One of the primary functions of the K–12 education system is to prepare children to be ready for college or a career. Central to college and career readiness is students’ proficiency in three key academic skill areas: reading, writing, and mathematics. Given the importance of academic skills, a core skill for school psychologists is the ability to collect and use assessment data that inform an intervention targeting students’ academic skills. This chapter introduces readers to the importance of evaluating the environment in which a student is receiving instruction, assessment instruments used within schools for identifying and monitoring the progress of students with academic intervention needs, and the three tiers of multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). This chapter reviews the essential components of academic assessment and intervention as well as couches them within a MTSS. It describes the relevance of social justice in implementing academic MTSS.

It is paramount for professionals working with bereaved children to provide activities and opportunities for a child to explore his or her grief experience. Activities can provide insight to the professional about the child, their family prior to the death, and how the death has impacted the child’s environment. This chapter describes some things to keep in mind when planning activities for children and provides samples of activities that can be used with children in a support or counseling setting. Activities, by their very nature, facilitate meaning making because they allow the person to be creative, interact with others, or engage in ritual. The chapter presents a few samples of activities used over the years with children for the purpose of meaning making, continuing bonds, problem solving, and perspective building. Activities can also provide structure to the support setting.

Emergencies often occur at night or during adverse weather conditions. This chapter provides an overview on the importance of integrating six key variables to achieve operational safety in medical emergency transportation systems and how it can be generalized to general acute health care situations for elders. They are the organizational culture, situation awareness, its safety culture, safety management, risk management, and training. In the case of pilots flying medical emergency helicopters, organizational culture may influence the crew’s perception of the critical factors in their immediate environment that informs their situation awareness. Several types of stress factors can exist in the medical emergency transportation environment, as well as in other senior-citizen-focused health care. Health care practitioners must be familiar with the safety regulations that govern the operations of medical emergency systems in their communities or regions.

Although mental health professionals embrace broad assessment protocols, which attempt to incorporate biopsychosocial, and, more recently, the cultural and spiritual identities of the individual, attention is rarely given to the individual's unique internal and external sources of strength and support. The limitations of traditional medical model diagnosis, particularly in the form of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system, have been noted by many researchers and practitioners. At the same time, research has focused on predictive factors in treatment outcome, both in terms of client characteristics and in the utility of evidence-based treatment protocols applied to specific mental disorders. The cumulative themes in contemporary discussions of diagnostic systems and effective treatments, logically related to diagnosis, suggest the need for an additional core component of the diagnostic system, for which the authors advocate the Intersectionality/Resiliency Formulation.

This chapter explains a set of guidelines to help mental health professionals and clients move away from the gender stereotypes that perpetuate inequality and illness. Identifying dominance requires conscious awareness and understanding of how gender mediates between mental health and relationship issues. An understanding of what limits equality is significantly increased when we examine how gendered power plays out in a particular relationship and consider how it intersects with other social positions such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. To contextualize emotion, the therapist draws on knowledge of societal and cultural patterns, such as gendered power structures and ideals for masculinity and femininity that touch all people’s lives in a particular society. Therapists who seek to support women and men equally take an active position that allows the non-neutral aspects of gendered lives to become visible.

Substance users have substantially reduced rates of use of preventive health care services, and reduced rates of compliance with prescribed medical treatment. Primary care providers are frequently overwhelmed and may be reluctant to address substance-related problems given few resources. Direct collaboration with a behavioral health specialist (BHS) co-located within the primary care clinic results in increased efficiency and better treatment outcomes. There are excellent resources available for the BHS who will provide tobacco abuse interventions in the primary care setting. A number of behavioral factors should be considered in effectively addressing substance use and abuse in the primary care setting. Primary care providers should also be alert to unexplained vague symptoms, somatic complaints, difficulty with sleep, anxiousness, frequent life disruptions or chaotic lifestyle, and a family history of mental health problems or substance abuse.

Research on brain structure and function in white-collar criminals is a notable gap in the neurolaw literature, a gap that was addressed for the first time in one recent research report. Neuroscience is suggesting a link between brain abnormalities and some types of criminal behavior, but it is not yet clear exactly what those abnormalities are. Research on brain function and criminality focuses primarily on levels of hormones and neurotransmitters involved in neuronal communication. The findings regarding connections between the brain and adult criminal behavior, preliminary as they are, have implications for social work practice, including prevention of criminal behavior as well as intervention with offenders. The consistent finding that the likelihood of antisocial behavior is greatest when genetically based brain abnormalities encounter harsh environments has implications for social policy beyond the criminal justice system.

This chapter focuses on Competency 3: Advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice within one’s field placement and beyond. It begins with a brief overview of the conceptual theories and frameworks for social justice. This is followed by an exploration of the types and sources of power, social locations, social constructions, social processes, social identities, conflicts, and the ways these concepts interact in relation to the field experience. The chapter then reviews visions and strategies for change. It explains Increased self-awareness; justice-informed engagement, assessment, and intervention; and justice-informed policy and systems advocacy. The chapter focuses on different concepts related to injustices at multiple levels. It describes how social justice calls for the fair and unbiased treatment of all individuals, eradication of discriminatory practices and institutionalized oppression, and establishment of equality for members of historically marginalized and oppressed groups.

Social workers write many kinds of letters as part of their professional responsibilities. They write to clients, other agencies, government departments, institutions that fund social services, and accreditation bodies that oversee social work practice. These letters often include agency reports, professional requests, thank-you notes, professional endorsements, and so on. This chapter contains examples of letters written by social workers on behalf of their agencies. The criteria for letter writing include the qualities and skills associated with all professional writing, especially brevity, focus, the appropriate use of names and titles (depending on the letter’s purpose and relationship between writer and recipient), organization of content and appropriate formatting.