Health care delivery is complex and scientifically grounded, and requires its practitioners to possess considerable knowledge and expertise. This book guides the reader through a conceptual framework for building effective patient relationships. Based on concepts of mindfulness, it provides a kind of mental scaffolding or operating platform on which to build thoughts, perspectives, and skills that help the busy clinician to achieve inner composure, attain greater self-awareness, and develop critical interpersonal skills that result in satisfying and compassionate patient care. In the first section of the book, mindfulness principles are embedded in discussions of the critical elements of interpersonal effectiveness, such as hope, empathy, and listening. The second section discusses how to navigate professional communication challenges. The third section provides chapters in which mindfulness principles are applied to challenging clinical situations. The fourth section describes effective approaches with challenging populations. Together, the applications in third and fourth sections give the reader concrete examples of mindfulness in action. The scenarios depicted throughout the book involve practitioners primarily from medicine and nursing. Nurses and physicians, trainees, social workers, and others are also presented in examples. However, with slight modifications, the scenarios are applicable across disciplines. Although the roles of nurses, social workers, and physicians certainly vary, the fundamental principles for establishing effective patient-provider encounters remain constant. And although the primary aim of the book is to promote mindfulness as a powerful method of enhancing patient-provider communication, the secondary aim is to promote mindfulness as a means of enhancing cross-disciplinary understanding.

This fourth edition of the book covers basic and advanced concepts related to the delivery of social work services in health care settings. When health care is responsive to those in need, the provision of services must be equitable, safe, timely, efficient, effective, evidence-based, and patient-centered while simultaneously exemplifying best practices for all. As pressure for quality services continues to increase, however, the equitable distribution and availability of affordable health care has changed. This has left many providers and patients alike filled with expectation and speculation as to what constitutes essential health care service delivery. The book advocates a proactive stance for health care social workers and is designed to serve as a practical guide for understanding and addressing the philosophy of practice in our current health care environment. Suggestions are made for achieving ethical time-limited, evidence-based social work practice in these settings. At the end of each chapter, a “Summary and Future Directions” section is provided that will help social workers to understand what can be expected and how to prepare for the practice changes needed in order to remain viable clinical practitioners. The book is designed as a practical guide to help social workers understand the roots of social work practice, stressing the importance of the person-in-environment and person-in-situation while utilizing strength’s perspective employing this information as a foundation for embracing the changes to come. As a skilled professional, the incorporation of evidence-based social work practice will need to serve as the cornerstone of all we do while always taking into account the uniqueness and situation-based strategy needed to help each individual patient/client/consumer.

The book examines various theories of aging including a contrast between the strengths-based person-in-environment theory and the pathologically based medical model of psychological problems. It advocates truly engaging with the older client during the assessment phase, and discusses a variety of intervention modalities. The book integrates an advanced clinical social work practice with in-depth knowledge of evidence-based practice as well as geriatric medicine, psychiatry and gerontology. The social worker must evaluate the status of the client’s housing, transportation, food, clothing, recreation opportunities, social supports, access to medical care, kinship and other factors considered important by the social worker or the client. Constructivist theory is a conceptual framework that is foundational to existential therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and narrative therapy, which are effective for older adults. Stigma associated with race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation produce psychosocial stressors that converge on older clients. The book discusses several medical conditions affecting older adults such as Alzheimer’s disease, arthritic pain, diabetes and various types of cancers. Older adults may also suffer from substance abuse-related problems, hypersexuality, and various types of abuse such as neglect. The book also highlights the problems faced by the older adult LGBT community and those suffering from HIV disease. It ends with discussions on care and residential settings for the older adults, and palliative care and euthanasia.

This second edition have kept all the essential components of the first edition as recommended by practitioners but also added a number of additional features. It provides content on mindfulness interventions, acceptance and commitment therapy, habit reversal training, and behavioral activation. It also includes more detailed descriptions of step-by-step cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) applications (e.g., planning sessions, targeted session activity examples, therapy closure, exposure therapy), as well as two additional case studies. Essentially, the second edition goes more in-depth into translating current clinical practices for the school-based practitioner audience. Additionally, the book has enhanced coverage of culturally responsive CBT research, scholarship, and applied practice tips. Consistent with the first edition, the second edition provide practitioners with an easily accessible and practical guide for implementing basic CBT counseling strategies in applied school settings. Because of the unmet mental health needs displayed by millions of students in these settings, and the advancements in the training and provision of school mental health services during the past couple of decades, school-based mental health professionals, such as counselors, school psychologists, undefined, and others, are increasingly being asked to provide evidence-based counseling and intervention services such as CBT. Therefore, to address this need, this text provides an overview of methods used to conduct effective CBT interventions in school settings. Whether the reader is a graduate student in training, beginning a career in counseling, or a seasoned practitioner, this workbook can serve as an easy how-to guide because it offers numerous counseling activities and examples as well as over 50 forms to use when planning, structuring, and conducting therapy. This book differs from many extant CBT guides and workbooks in that it is designed for the busy practitioner who primarily works in K-12 school settings and must balance a range of different roles and responsibilities.

Direct practice social work is an approach for helping others that emphasizes a strengths perspective and focuses on person to person contact with individuals, groups, or families (Saleebey, 1996, 2011). The primary goal of direct practice social work is to provide assistance to vulnerable populations within our society. Direct practice social workers are required to be licensed by the state in which they reside and are regulated by a state board. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has established standards and guidelines for conducting the services that direct practice social workers provide. This book is organized into ten chapters. The first chapter provides an introduction to direct practice social work. The second chapter discusses the values and ethical foundations of social work practice. The third chapter presents social work theories, practice models, and the strengths-based direct practice framework. Chapter four describes the engagement process, which refers to the initial interactions between the social worker and the client. The fifth chapter focuses on assessment and goal formulation using a strengths-based approach. The sixth chapter details the factors that must be considered when identifying interventions and outlines a few of the more prevalently used modalities such as evidence-based practice, crisis intervention, cognitive restructuring, and group interventions. Chapter seven outlines the various ways social workers can evaluate progress with clients as well as guide practitioners through the process of terminating the helping relationship. The eight chapter describes strengths-based direct practice documentation. Chapter nine presents challenging practice conditions. It is designed to provide some of the basic knowledge to be used with a variety of specific client circumstances. The final chapter examines practice implications for the strengths-based direct practice professional. It focuses on typical obstacles that social workers must be alert to as well as methods for navigating them.

This book provides an integrated perspective on disabilities of the various disciplines of human services for counselors, social workers, and allied health professions in training. It provides an interdisciplinary and intersectional perspective on disability and psychosocial adjustment to disability in rehabilitation counseling, social work, and allied health professions. It also includes foundations of disability studies, advocacy, the disability rights movement and disability legislation, policy, and law. There is a focus on select persistent and emerging population trends in disability studies, which are supported in the literature as populations that are anticipated to represent a growing and greater proportion of individuals in need of disability and integrated services. The attention to psychosocial adaptation to disability along with the inclusion of case studies and field-based experiential exercises related to specific topics make this book an invaluable resource for students and professionals alike. The human services professions contain a wide variety of disciplines that assist individuals, families, and populations to improve their capacity to function as individuals and in society. These professionals possess specific competencies and credentials, but operate from an interdisciplinary knowledge base that requires coordination among professionals, programs, and agencies in service delivery. The disciplines typically included in responding to disability-related issues are rehabilitation counseling, counseling, mental health, social work, rehabilitation sciences, psychology, and allied and health sciences. A key feature of each chapter is application from an intersectional perspective of issues related to addressing the service needs of persons with disabilities. Based on the foundations of understanding services providers’ scope of practice, the text discusses the roles and functions of human services providers, ethics in service delivery, professional credentials, cultural competency, and family and life span perspectives of disability.

Facilitative leadership is a fundamental skill for social workers, especially in macro practice situations. Identified roles in social work practice commonly include enabler, mediator, coordinator, manager, educator, analyst/evaluator, broker, facilitator, initiator, negotiator, and advocate. The skills required to fulfill these roles are called upon every day in work with clients and colleagues. The role of facilitative leader incorporates pieces from many of these roles. This book enables the reader to understand the concept of facilitative leadership, shows how it relates to the social work code of ethics, and clarifies the facilitative leader’s role and distinguishes it from a trainer, consultant, or chairperson. It explores the concepts of leadership and shows how they apply to social work in group process. The book demonstrates how to develop skills in performing facilitative leadership without sacrificing a stakeholder position and how to identify the phases of group development and their significance. It discusses communication and intervention techniques and their situational value to others who perform facilitative leadership tasks and enables to gain comfort and demonstrate competence in the use of group process techniques. The book also enables the reader to learn to be a facilitative leader of group process regardless of the formal role he/she has been assigned in the group.

This narrative-based book is the first to describe Human Caring Literacy from the perspective of caring scientists who “live the life” by incorporating the precepts of human caring into every aspect of their personal and professional lives. It describes the methods that help practitioners develop mindfulness, reflection, authentic presence, intentionality, and a caring consciousness in the service of providing authentic, heart-centered care for patients, their families, and societies. Critical Caritas Literacy ultimately is an ontology of being/becoming that comes from within the subjective inner lifeworld of each person, morally aroused for reflective and contemplative self-growth, self-caring experiences that contribute to the whole of humanity. Having a high level of Caritas Literacy allows one to quickly form deep, trusting relationships, often within the first hour of meeting. There is a professional requirement for nurses to achieve competence in the delivery of spiritual care and to assess and meet the spiritual needs of their patients. Culturally competent care can relieve medical and social ills, poor cultural competency reproduces stereotypes and may lead to further microlevel conflict. Structurally, health care settings can facilitate nurse’s dual role as conflict mitigator by caring for nurses, providing burnout prevention, providing self-care rooms and staff support, and offering frequent debriefing with the aid of holistic healers, chaplains, and social workers.

The social work role in nursing facilities is a valuable resource in the lives of residents, families, and staff. Whether the nursing facility is called a nursing home, a long-term care center, or a subacute or a rehabilitation center, the social worker is an essential, vital member of the healthcare team. As in other settings, social workers in nursing home settings use professional casework skills to help people in particular times of crisis and stress. As a contributing member of the interdisciplinary team, the social worker provides an opportunity for residents and families to examine problems, mobilize existing resources and/or refer to resources that are more appropriate, and develop positive resolutions. This third revised edition of A Guide for Nursing Home Social Workers provides the knowledge and information that social workers, regardless of their education and experience, need in the performance of their role in nursing home settings. The book is divided into six parts to help categorize the content: Social Work in Nursing Facilities; The Interdisciplinary Team; Nursing Facilities and Governing Oversights; Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care Issues; Ethics; and Community Liaisons. The first part presents key informational topics that social workers may utilize in their day-to-day work, such as assessments, care planning, and documentation. The second part contains information about team meetings, room changes, staff training and in-services, and social work consultation. The third part addresses a range of topics including Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) and the Minimum Data Set 3.0, as well as state surveys and facility policies. The fourth part provides current information about care topics such as neurocognitive disorders, mood disorders, medication, and pain in older adults, as well as groups, families, and diversity within the nursing facility. The fifth part contains chapters on social work ethics, legal representation, abuse, neglect, mistreatment, and confidentiality. The final part includes chapters on resident finances, transfer and discharge, community resources, funeral arrangements, pandemics and disaster planning, and trauma-informed care and adverse childhood experiences. The goal of this guide is to provide some of the necessary supports and assistance needed by social workers in this field as they pursue their profession of helping residents, families, and others involved in long-term care.

This book provides innovative ways to incorporate aging content into courses, trainings, and workshops for students or professionals. It presents activities which offer hands-on approaches to engage students of all backgrounds–from social workers to family caregivers, medical students to demographers, nurses to community planners, personal care attendants to students in introduction to gerontology courses. These faculty-tested, peer-reviewed educational activities cover topics ranging from physical aging, media, and demographic portrayals of older adults to disaster planning, public policy, and diversity among older adults. The book includes 32 unique and interesting activities. Each activity comes with detailed instructions, basic back-ground information, a materials list, and an explanation of how the specific content aligns with one or more of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) competencies for undergraduate and graduate education in gerontology. The book is divide into eleven chapters. The first chapter explores teaching courses on aging, and the potential of experiential learning activities to engage students. The second chapter discusses ageism and aging in the media. The next four chapters talk about dementia, demography, health care, and housing for older adults. The seventh chapter describes physical aging. Chapter 8 analyzes public policy and aging. Chapter 9 describes positive interactions with older adults. Chapter 10 explains research projects and papers, and the final chapter discusses spirituality.