Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-234). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Wan, Suk Fan. / Thesis submitted in: December 2006. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-176). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Rationale of the Research Topic --- p.2 / Research Questions --- p.3 / Research Objectives --- p.4 / Overview of the Present Thesis --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.6 / The Vicissitudes of the Concept of Mental Health Problems in the Western Culture --- p.6 / The Development of the Concept of Children and Adolescents in the Western Culture --- p.12 / The Traditional Chinese Concept of Children and Parental Role --- p.19 / The Child Mental Health Problem in Hong Kong --- p.24 / Summary --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Theoretical Framework --- p.32 / Orientation of A Critical Social Work --- p.32 / "Discourse, Power / Knowledge" --- p.34 / "Discourse, Subjectivity and Human Problem" --- p.38 / Criticism from Foucault and Inspiration for the Theoretical Framework --- p.40 / Social Constructionism --- p.44 / Summary --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Research Methodology --- p.48 / Rationale of Selecting the Qualitative Research Method --- p.48 / Research Design --- p.50 / Methods of Data Collection and Analysis --- p.51 / The Setting of the Child Psychiatric Unit of the Alice Ho Miu Ling / Nethersole Hospital --- p.54 / Sampling Method and the Profile of the Participant Families --- p.56 / Quality of the Present Research and Its Measure --- p.62 / Summary --- p.65 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- The Results of Study : The Subjective Experiences of the Children and Adolescents --- p.67 / The Subjective Experience related to the Child Mental Health Problems: the Children and Adolescents´ة Perspective --- p.67 / "I have problems, but my problems were not necessarily a child mental health problem.'" --- p.67 / My school and family lives were disturbed not only by my problems; but by the treatment provided by the Child Psychiatric Unit too!´ة --- p.73 / Effects on School Lives --- p.73 / Effects on Family lives --- p.75 / "´بPerhaps the treatment improved my problems, but it was such a painful and meaningless process to me!´ة" --- p.81 / ´بThe Child Psychiatric Ward - a place I never want to go again!´ة --- p.81 / "´بNo one discussed with me about my progress and discharge plan, I felt like being trapped!´ة" --- p.90 / I had no part to play in my treatment!´ة --- p.91 / I was confused by too many helping professionals. They were unhelpful unless I was ready to help myself. ´ب --- p.94 / I had no choice! No one discussed with me before the decision was made!'´ة --- p.95 / Summary --- p.97 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- The Results of Study : The Subjective Experiences of the Parents --- p.99 / The Subjective Experiences related to their Children´ةs Mental Health Problems : the Parents´ةPerspective --- p.99 / ´بMy child does not only have child mental health problem but also problems with other aspects of his / her life.´ة --- p.99 / ´بWe were desperate; the services provided by the Child Psychiatric Unit were our last resource!´ة --- p.106 / "´بMy child's problem affected not only his / her well-being, but it also affected our family relationship, parenting, emotions and mental health!'´ة" --- p.109 / "´بFamily Relationships - it was not his problem only, my whole family was affected.´ة" --- p.109 / "Parenting -1 know I need to adjust my parenting in response to my child's problem, but I am uncertain in what way I should change.´ة" --- p.114 / "´بEmotions and Mental Health - although I was disappointed by my child, I blamed myself for his problem and worried that his future would be destroyed by his problem.´ة" --- p.120 / Who is going to take care of my emotions?´ة --- p.129 / I needed help; but Ifelt that I was not included from the treatment program!´ة --- p.129 / I need more than a pill for my child!' --- p.129 / "´بDoctor, would you listen to my opinions and difficulties in dealing with my child's problem before you design the treatment plan?´ة" --- p.133 / Visiting - the precious moment to show our support to my child but restricted by the hospital policy.' --- p.135 / Summary --- p.137 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Discussion and Implications --- p.139 / The Constitution of Subjectivities --- p.140 / The Subjectivities of the Children and Adolescents --- p.142 / The Subjectivities of the Parents --- p.145 / Power Relations --- p.149 / Power Relations between Self and Discourse --- p.150 / Power Relations between Parents and Children --- p.151 / Power Relations between Services User and Helping Professionals --- p.152 / Power Relations between Service Users and Hospital Policies --- p.154 / Emergence of New Meanings and Creation ofAlternatives --- p.155 / Implications for Social Work Practice and Future Child Mental Service Development --- p.156 / Contributions and Limitations of this study --- p.160 / Contributions of this Study --- p.160 / Limitations of this Study --- p.161 / Directions for Further Study --- p.163 / Self-reflexivity : My Personal Change after Completing this Study --- p.163 / Conclusion --- p.165 / Appendices / Appendix 1 Guidelines for interview --- p.166 / Appendix 2 Letter to the family and consent form (Chinese version) --- p.168 / Bibliography --- p.170 / List of Tables: / Table 1: Summary of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory --- p.17 / Table 2: Details of the Data Collection Schedule --- p.53 / Table 3: The Socio-Demographic Data of the Six Families --- p.57 / Table 4: Diagnosis and Psychiatric Histories of the Six Children and Adolescents --- p.58 / Table 5: Details of Hospitalization of the Children and Adolescents --- p.59 / Table 6: Details of the Follow up Service Received by the Children and Adolescents --- p.59

This project addressess the importance of early childhood intervention for California's infants and toddlers and how the managed care trends are affecting families' ability to obtain help for their children.

In this study, guidelines were developed for used by social workers to provide emotional support to children in foster care. The child in foster care as well as the services rendered in respect of such a child have been discussed in a literature study. The principles of Gestalt therapy were also discussed as these were used as part of the empirical study and as basis for the guidelines for social workers. A qualitative research design was used to complete the empirical study and case studies were used. Children between six and twelve years who have been in foster care for less than two years and who needed emotional support were selected for the study by means of a purposeful test sample. The research results showed that children in foster care are in need of emotional support. To provide such emotional support to the child in foster care, guidelines have been developed for social workers which they can apply when providing services to the child. These guidelines also serve as the conclusions and recommendations of the study. / Social Work / (M. Diac. (Play Therapy))

In the experience of being a play therapist and social worker, the researcher became aware of the breakdown of adolescent foster placements. Although there are many causal factors of adolescent foster care breakdown, it was the treatment and sustaining of these placements that the researcher was interested in. The utilization of dyadic brief Gestalt play therapy aims to support the relationship between the carer and adolescent in order to sustain and stabilize the foster placement. The empirical study includes data collection and analysis. The data was gathered through observations and field notes from unstructured interviews, in this case the dyadic therapeutic process with the adolescent and carer. The data was then analyzed, and eleven outcomes were discussed: the building of a therapeutic relationship, the process of dialogue, the gaining of awareness, contact, resistance, the internal working model, polarities, working in the here and now, the utilization of Gestalt experiments and Gestalt play therapeutic techniques. In addition, the implications of the brief Gestalt therapeutic model were identified. These themes are discussed fully in the final chapter encompassing conclusions and recommendations.This study found that it was possible to work effectively with the adolescent and carer in a dyadic brief Gestalt therapeutic way utilizing play therapy techniques. Recommendations regarding the conclusions were made in relation to the outcomes of this study. / Social Work / M.Diac. (Play therapy)

This research programme endeavours to develop, implement and evaluate an effective method of offering psychosocial support to vulnerable children. Vulnerability is defined by trained community members as including children who are experiencing especially difficult lives. The forms of difficulties experienced by the children has usually been a consequence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty combined with other psychosocial risk factors, child abuse (especially child sexual abuse) and violence. This community based programme incorporates four phases of intervention, only two of which were the focus of summative evaluation. However, due to the integrated nature of the programme it was necessary to implement and document the various phases of the intervention programme: (i) community selection and mobilisation; (ii) the 5-day Sensitisation Programme (SP) sensitises adult community volunteers to the psychosocial needs of vulnerable children; (iii) the 15-session Structured Group Therapy Programme (SGTP) enables children to work through past adversities and to build resilience within small groups of peers in a programme where community volunteers served as apprentice facilitators under the supervision, guidance and ethical responsibility of qualified psychologists; (iv) community based initiatives to offer on-going of PSS activities to vulnerable children in each of the partnering communities. Nine partnering communities were selected, three township, periurban and rural communities. This programme was not effective in the informal settlements as it was not possible for these communities to place children as a priority. A qualitative summative evaluation of the SP took place using post workshop evaluation questionnaires, focus group discussions conducted by an independent researcher and an audit of the community based initiatives that developed as a result of participation in the SP. The SGTP was summatively evaluated using a 4-way Factorial design with one within-subject and three between-subject conditions: to investigate the age of the subjects, the geographic regions and gender variables. The 741 children formed five experimental and control conditions to conduct various combinations of the above-mentioned phases programmes and to adequately control for the many confounding variables. Pre- and post intervention assessments were conducted by trained community research assistants. The dependent variable measures were the Culture Free Self Esteem Inventory (Battle, 1992), the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (Biere & Elliot, 1997), the Reynolds Depression Scale for Children (Reynolds, 1989), the Social Support Scale (Beale Spencer, Cole, Jones, and Phillips Swanson, 1997) and the Connor's Parent Questionnaire Connors, 1998). Multivariate analysis evaluated the effectiveness of the various experimental and control conditions. The results indicate that the SGTP, run in combination with the SP, is an effective intervention strategy in that it alleviates symptoms of self-reported depression and other psychosocial manifestations of distress as well as decreased the number and severity of symptoms reported by primary caregivers, and leads to increased access to perceived social support. The SP and the SGTP conducted independently of each other have limited benefits and as such can be considered to be partially effective. The children who had formed part of the non-vulnerable control group felt left out of the programme and report an increase in symptomatology and decreased access to social support. While this community-based programme can be considered to be an effective method of therapeutic intervention and of offering psychosocial support to vulnerable children, further research is needed to consider the cost-effectiveness, the sustainability and ways in which those children who do not participate can still can benefit. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

In this study, guidelines were developed for used by social workers to provide emotional support to children in foster care. The child in foster care as well as the services rendered in respect of such a child have been discussed in a literature study. The principles of Gestalt therapy were also discussed as these were used as part of the empirical study and as basis for the guidelines for social workers. A qualitative research design was used to complete the empirical study and case studies were used. Children between six and twelve years who have been in foster care for less than two years and who needed emotional support were selected for the study by means of a purposeful test sample. The research results showed that children in foster care are in need of emotional support. To provide such emotional support to the child in foster care, guidelines have been developed for social workers which they can apply when providing services to the child. These guidelines also serve as the conclusions and recommendations of the study. / Social Work / (M. Diac. (Play Therapy))

In the experience of being a play therapist and social worker, the researcher became aware of the breakdown of adolescent foster placements. Although there are many causal factors of adolescent foster care breakdown, it was the treatment and sustaining of these placements that the researcher was interested in. The utilization of dyadic brief Gestalt play therapy aims to support the relationship between the carer and adolescent in order to sustain and stabilize the foster placement. The empirical study includes data collection and analysis. The data was gathered through observations and field notes from unstructured interviews, in this case the dyadic therapeutic process with the adolescent and carer. The data was then analyzed, and eleven outcomes were discussed: the building of a therapeutic relationship, the process of dialogue, the gaining of awareness, contact, resistance, the internal working model, polarities, working in the here and now, the utilization of Gestalt experiments and Gestalt play therapeutic techniques. In addition, the implications of the brief Gestalt therapeutic model were identified. These themes are discussed fully in the final chapter encompassing conclusions and recommendations.This study found that it was possible to work effectively with the adolescent and carer in a dyadic brief Gestalt therapeutic way utilizing play therapy techniques. Recommendations regarding the conclusions were made in relation to the outcomes of this study. / Social Work / M.Diac. (Play therapy)