Category: Social Work

TO PREPARE Review your research proposal. While doing so, consider one thing you learned that would be helpful to your social work colleagues. This could relate to the literature you read on your topic, how you approached the research proposal, or a concept or process you found particularly enlightening. Think critically about your proposed research and how, if the study were conducted, it might inform social work practice. Consider any limitations. By Day 3 Share a key takeaway from your research proposal with your colleagues. Then, explain how your proposed research would inform social work practice. Finally, identify what you perceive as the potential limitations of your proposed study and how you might address those if you were to conduct the study. Please support your response with external sources (i.e., cite and reference). Researchers disseminate their findings formally through a variety of methods. The most common include professional papers, conference sessions, publication in professional, peer-reviewed journals, and dissertations. Researchers can also disseminate their findings informally by networking with colleagues. Both formal and informal methods can create opportunities for practice improvement and social change. In this final Discussion, you share your research informally by identifying a key idea or piece of information from your research proposal. You also connect your study to social work practice, and identify any limitations that might exist. Required Readings Yegidis, B. L., Weinbach, R. W., & Myers, L. L. (2018). Research methods for social workers (8th ed.). Pearson. Chapter 14: Writing the Research Report and Disseminating Research Findings (pp. 313-329) OASIS. (n.d.). Critical reading for analysis and comparison. Walden University. Required Media Walden University, LLC. (2021). Research and social change [Video]. Walden University Blackboard. Time Estimate: 2 minutes

Post your initial response to the following: After learning about Stephanie, imagine that you had been the school social worker at the time of her suicidal ideation. Which indicators would you have looked for in Stephanie and why? How would you have responded to each of those indicators? What kinds of questions would you have asked her and why? Please use the Learning Resources to support your response. Increased stress and anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, a history of trauma, and lack of social support can all put adolescents at increased risk for suicide. These are largely internal risk factors, hidden from others. How might they manifest as warning signs observable by others? Social workersparticularly those in schoolsare poised to notice these warning signs. For this Discussion, you consider observable actions or demeanors that indicate suicidal ideation in adolescents. First, you watch a video of Stephanie Parker, who is an adult talking about her experience attempting suicide as a teen. Then, you imagine how you would have responded to Stephanie as the school social worker at the time. Singer, J. B., OBrien, K. H., & LeCloux, M. (2017). Three psychotherapies for suicidal adolescents: Overview of conceptual frameworks and intervention techniques. Child & Adolescent Social Work Journal , 34 , 95106. Udoetuk, S., Idicula, S., Jabbar, Q., & Shah, A. A. (2019). Suicide in adolescents. Psychiatric Annals, 49 (6), 269272. National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.-a). Risk of suicide .

Students will write and send a letter to a Texas Senator or Representative in their district.

This will entail the following:

1. One-page letter regarding his/her position regarding an important piece of mental health legislation.
2. One-page fact sheet; and
3. Page of references.

Students will upload a copy of the documents, as well as a copy of the response letter sent by the politician, if received. Please reach out to the instructor if you have questions.

Note: Your letter and fact sheet do not have to be in APA formatting (i.e. with their own title page, double spaced, etc.), however they should still adhere to appropriate grammar and styling guidelines (i.e. use paragraphs, appropriate structure, etc.). Your entire submission should preferably be posted as one item (i.e. title page, your letter, your fact sheet, your references). You can post these as a Word document or as a PDF.

Grading Criteria (Total possible points: 10)

• An appropriate piece of mental health legislation (that is currently scheduled to be included this legislative session) is selected (2 point)
• The one page letter to an appropriate legislator (i.e. you are a constituent in their district) accurately represents your position on the legislation (2 point)
• Your fact sheet is clear and presents facts relevant to the legislation (2 point)
• Your references come from suitable sources (i.e. journal articles, original sources, etc.; NOT sites such as Wikipedia, the onion, etc.) (2 point)
• Submission adheres to APA formatting, is of appropriate length and is grammatically appropriate (2 point)

In this activity, students will apply two foundational frameworksecological systems theory and attachment theoryto understand a childs social environment and relational needs. After watching two brief videos, students will create a visual ecosystem map for a fictional child and reflect on how social workers engage across systems in ways that are both ethically informed and relationally sensitive.

First, watch these two videos:

Next review the child’s profile:

• Name: Malik Johnson
• Age: 6 years old
• Grade: Kindergarten
• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: African American
• Language: English (primary), exposure to some Spanish at school
• Community: Urban neighborhood in a mid-sized city

Family & Home Environment

Malik lives with his maternal grandmother, who became his legal guardian one year ago after his mother was incarcerated on drug-related charges. His father is not involved and has been absent for several years. Malik also lives with his teenage aunt (age 17), who helps care for him after school. The household is loving but financially strained. Maliks grandmother works full-time as a home health aide and receives some public assistance.

Behavior and Development

Malik is very talkative and energetic at home but struggles with transitions and following directions at school. His teacher reports that he often becomes upset when routines change or when hes corrected. He sometimes pushes other children during play and has difficulty sharing. During morning drop-off, Malik often clings to his caregiver and has recently begun complaining of stomachaches before school.

At home, Malik sleeps with the light on and sometimes asks if his mother is coming back soon. Hes had a few nighttime accidents, which are new. His grandmother reports that Malik is sweet, but sensitive, and that he sometimes seems on edge.

School and Community Context

Malik attends a local public school and is in a general education classroom. His school has a part-time social worker and school counselor. Maliks teacher has recommended a behavioral support plan, and the school is beginning to assess whether he may need additional services. Malik receives free lunch and participates in an after-school program at the community center two days a week.

The neighborhood has high rates of poverty and some gang activity. There is a small library and a well-loved local church where Malik occasionally attends services with his grandmother.

Next create an ecological map that illustrates the key systems in the childs life (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem). You may hand-draw or use a digital tool. Also include a brief written reflection (approximately 250-500 words) in response to the following questions:

• What roles might a social worker play in the child’s life across these systems?
• How might the competing needs of the child create tension in the social worker’s approach to their role(s)?
• Reflect on how a child’s attachment style might affect their ability to trust and engage with a social worker. How might your approach differ when working with children with insecure or disorganized attachment histories?

Your submission will be a Word or PDF document, or may be two separate files, depending on how you format. Exemplary work will cite the textbook in addition to the required videos.

Film: Not Just a Game

Everyone,

This is the last week of our on-boarding. This week will be a little closer to a regular week, but still a little different. Instead of simply reviewing Not Just a Game, I want you all to simply react to his documentary. This film serves as a jumping-off point for our exploration of sports as a powerful force in society/film.

In Not Just a Game, Zirin challenges and dismantles the long-standing myth that sports and politics exist in separate realms. Through vivid examples of both complicity and resistance, Zirin reveals how sports have historically reflected and shaped societal values, serving as a platform for both the reinforcement of dominant power structures and the fight for justice and equality. His argument aligns with George Orwells assertion that No book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude. Just as Orwell believed art cannot escape the influence of political contexts, Zirin extends this idea to the world of sports, showing that no game, no athlete, and no arena exists in a vacuum free from social and political meaning. He takes a step back and investigates sport not as opportunity to count wins, calculate batting averages, or re-watch highlight reels, but to look at the bigger picture and see how individual sporting events or players display and impact our culture.

Sports, much like art or film, are cultural creations that carry with them the ideologies, conflicts, and aspirations of the societies in which they exist. In Not Just a Game, Zirin underscores how sports have been used both to maintain societal hierarchies and to challenge them. He explores how sports have often reinforced dominant structures of power and exclusion, particularly through hypermasculinity, militarism, and a form of patriotism that sometimes veers into jingoism. And, at the same time, Zirin highlights how sports have also served as platforms to challenge the status quo. For example, Jackie Robinsons groundbreaking integration of Major League Baseball and the iconic raised fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics reflect moments where sports became a space for resistance. He shows us that sports have long been a site of both oppression and resistance. I think the best example of this is Kathrine Switzer’s run in the Boston Marathon where Switzer is challenging the status quo by running the race, one man is attempting to remove her from the race to maintain the status quo, and another man is pushing him off and standing up for Switzer’s right to engage in sport.

Sports are not just games; they are arenas where power, privilege, and ideology are reinforced and contested. Zirin asks us to reflect on the ways sports normalize dominant values, such as militaristic rituals at NFL games or the marginalization of women and LGBTQ+ athletes, while also serving as platforms for change. His focus on figures like Muhammad Ali, who risked everything to oppose the Vietnam War, and Billie Jean King, who fought for gender equality, invites us to consider the courage it takes to resist societal expectations and use sports as a force for progress.

Although you have not yet explored the concepts from the articles we will read this semester, the film introduces themes that we will revisit throughout the course. It offers real-world examples of how sports intersect with issues of race, gender, age, and power. While some of Zirins examples may feel dated, they lay the groundwork for understanding our present. History can seem distant, but it is important to recognize that these events shaped the society we live in today and they shape the views and actions of many currently living in our society. For example, our parents and grandparents might still think a 10% tip is acceptable, and we might interpret their views as rooted in a different era, but they still affect those working in the service industry today. Every waiter and waitress who serves one of my older family members is stuck dealing with a mindset that was developed many years ago.

While watching the documentary, I want you to think about what controversies are occurring in sport today. How do they relate? How are they evidence of progress and simultaneously backlash to progress? How might Zirin interpret Colin Kaepernick being heroized by some and vilified by others for kneeling during the national anthem? How might he frame college athletes only recently being able to earn money from their likeness? How might he frame the fact that a football or basketball coach is very likely to be the highest paid public employee in nearly every state in the USA? As we move through the course, I want you to think of how Zirin’s presents his interpretations of sport. I do not want you to mimic Zirin, but I want you to use the way he looks at sport as a way for you to look past the surface of our films and really interrogate their meanings and messages.

For this week, as you watch Not Just a Game, consider the questions raised about how sport’s influence our perceptions of identity, power, and culture. How do these stories connect to your own experiences with sports, whether as a player, a fan, or an observer? What does it mean for sports to reflect both the best and worst of society? Don’t worry about reviewing the documentary, instead, use this week as an opportunity to reflect on your own experiences in sport.

While your response should include your reaction to the film and an attempt to relate the film to your life, please do NOT use deeply personal examples.

Please read and follow all directions and instructions

Please make sure to respond to the 2 colleagues that I have listed

Please make sure to use the learning resources

Please make sure to use spell check and proof read

Please make sure to use original ideas and not sum up my colleagues work

Please make sure to use APA Format

The chapter for this week

• American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5-TR) (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
• Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (pp. 349370)
• Note: Review this entire classification.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2022).
• https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm/educational-resources/assessment-measures

Building on your close reading and source analysis skills from the previous assignment, you will choose another supplemental reading from this semester. You can choose any of the readings that were assigned that are not from the two primary textbooks, but this should be a different reading than the one you chose for the Critical Reading and Single Source Analysis assignment. You are then going to once again read the text closely and critically and annotate as you go along. You will then choose one other reading or piece of media outside of class. This should be something that we have not read or listened to in class. It can be from a textbook, a fiction or nonfiction academic or nonacademic book, a journal article, a news article, a blog, a film, a song, a poem, or a piece of art. The piece you choose should relate to the class text you chose for this assignment. You will then do a close reading/listening/etc. of that work and will also annotate it. You should be intentional about what you pick. It should be something that you find meaningful and that connects with the reading you are pairing with it. It can connect by helping to support the argument made in the first source, or it can be in disagreement with the first source and make a counterargument. For this assignment, you should be able to answer the following for each source you choose:

• Who is the author(s) of this source, and what is their background or area of expertise?
• Who is the intended audience for this source?
• What circumstances motivated the author(s) to create this source?
• What is the central argument (thesis) of this source?
• What major claims does this source make in support of the central argument?
• What evidence does this source present to demonstrate the validity of the claims?
• What are potential counterarguments to the central argument of this source, and how effectively are counterarguments addressed in this source?
• How does the writer try to seem credible and trustworthy to the intended audience?
• What are the strengths of this source?
• What are the weaknesses of this source?

After analyzing both sources and answering those questions, you will then compare the two. You should consider the following questions as you consider sources in connection with one another:

• What would the authors of these sources agree about? Note where you see overlap in their central arguments, major claims, and evidence.
• What would the authors of these sources disagree about? Note where you see divergence in their central arguments, major claims, and evidence.
• How do these sources contribute to social work practice? How can we analyze them in that context?

At the end of the paper, please include a section of self-reflection. Why did you choose the pieces you chose? How did you feel about them and did you agree or disagree with their arguments?

The purpose of this assignment is to continue to build on your close and critical reading skills and ability to analyze texts you are assigned. It will also allow you to go beyond analyzing a single text and begin to compare texts in order to more deeply engage with different concepts and authors interpretations of concepts. This assignment will help you to build an argument from careful analysis of two texts, and then generate new insights from putting these texts into conversation with each other. You will be able to imagine yourself as a participant in the conversation on these topics and be able to discuss it coherently and critically. You will be able to start to form an argument based on the topic and be able to defend and debate a cohesive thesis. You will be able to articulate the broader significance of your argument and to answer the so what? of why this is important in social work. This paper should be between four and eight pages long.

Requirements for Paper

• Use APA style for both in-text citations and reference page.
• Include a title page and reference page.
• Page length does not include title page, reference page, or any appendices.
• The use of direct quotes should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Use a direct quote only when you are unable to paraphrase or summarize. If you do paraphrase, be sure to always properly cite the source in-text and in the reference page.
• Remember that you always need to cite your source any time you are mentioning a fact or opinion that is not yours. If you are stating something as a fact, you should be providing sources to back up this claim and then citing them.
• For more information on using APA format, visit
• .

Please read and follow all the directions and instructions

Please make sure to respond to the colleagues that I have listed in discussion 1 and 2

Please make sure to use the learning resources

Please make sure to proof read and spell check

Please make sure to use APA Format

Please make sure to use original ideas and not sum up colleagues work

The chapter for this week

• Gehlert, S., & Browne, T. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of health social work (3rd ed.). Wiley.
• Chapter 13, Religion, Belief, and Spirituality in Health Care (pp. 279301)
• Anderson, S. O., & McGuire, J. K. (2019).
• Social Work, 64(4), 365372. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swz030
• Gehlert, S., & Browne, T. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of health social work (3rd ed.). Wiley.
• Chapter 12, Communication in Health Care (pp. 249-277)
• Abulhab, A., & Pinto, R. M. (2022).
• Journal of Social Work Education, 58(4), 809816. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2021.1977753
• Gottlieb, M. (2021).
• Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work: Innovation in Theory, Research & Practice, 30(6), 463481. https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2020.1753615
• National Association of Social Workers. (2021).
• Links to an external site.
• https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
• National Association of Social Workers. (2016).
• . https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=fFnsRHX-4HE%3d&portalid=0
• See Standard 4, Cultural and Linguistic Competence.

PLEASE RESPOND TO THE INITIAL POST BELOW. MJUST AMNSWER THE TWO QUESTIONS BELOW. ORIGINAL WORK AND SOURCVES MUST BE CITED IN APA FORMAT.

Discussion Questions

4:2 There are many prescribed drugs and over the counter medications that are frequently misused or abused by people. Occasionally, a tolerance is developed which leads to an increase in the needed dosage in order to feel the same effects. This can result in dependency.

1. What are some ways that dependence on a legal or prescribed medication can be avoided?
2. What are some of the overall potential consequences of repeated misuse or abuse of over-the-counter medication or prescriptions?

Required Readings and Resources

• Gustafsson, M., Silva, V., Valeiro, C., Joaquim, J., van Hunsel, F., & Matos, C. (2024). Misuse, abuse, and medication errors adverse events associated with opioidsA systematic review, Pharmaceuticals, 17, 1009.
• Davis, D. R., & Jansen, G. G. (1998). Making meaning of Alcoholics Anonymous for social workers: Myths, metaphors, and realities. Social Work, 43, 169-182.
• Van Wormer, K. & Davis, D. R. (2018). Addiction treatment: A strengths perspective (4th edition). Brooks/Cole-Thomson. (Chapter 3)

PLEASE RESPOND TO THE INITIAL POST BELOW ANSWERING THE 2 QUESTIONS BELOW. SOURCES MUST BE CITED IN APA FORMAT. MUST BE ORIGINAL WORK

Discussion Questions

4:1 Pharmaceutical companies are often considered to blame for the development of the opioid epidemic and the increase in rates of drug addiction. The outcome of a recent lawsuit against Purdue indicated the company had downplayed the addictive qualities of medications that were marketed. Under many circumstances, when a tolerance is developed, and providers discontinue prescribing, an individual will begin to look for the drug of choice in the community, leading to illegal possession and use of a controlled substance.

1. Why is it important to follow the instructions, recommendations, and information on labels and prescriptions?
2. Discuss the risks associated with not following labels and recommended doses.

Required Readings and Resources

• Gustafsson, M., Silva, V., Valeiro, C., Joaquim, J., van Hunsel, F., & Matos, C. (2024). Misuse, abuse, and medication errors adverse events associated with opioidsA systematic review, Pharmaceuticals, 17, 1009.
• Davis, D. R., & Jansen, G. G. (1998). Making meaning of Alcoholics Anonymous for social workers: Myths, metaphors, and realities. Social Work, 43, 169-182.
• Van Wormer, K. & Davis, D. R. (2018). Addiction treatment: A strengths perspective (4th edition). Brooks/Cole-Thomson. (Chapter 3)