<p> The purpose of this project was to create awareness about the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) community. The CSEC victims face many challenges, which include socioeconomic hardship, mental health issues, criminal charges and inappropriate coping mechanism. The workshops will be focus on educating the Willowbrook community members and bringing awareness about CSEC using the Public Health Model (PHM) perspective. The workshops will focus on what commercial exploitation is, who the victims are, how CSEC victims are lured, circumstances that lead a juvenile into being sexually exploited, and what the community can do to help alleviate CSEC population. The workshops will only include risk factors associated with the CSEC population, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Questioning Youth (LGBTQ), international sex trafficking and the main causes for the CSEC victims. The different prevention programs and interventions currently in place will also be a focus in the workshop. The major component of the proposed program will be to educate the community with facts about the CSEC population and linkages to the multiple programs serving the CSEC community. Submission and/or funding of the project were not requirements for the successful completion of this project.</p>

Natural science tells us that the world is fundamentally physical - everything is ultimately constituted by physical properties and governed by physical laws. How do we square this picture of the world with the apparent fact that there are genuine causal relations at levels that aren’t described by physics? The problem of mental causation is at the heart of this issue. There are probably two reasons for this. Firstly, if there are any non-physical properties at all, surely mental properties are among them. And secondly, the reality of mental causation is arguably more important to us than the reality of any other kind of causation. Without it, it would be hard for us to make sense of ourselves as agents with free will and moral responsibility. The main purpose of this thesis is to defend a view that accepts a scientific worldview and still allows for mental properties to exist, be non-physical, and be genuine causes of actions and behaviour. Some philosophers are pessimistic that all these goals can be achieved. They think that the only way for mental properties to fit into the causal structure of the world is if these mental properties are really physical properties. I do not find the argument for this view compelling. As I will show, it relies on an implausibly strong constraint on causes that must be amended. Once amended, a new position emerges, the so-called Subset view, which is actually motivated by the very premises that initially pushed us towards a reductive view of mental properties.

No description available.

Proceeding from an autoethnographic representation of the friendship, what I sketch out in this thesis is a ceaseless attempt to testify my involvement in the process of knowing the person and the prolonged course of observing a severe mental illness and to illuminate the peculiarities of such a relational circumstance with the inevitable difficulties in honouring our commitment. The central purpose of this study is to creatively provide a theological space to understand the experience of mental illness and to show how the veracity of past memories and the on-going construction of friendship boundaries reflect the shifting combination of reason and emotion that connects kin over the evolving story of a person's mental illness. I offer fresh insights which draw out the need to understand mental illness as much more than mere suffering and mental health as much more than the absence of symptoms. In reflecting theologically on the peculiarity of the friendship, I make use of Martin Buber's I-Thou and I-It mode of relationships in which my interpretation of a beloved friend's mental illness revolves around focusing on the person rather than the description of the illness. In dealing with the emotional challenges in relation to people with mental illness, I suggest that the Christian practice of lament offers a space to theologically articulate the deep sense of grief, abandonment, and emptiness in the context of mental illness. I also suggest the Christian practice of hospitality as an important resource for the constructive Christian response to mental illness and reflect the fundamental recognition of home in connection to hospitality. Subsequently, I offer a model of friendship which inevitably exposes the limits of commitment and sympathy while affirming the extraordinary power of love which seeks solidarity and sustains the relationship with a person with a severe mental illness.

<p> The purpose of this proposal was to identify the need and write a grant to fund a mental health school based program for adolescents that have a variety of mental health concerns using cognitive behavior therapy techniques. The sponsoring school for the grant proposal was Gladstone High School in Azusa, California. If funded, the school will be able to implement provide mental health services specifically to the students of Gladstone High School. This program that consists of a licensed clinical social worker and 3 master of social work interns will help assess mental health needs of students, provide cognitive behavioral interventions in individual counseling sessions, psychoeducation groups for students, mental health trainings for students, teachers, and families, and meeting with students/families to track their progress.</p>

<p> Mental illness can be debilitating and gravely affect the quality of life (QoL) of individuals with mental disorders. What is more, it is often difficult for individuals to manage their disorder while maintaining a good QoL and to work towards a recovery that encompasses all aspects of their lives. This content analysis of 23 scholarly articles attempted to collect as many influencing factors to QoL and recovery, both positive and negative. The results indicated that there are a variety of environmental, psychological, and social elements that affect QoL and recovery. Social support and social networks were cited most often as improving QoL and aiding in recovery while stigma was found hinder recovery and improved QoL. Additionally, it gathered information about different treatments, interventions, and resources used to treat mental disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a therapeutic intervention, was found to be a commonly used intervention. Recommendations for social work practice, policy, and future research regarding mental health are also presented in this analysis.</p>

<p>This dissertation provides readers with a general framework for understanding drug addiction from a Winnicottian perspective that can help clinicians to better understand and work with clients who struggle with drug addiction. The underlying purpose of developing such a framework is not to formulate a ?master theory? that is applicable to all cases of addiction or that claims to encompass all of the myriad facets of addiction?such an endeavor would prove impossible, reductionistic, and hubristic. Rather, this dissertation uses Winnicott?s theories to identify and explore emotional, psychological, interpersonal, and developmental components of addictive processes that are present in some?but not all?cases of addiction. Although etiological factors play a prominent role in this dissertation, I argue that a Winnicottian approach can help clinicians to work with clients regardless of how much is known about their pasts and illustrate that a Winnicottian perspective need not be reductionisitc. I developed this model by applying the insights gleaned from primary and secondary literature to a case study. More specifically, I analyze the case utilizing three especially prominent themes in Winnicott?s theory: being, aggression, and creativity. Doing so enabled me to conclude the following regarding addiction: From a Winnicottian perspective, an individual?s relationships with drugs of abuse are both interpersonal and regressive in nature and are founded upon the need to experience the personal aliveness that accompanies the actualization of one or more developmental potentials.

<p> The importance of investigating relationships between depression and mineral intake is necessary due to concerns over the mental health and nutrition status of the growing older adult population in America. Due to lack of research in this area, the development of nutrition therapies for depressed older adults with special consideration for minerals is hindered. This study explored whether mean depression scores significantly differed between quartile intake groups of selenium, magnesium, zinc, and copper in a nationally representative sample of older adults (<i>n</i> = 901) from the 2011-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). For all four minerals, those within the highest quartile of intake had significantly lower depression scores than those within the lowest quartile. Nutrition and mental health care professionals should be aware of a possible association between mineral intake and depression and emphasize healthy eating patterns and nutrient-dense diets to maintain optimal mental and physical functioning.</p>

<p> This study examined the relationships among stress, differentiation of self (DoS), and burnout in Child Protection Services (CPS) workers. Bowen defined DoS as the capacity of an individual to modulate emotional responses, stay calm in the midst of crisis, maintain emotional responses in highly charged situations, maintain a coherent sense of self, and maintain balance between independence and closeness within relationships. This nonexperimental correlational and comparative study sought to determine whether stress predicts burnout when controlling for DoS and whether DoS moderates the relationship between stress and burnout. Furthermore, the study examined the differences between male and female as well as novice and veteran CPS workers&rsquo; level of stress, DoS, and burnout. Data from a sample of 243 CPS workers showed that stress significantly predicted burnout when controlling for DoS, and DoS did not significantly moderate the relationship between stress and burnout. The results also found that there are no significant differences between male and female, novice and veteran workers&rsquo; level of stress, DoS, and burnout. A major finding was that the overall model for the domains of burnout showed stress and DoS to significantly predict emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA). Stress significantly positively predicted EE (<i>&beta;</i> = 0.56, <i>t</i> = 10.18, <i>p </i> &lt; .001), whereas DoS significantly negatively predicted EE (<i> &beta;</i> = -0.18, <i>t</i> = -3.22, <i>p</i> = .001). Stress significantly positively predicted DP (<i>&beta;</i> = 0.29, <i>t</i> = 4.53, <i>p</i> &lt; .001), whereas DoS significantly negatively predicted DP (<i>&beta;</i> = -0.24, <i> t</i> = -3.83, <i>p</i> &lt; .001). Stress significantly negatively predicted PA (<i>&beta;</i> = -0.24, <i>t</i> = -3.65, <i> p</i> &lt; .001), whereas DoS significantly positively predicted PA (<i> &beta;</i> = 0.21, <i>t</i> = 3.17, <i>p</i> = .002). In other words, those who reported high stress tend to have high level of EE and DP, and reduced PA. Conversely, those who reported high DoS tend to have low level of EE and DP, and higher PA. Despite limitations, the study sheds new light on the relationship between DoS and burnout and indicates the need for further research on the explicit role of Dos in predicting burnout. </p>

<p> The purpose of this thesis project was to write a grant proposal to make peer specialist trainings available in Orange County, California. The trainings will be funded by Mental Health Services Act&rsquo;s Workforce Education and Training funds and take place at the Recovery Education Institute, in the City of Orange. The trainings will be coordinated by Orange County Health Care Agency&rsquo;s Behavioral Health Services branch, using the Peer Employment Training program developed by Recovery Innovations, Inc. The trainings will help contribute to the development of the growing peer workforce in Orange County and increase the quality and efficacy of the peer support services provided. The implementation and/or submission of this grant proposal was not a requirement for the successful completion of this thesis project.</p>