals in a solution-focused batterer intervention program: Application for building client strengths and solutions

ABSTRACT The present study explores the content and characteristics of self-determined goals developed by violent offenders as part of a court-mandated treatment program. Data were collected from 89 domestic violence offenders enrolled in a solution-focused batterer intervention program. The data were analyzed using content analysis, and the emergent themes included (1) emotional regulation, (2) personal growth, (3) improve family relationships, and (4) improve communication. The findings from this study offer preliminary insight into the type of goals, the usefulness and importance of developing goals, and how goals might be helpful in reinforcing the change process while in treatment.

Training MSSW Students for Military Social Work Practice and Doctoral Students in Military Resilience Research

The demand for social workers with military-related practice and research experience exceeds the current supply. To advance military social work education, we developed an interlevel master’s of science in social work (MSSW) field practicum and doctoral research practicum that provides military social work field experiences and contributes to doctoral education on military intervention research. Tasked with the primary responsibility of teaching complex resilience concepts to youth participants, the project challenges MSSW students to develop deep knowledge of the material. Assigned the role of project manager of an ongoing intervention study and responsible for performing multiple hands-on research tasks, the project promotes doctoral student research proficiency. Feedback from students suggests that the project supports learning outcomes and enhances motivation to engage in present and future intervention research.

Health and Social Justice

The battle over health care reform in the United States has been an ongoing political and public debate for many years. Political, social, and economic ideologies have been widely disputed and assessed. In Health and Social Justice, Ruger articulates a theory drawing predominantly from the fields of philosophy, economics, and political science to create a unique paradigm. Ruger’s “health capability paradigm” eloquently illustrates a model capable of eradicating the current barriers to health and social justice. Ruger is an associate professor at Yale University in public health, medicine and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, as well as senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. Ruger received her PhD from Harvard University, where she encountered Amartya Sen, a professor of economics and philosophy. Sen, who developed the capability approach, received the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in welfare economics. Sen wrote the foreword to this book, and some of Ruger’s theory is drawn from Sen’s capability approach. The book is divided into four major parts. The first outlines six approaches to ethics in public health and medicine. The summary of each approach is detailed and concise, followed by a subsection discussing the limitations associated with each framework. The second part introduces Ruger’s theoretical framework broken down into four stages. The first two explain and integrate the health capability approach and incompletely theorized agreements. The former, “a person’s ability to be healthy, includes health functioning and health agency” (p. 3). Incompletely theorized agreements (ITAs) denote a normative framework that is not fully developed at all levels. ITAs are used to fill the areas where the capability approach leaves off. The third and fourth stages provide a tenable operationalization of Ruger’s health capabilities, and they apply this framework to the basic human right to health. The third part of the book presents Ruger’s shared health governance model, to her definition of equal access. This is followed by a discussion of the necessity of universal health insurance, financing, and resource allocation. The final part focuses on the United States, and the various structural changes that need to occur, to introduce the health paradigm outlined previously. Ruger discusses the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful attempt at health care reform and suggests alternative ideas that could result in a successful outcome for universal healthcare. Ruger finishes by concluding that the health capability paradigm provides the necessary foundation required to foster worldwide health care systems. Ruger’s health capability paradigm represents a novel theoretical framework to guide future health care policy. Through what is termed shared health governance, Ruger places responsibility on individuals and public institutions. She further indicates that a “public moral norm” unique to health care is necessary, before any legislation can be successful. Ruger identifies that lack of a public moral norm has played a part in the legislative inability to pass health care reform, until