http://library.um.ac.id/free-contents/downloadpdf.php/buku/focus-groups-as-qualitative-research-by-morgan-david-l-11476.pdf

Focus groups as qualitative research / by Morgan, David L.

Engaging and retaining families in mental health prevention and intervention programs is critically important to insure maximum public health impact. We evaluated randomized-controlled trials testing methods to improve family engagement and retention in child mental health programs published since 1980 (N = 17). Brief, intensive engagement interventions in which providers explicitly addressed families’ practical (e.g. schedules, transportation) and psychological (e.g. family members’ resistance, beliefs about the treatment process) barriers as they entered treatment were effective in improving engagement in early sessions. The few interventions found to produce long-term impact on engagement and retention integrated motivational interviewing, family systems, and enhanced family stress and coping support strategies at multiple points throughout treatment. Few interventions have been tested in the context of prevention programs. There are promising approaches to increasing engagement and retention; they should be replicated and used as a foundation for future research in this area.

Review of Interventions to Improve Family Engagement and Retention in Parent and Child Mental Health Programs

The scientific literature relevant to social work practice has grown expansively in recent years. Corollary developments, including the widespread availability of electronic bibliographic databases, improved indexing services, and increased acceptance of systematic reviews and evidence-based practice guidelines, have made research findings increasingly accessible to practitioners. For the first time in the history of the profession, social work educators are confronted with the challenges posed, and opportunities afforded, by this accumulating body of practice-relevant scientific information. Evidence-based practice is a new paradigm that promotes more effective social interventions by encouraging the conscientious, judicious, and explicit use of the best available scientific evidence in professional decision making. Pedagogically, evidence-based practice involves teaching students the values and skills they need to identify, critically appraise, and apply practice-relevant scientific evidence over the co...

Teaching Evidence-Based Practice: Toward a New Paradigm for Social Work Education

Objective: The current paper reviews recent findings regarding how to conceptualize engagement and factors influencing engagement, treatment attendance rates, and interventions that work. Method: Research related to the definition of engagement, predictors of engagement and treatment termination, attendance rates, and engaging interventions are summarized as an update to the McKay and Bannon (2004) review. Results: Despite ongoing advances in evidence-based treatments and dissemination strategies, engaging families into mental health treatment remains a serious challenge. Within the last several years, a number of technological advances and interventions have emerged to address this problem. Families with children who present disruptive behavior challenges and symptoms of trauma are considered in terms of the unique barriers they experience regarding engagement in treatment. Conclusions: Potential solutions to increase treatment utilization and further research in this area are discussed.

/pdf/engaging-families-into-child-mental-health-treatment-updates-2vdq13ne7f.pdf

Engaging Families into Child Mental Health Treatment: Updates and Special Considerations

The high rates of dropping out and other engagement problems are significant concerns in the delivery of mental health and adjunct services to the families of at-risk children. Consequently, researchers have examined the correlates of attrition and have developed interventions to increase engagement and retention. However, the lack of a clear definition of engagement and gaps in theory about the relationship of engagement to other treatment processes hinder knowledge development. In this paper the behavioral and attitudinal aspects of engagement are disentangled. Current knowledge about treatment barriers and interventions to increase appointment keeping is summarized. A preliminary conceptualization of the engagement process is presented and research needs and practice implications are discussed.

Treatment Engagement with Caregivers of At-risk Children: Gaps in Research and Conceptualization

This article reports a study assessing the contribution of current social work journal publications to a cumulative body of research that is capable of informing interventions. Thirteen journals published from 1993 to mid-1997 were reviewed. Analysis was guided by the view that the focus and design of studies should correspond to and supply the knowledge needed to perform different practice tasks. Accordingly, journal research articles were classified by their potential contribution to practice decisions requiring descriptive, explanatory, or control knowledge. Research aiming at control knowledge, informing the selection and implementation of interventions, was further evaluated by whether the interventions and outcomes studied were sufficiently specified to permit reliable research replication and application in practice. Very few of the published articles were found to report research on interventions, and even fewer used designs that enable replication. Factors affecting the rate and quality of research and interventions are also discussed. Key words: functions of knowledge; intervention research; knowledge for practice; research design; research purpose Social work has long been concerned with strengthening the extent to which its research is capable of informing and guiding practice (see Greenwood, 1957; Kadushin, 1959; Kane, 1982). Over the years increasing attention has been directed toward this purpose. This attention resulted in the founding in the 1970s of the first two journals dedicated to publishing research (Social Work Research & Abstracts and the Journal of Social Service Research) and the founding about 20 years later of a journal dedicated to research on practice (Research on Social Work Practice). These advances notwithstanding, concern persists that social work researchers are not meeting the needs of practitioners. Such concern was reflected in the convening of a symposium in 1996 on psychosocial intervention research, cosponsored by the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health, as well as in the publication of a special issue on intervention research in the journal Social Work Research (September 1997). Emanating from similar concerns, this article reviews current publications in social work and assesses their potential in contributing to a body of knowledge of effective interventions. This review is based on the premise that social work practice must adhere to and be guided by effectiveness criteria. That is, interventions should be selected and used on the basis of their empirically demonstrated effectiveness. Because journal publications are a major vehicle for accumulating and disseminating professional knowledge, they constitute a primary source of guidance for practice. Accordingly, we examined the current research published in social work journals in relation to its potential for contributing to effective practice. PURPOSE OF PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE The premise that intervention should be based on relevant and valid knowledge is at the core of professional practice. Rosen (1978, 1996) has conceptualized the knowledge needs of practice as related to the purposes for which knowledge is used and its function in practice. Three types of knowledge were distinguished: descriptive, explanatory, and control. Descriptive knowledge guides practitioners in classifying phenomena they encounter into meaningful conceptual categories. Often it is used by practitioners in deciding whether and to what extent a particular manifestation or event should be of concern-that is, considered a problem. Descriptive knowledge includes information on the characteristics, indicators, or incidences of phenomena of professional concern (for example, poverty, child abuse, maladaptive behavior, mental disorders, and community violence). Descriptive knowledge, in articulation with its values, also helps to formulate social work's objectives (Rosen, 1978), informs policy decisions about which services are needed by which client groups, and aids practitioners in assessing and classifying clients and problems into professionally meaningful categories. …

https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/36900/10_Proctor_paper.pdf?sequence=1

Social Work Research and the Quest for Effective Practice

This article addresses social workers' use of knowledge by studying the rationale they provided for their actual practice decisions. Extent of knowledge use was compared across four practice decision tasks and between medical and psychiatric social work services. Data were obtained from the records of 297 clients treated by 34 experienced M.S.W. social workers in medical and psychiatric services units of two midwestern hospitals. Workers were previously trained in the approach and procedures of Systematic Planned Practice (SPP). Data were obtainedfrom SPP forms on which workers recorded their treatment decisions and rationale for each decision. Data analyzed by repeated measures (MANOVA and ANOVA's) revealed that giving of rationales, and the types of knowledge it reflected, varied significantly by the decision task and social work service. Intervention decisions were least likely to be supported by rationales, and medical services workers provided fewer rationales than psychiatric services workers. Conce...

Rationales for Practice Decisions: Variations in Knowledge Use by Decision Task and Social Work Service:

Although the strengths perspective is pop u lar in so cial work, it is un clear how it var ies from traditional social work practice approaches. Studies of the effeetiveness of strengths-based inter ventions are reviewed to as certain: (1) how the strengths perspective is operationalized and im pie mented, and (2) the empirical support for its effeetive ness. Few evaluations of strengths-based treatment have been published. In those studies reporting positive outcomes, it is not possible to determine whether out comes are due to the strengths perspective or to the delivery of additional services. Moreover, results indicate that the directives of the strengths perspective are not adequately operationalized or measured. The strengths per spec tive is a value stance, but there is littie support for it as a distinct and uniquely effective prac tice model.

The Operationalization, Implementation, and Effectiveness of the Strengths Perspective: A Review of Empirical Studies

Objectives: This study examined service delivery to parental caregivers with mental health problems, substance use problems, or both. The study sought to determine whether, once need is identified, suitable services are offered and then provided. Methods: The study was a secondary analysis of the 1994 National Study of Protective, Preventive, and Reunification Services Delivered to Children and Their Families. The national study interviewed child welfare caseworkers about the problems of and services provided to 2,109 families. Results: Of parents with mental problems, 77.9% were offered services and 84.0% of those were provided services. Of parents with substance use problems, 65.7% were offered treatment and 67.5% of those were provided it. Other problems included lack of parenting skills, lack of education and job skills, parent-child conflict, and lack of income. Significant associations were found between caseworkers’ identifying problems and offering relevant services. Caregivers with substance use problems were less likely to be offered substance treatment services than caregivers with both mental health and substance use problems. Conclusions: The child welfare system may facilitate service use for caregivers. More research is needed to understand the process of service delivery to caregivers, including why services are not offered to some caregivers and why some services are not provided after being offered. Future research should examine why caregivers with substance use problems are vulnerable to not receiving treatment and whether and how service use varies for other problems not examined in this study. (Psychiatric Services 60:56–60, 2009)

https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ps.2009.60.1.56

Marlys Staudt

Papers

Treatment Engagement with Caregivers of At-risk Children: Gaps in Research and Conceptualization

Social Work Research and the Quest for Effective Practice

Rationales for Practice Decisions: Variations in Knowledge Use by Decision Task and Social Work Service:

The Operationalization, Implementation, and Effectiveness of the Strengths Perspective: A Review of Empirical Studies

Mental Health and Substance Use Problems of Parents Involved With Child Welfare: Are Services Offered and Provided?