No description available.

No description available.

Thesis--University of Florida. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-110).

The concern in human services as to how to provide skilled manpower of sufficient training and in sufficient numbers to meet public demand has been a source of experimentation and controversy over the past decade. In recent years the rapid growth of social and mental health services has provided a multitude of programs and services for both the poor and non-poor. Traditional services of social welfare -- health care, education, housing and employment -- have been increasingly supplemented by new forms of services (e.g., community organization, youth work, recreation, and personal growth therapy), thus vastly expanding the numbers of actual and potential recipients of such services. The changing nature of social services in recent years has stimulated within the helping professions serious discussion over the proper training and utilization of manpower. The new roles and functions that social workers and other professionals are entering into in order to effectively challenge old and new problems have led many in and out of the professions to call for the development of new levels and types of social service workers. A major response to this call has been the development of a new type of worker, the paraprofessional. Known variously as non-professionals, indigenous workers, subprofessionals and the like, this new breed of worker is meant to fill the gap between low level entry positions in the human services and the more specialized components and job tasks in the field. The development of the paraprofessional movement has sparked considerable controversy and study. Attempts to define and identify the precise elements involved in these new middle level positions -- the skill levels and task expectations of such positions -- and the social and political dynamics involved in their creation, have been primary focuses of such debate and study. Issues such as the relationship between paraprofessionals and professionals, the content and nature of paraprofessional training, the establishment of meaningful career ladders, and the relative effectiveness of these new workers have also invoked close scrutiny in the field. To this point, the examination of such generic issues has suffered from considerable imbalance. In recent years, research into paraprofessionalism has tended to concentrate on the recruitment and training aspects. As such, information concerning where paraprofessionals are employed and what they do once in the field is sadly lacking. This is an exploratory study intended to provide such a profile. It is meant to examine paraprofessional human service workers from three graduating classes of the Human Resources Technology program at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. The study is interested in examining the employment status of these workers, what roles and functions they serve in their agencies, the monetary and career mobility opportunities in those agencies, and the educational status and aspirations of the graduates. The study also intends to examine their personal views and experiences concerning issues of paraprofessionalism, professionalism, and their role as new workers in the human services.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 1996. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [110]-121).

Thesis--University of Florida. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-76).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Jewell Cooper; submitted to the Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 3, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-106).

M.A. / South Africa is a country characterised by inherent diversity of culture, language and race and is undergoing a process of reconstruction and development. This entails the establishment of a new national identity and socio-political structure based on integration, accommodation of difference and equity of access to the basic necessities for mental, physical, social and spiritual well-being for all its citizens within budgetary and personnel limitations. Mental health care needs and services have been shaped by socio-political and economic factors in the past. Further there has been unequal access to health care, which focused on psychiatric conditions and which provided curative, institutionalised care. Little provision was made for mental health care of children and mentally handicapped persons. A climate of unprecedented change and uncertainty also impacts on the mental health care of South Africans. A vital part of the Reconstruction and Development Programme is the reorientation of health care, which includes mental health, to a comprehensive health care approach with emphasis on primary preventive and promotive health care. An invaluable, economical yet untapped source of manpower to provide primary mental health care is the paraprofessional counsellor. Paraprofessional mental health workers can provide first level mental health care in the form of growth counselling which includes primary preventive and promotive care as well as some secondary and tertiary mental health care. In order to provide safe and effective care, this category of health worker needs to be carefully selected and trained and should work under the supervision of professional mental health care workers. The role of the latter needs to be re-evaluated in the context of South Africa. Effective and efficient care can be facilitated by the use of a simple yet comprehensive model for the selection and training of paraprofessionals and to guide their contribution to mental health care in South Africa. Two theoretical shifts have influenced mental health care. These are the paradigm shift from linear Cartesian-Newtonian thinking to the circular systems epistemology and the movement in psychological theories to ecosystemic theories. These developments have given rise to the bio-psycho-social model which does provide a basis for holistic health care but it excludes the spiritual dimension. This dissertation examines the concept of spirituality and argues for its inclusion in a truly holistic model of human functioning. The Pursuit of Wholeness model is proposed as a simply yet truly holistic tool to effect efficient, economical and ethical mental health care using , paraprofessionals. The model is described in detail and its use by paraprofessional counsellors in a growth counselling situation is discussed. An evaluative study was undertaken to test the use of the Pursuit of Wholeness model by paraprofessionals in three organisations. Results showed that the Pursuit of Wholeness model has the potential to enable paraprofessional counsellors through holistic growth counselling to contribute significantly to mental health care in South Africa.

No description available.

This is a study of Yellow Brick Road a paraprofessional volunteer training and group counseling program. The study was designed to help determine whether or not the program was meeting its own goals which are stated as: 1) to offer clients an experience which not only helps them to effect change in their lives, but to maintain those changes through healthy time-restructuring within a supportive environment; 2) to demonstrate that volunteers who are undergoing intensive training can provide quality counseling and other services; 3) to create a community environment supportive of healthy change. Toward evaluating these broadly stated goals, this study will specifically look at these factors: 1) client satisfaction, 2) internal program consistency, 3) activity group validity, that is, whether or not activity groups contribute to the change process.