<p> The purpose of this project was to locate a potential funding source and write a grant for the funding of a program for significant others of sexual violence victims. Based on the literature review, individuals who interact with primary victims may be impacted by the sexual violence experience, making them secondary victims. A psychoeducational group will be developed to meet the needs of secondary trauma victims. This group will take place at Peace Over Violence, in Los Angeles, California. The selected funding source for this project will be the Marisla Foundation which takes a special interest in human services programs.</p><p> The project goals include networking with community organizations, engaging families or significant others who are experiencing challenges related to the sexual violence experience, and to reduce secondary trauma symptoms among secondary trauma victims. Actual submission and/or funding of the grant proposal was not required for successful completion of this project.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to locate a potential funding source and write a grant to fund a program designed for older adults who suffer from serious mental illness. In this program, the older adults would be using computerized activities to enhance memory. Another portion ofthe program would be dedicated to the prevention of falls through the use of rhythmic steps in music. The program would be held by the host agency, Life Sharing Health Care in the city ofNorwalk, California, once the Archstone Foundation approved and funded the grant proposal. Since memory loss and falls are prevalent in the older adult population, it is essential to create programs whose mission is to prevent these problems from occurring or at least reduce the impairment and frequency. The actual submission and/or funding of this grant was not a requirement for the successful completion of the project.</p>

<p> The current study sought to examine child life specialists' perspectives on supporting adolescents struggling with medical non-compliance. The intent of the study was to identify various factors involved in adolescent medical non-compliance and to examine the role of the child life specialist in supporting this population. Eighty-five certified child life specialists were surveyed regarding their work with adolescents and the strategies used to support adolescents struggling with medical non-compliance. The issues surrounding medical non-compliance were examined as well as child life specialist education and how capable child life specialists felt in their ability to support this population. Results support previous literature suggesting a negative impact of typical adolescent development on medical compliance. In addition, results revealed the multidisciplinary team approach and family dynamics as being barriers to supporting adolescents' struggle with medical non-compliance. These findings support the need for additional education to better equip child life specialists in their work with this population. </p><p> <i>Keywords: child life specialists, adolescents, medical non-compliance, medical non-adherence</i> </p>

<p> Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) among Filipino American men is a rarely discussed phenomenon and continues to be an understudied topic. To date, theories and empirical research on CSA disclosures are predominantly based on the experiences of White Euro-centric females and males. In this study, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze the narratives of 12 Filipino American men with CSA histories to gain a better understanding of their CSA disclosures. Specifically, this study highlighted factors that have prevented and promoted their CSA disclosures. Overall, results in this study indicated that Filipino American men's CSA disclosures were generally uncomfortable and included notable non-verbal experiences; however, they were very much relieved by their disclosures. Core themes that reflected the barriers to their CSA disclosures included: (a) protecting the family; (b) preserving masculinity; (c) sexual taboos and boundaries; (d) lack of containment for discloser's experience; and (e) lack of intimacy and connection. Core themes that represented the promoters to their CSA disclosures included: (a) having access to intimacy and close relationships; (b) having support, stability, and safety; (c) addressing emotional issues; (d) wanting progress or a better life; and (e) gaining cognitive awareness that they were subjected to CSA. Political and societal, as well as clinical and theoretical implications of findings are discussed.</p>

<p> Although evidence-based practices (EBPs) have been identified in the literature, insufficient information exists about how to successfully implement them. As a result, implementation efforts have been met with failures. Little is currently known about what affects the success of implementation efforts for best practices such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy for adolescents (DBT-A) in an acute inpatient psychiatric setting (AIPS). A longitudinal multiphase mixed methods case study examined an implementation effort to provide DBT-A in an AIPS over a 24-month period. The process of implementation was investigated through in-depth interviews, a focus group, and field observations. Six categories were identified that affected the DBT-A implementation in an AIPS: appeal of DBT as a treatment modality, impact on patients, implementer characteristics, the implementation process, organizational dynamics and structure, and staff support. Implications for implementing EBPs within organizational environments are discussed. This study represents the first attempt to use qualitative and mixed methodology to examine the process of DBT implementation in an AIPS. </p>

<p> The question of how one may effectively build a therapeutic relationship with adolescent patients deemed to be experiencing symptomatology associated with psychotic functioning has largely evaded examination by both qualitatively and quantitatively oriented researchers. This study has attempted to discover, through semi-structured interviews with students at a residential treatment facility, whether said question may be seen to have anything approaching a useful answer. It was hypothesized that student participants would speak to a desire for those with whom they interact to understand them as persons, to behave authentically and to communicate their shared humanity. Results provided evidence that these issues and themes were included in student perceptions of human relationships, as well as indicated several other important topics related to successful and unsuccessful interactions with others. While conclusions did offer tentative insights into effectively forming bonds with severely disturbed youth, further research is necessary to determine alternative explanations for relational successes and failures.</p>

<p> Scholars have used studies of &ldquo;street-level organizations&rdquo; to examine how policy is implemented, adapted, and changed through the practices of workers in real-world contexts. This dissertation follows in that tradition, tracing the ways in which Medicaid reforms work their way down to the street-level in a community mental health center with its origins in the clubhouse model of treatment. Based on twelve months of direct observation of street-level practices, interviews with workers, and analysis of agency documents and reports, I examine how new managerial reforms shape the strategies that workers use to provide access to community mental health services and to advance the clubhouse logic of recovery. These findings have implications for scholarship across the domains of community mental health practice, organizational studies, and policy research, suggesting the need for further investigation into how policy reform is produced through the everyday practices of street-level organizations.</p><p> This dissertation uses organizational ethnographic methods to study workers&rsquo; practices at Community Club, a community mental health center located in Chicago, Illinois. The clubhouse is based on the idea that individuals whose lives have been adversely affected by severe mental illness can benefit from treatment in a setting that functions as a social club, where members experience themselves as valued and needed. At the same time, community mental health reforms have been advanced largely by new managerial arrangements that emphasize accountability and performance measurement. These reforms in governance and management produced considerable uncertainty for workers in how Community Club would adapt to changes in policy. This site provides an opportunity to examine how reforms &ldquo;worked&rdquo; in this particular setting and what became of the clubhouse model under new managerial arrangements.</p><p> Data were collected from November 2009 until November 2010. I directly observed therapeutic interactions at Community Club and attended weekly team and managers meetings. Interviews were recorded with frontline workers, team leaders, and program administrators as questions emerged from my day-to-day observations of direct practices. I had access to multiple sources of organizational documentation, including corrective actions, internal notices, and training materials. I attended meetings, webinars, and teleconferences at the Illinois Division of Mental Health for a year. I also attended monthly meetings at the largest community behavioral health trade association in Illinois for two years. Interviews were conducted with key informants at the state and trade levels to better understand how community mental health policy reforms took shape in Illinois. Data were analyzed in an ongoing and iterative fashion for thematic connections. Multiple data sources allowed for triangulation and fact-checking as hypotheses emerged over the course of this study.</p><p> This study finds that workers adjusted to reforms in governance and management in ways that were not reducible to formal statutes alone. First, new managerial reforms restructured the tensions that played out at the street-level as workers negotiated the competing demands of access to care. This study suggests that reforms may place pressure on workers to limit flexibility and openness, may produce both direct and indirect forms of rationing, and may introduce barriers that unevenly affect individuals who are &ldquo;harder to serve.&rdquo; Second, reforms in governance and management restructured three key logics of the clubhouse. Street-level practices that advanced community participation, informal group arrangements, and client self-determination were reshaped by organizational incentives and penalties that increased the costs for workers of providing these services. These changes had observable implications for individuals&rsquo; access to&nbsp;services and for workers&rsquo; ability to act in consonance with manifest principles of the clubhouse and recovery models of treatment. </p><p> This dissertation supports the assertion that formal policy is changed through its implementation in real-world contexts of practice. By revealing the structures that shape most decisively what policy becomes in practice, this study enhances the visibility of social welfare reforms that may otherwise obfuscate how reforms &ldquo;work&rdquo; in practice. This study suggests that social policies should focus not only on accountability and performance measurement, but also on supplying workers with adequate resources to do their jobs well. If, as advocates and researchers have long suggested, there remains significant need for services that support social connection among people with severe mental illness, then it is important for scholars and policymakers to think about how to better equip organizations with the resources they need to facilitate this dimension of care. This dissertation is based on a single case study, which limits the generalizability of its findings. Street-level organizational studies build validity over multiple iterations of case selection, using a comparative perspective to distinguish particular from systematic features of organizational practice. More studies are needed that examine how community mental health policies are produced in the everyday life of organizations, in order to better understand how polices give shape to the nature and distribution of care.</p>

<p> Nearly two million combat veterans are now in various stages of the process of returning from service and entering higher education using the post-9/11 GI Bill. Who is guiding and advising them in the process of this transition, and how are they doing it? To help answer this question, this qualitative phenomenological study examines the narratives of successful student veterans for ways that mentors played a role in their transition from military service to academia. The study was informed by an examination of relevant literature, including individual mentoring and group mentoring; medical and non-medical readjustment counseling for returning combat veterans; various branches of psychology, communication, social construction, and warrior mythology and storytelling. Narrative data were examined using a composite metatheoretical model drawing on domains of human experience (Shay, 2010), integral theory and the all quadrants, all levels (AQAL) model (Wilber, 2006), and the coordinated management of meaning theory of social construction in communication (Pearce, 2008). This analysis revealed patterns of multiple mentor interaction across various social worlds that helped them to make meaning from their experiences in transition, and bridge between different social contexts of home, military, and school. An unexpected but significant finding was the presence and role of traumatic experiences fitting the description of &ldquo;moral injury&rdquo; (Drescher et al., 2011) or &ldquo;psychic wounding&rdquo; (Malabou, 2012) as linked to the episodes of being mentored while making meaning of these experiences. This suggests the relationship of coordinated mentor communications to the phenomenon of posttraumatic growth, and the particular attunement of adult education (andragogy) as enabling context. Applying these findings to the composite four-quadrant model resulted in an integrated conceptual model of &ldquo;contextual mentoring,&rdquo; which provides a framework to consider the way coordinated mentor influences may act as mediating structures to support the development or transformation of returning veterans during their transition in higher education.</p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> veterans, mentoring, group mentoring, posttraumatic growth, moral injury, phenomenology, communication, coordinated management of meaning (CMM), social construction of reality, adult learning, andragogy, mediating structures.</p>

<p> This survey-based observational study was designed to study an individual's Yoga experience as it relates to psychological wellness, physical wellness, and subjective well-being. Men and women ages 18&ndash;85 were recruited though Yoga studio participation and through word of mouth. They answered demographic question as well as items from four differential scales. Dependent variables included physical wellness, life satisfaction, mindfulness, and subjective vitality. </p><p> Data was analyzed using SPSS software. Results indicated that Yoga participants perceive higher levels of mental wellness, physical wellness, and subjective well-being. Additionally, Yoga participants, as compared to non-Yoga participants, were more likely to perceive higher levels of perceived wellness, in almost all domains tested, than exercisers versus nonexercisers. </p><p> The results of this study bring merit to Yoga participants' perception of wellness. Further studies could investigate a variety of topics. Understanding how long it takes a Yoga participant to feel higher levels of perceived wellness may be useful in designing intervention studies. Additionally, looking at different styles of Yoga, specifically &amacr;sana, meditation, and pranayama techniques, and implementation (home versus studio) would be useful in the design of future research studies. </p><p> Anecdotally, most Yoga participants would agree that practicing Yoga benefits their overall wellness. This study offers empirical evidence that Yoga participants experience higher levels of perceived wellness than non-Yoga participants. This research is significant as it validates the role Yoga plays in the health and well-being of participants. </p><p> Keywords: Yoga, Wellness, Well-Being, Quantitative, Observational, Life Satisfaction, Mindfulness, Survey.</p>

<p> The current study sought to examine the role of traditional values in China and the United States as one of the important social psychological mechanisms through which romantic relationships affect mental health. The work is guided by the Social Structure and Personality framework, focusing on the meaning construction dictated by traditional values in the stress process, while also addressing the structural and cultural origins of meanings. Specifically, I used path models to examine how those internalized values moderate the impacts of romantic relationships on the mental health of Chinese and American college students and also compared the effects across gender and nations with Multi-group SEM method. The results show that traditional values work as a major social-psychological mechanism influencing Chinese students only by exacerbating the impacts of breakups on their depression. In terms of gender and national patterns, the most important finding is that the unconditional main effect of traditional values differs across gender and nations and Chinese women are mostly harmed by those values. The results partially support the theoretical construction and also add to both the meaning studies in the stress process and the substantive research of romantic relationships and mental health.</p>