<p> An estimated 2.5 million children in the United States, under the age of 18, have experienced the death of a parent. Losing a parent to death is almost unquestionably the most devastating event that could occur in the life of a young child. Further, many surviving parents/caregivers report difficulty in communicating with children regarding the loss and its impact on the family. The proposed program &ldquo;A Heart Connection&rdquo; will provide support and coping tools to children and surviving parents/caregivers to help them in the adaptation to this profound loss. This grant application to the Foundation for Grieving Children Inc., will provide needed funds to provide evidence-based group therapy programming for both the bereaved children and surviving parents/caregivers through Comfort Zone Camp (CZC), a nonprofit agency for grieving children and families in Los Angeles, California. The actual submission and/or funding of this grant are not a requirement for successful completion of this project.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 68 p. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> Spiritual emergence is a natural part of the human developmental experience. The process is unique to each individual and may gradually unfold or suddenly arise. Yet, because there is no mainstream cultural framework to provide context for the broad spectrum of anomalous experiences that may occur within it, there can be resistance to the process. The purpose of this exploratory study was to elucidate the phenomenon of spiritual resistance within the spiritual emergence process. Using the heuristic method, 18 participants who self-identified as having experienced spiritual resistance were interviewed. Based on data gathered through this research, 5 types of spiritual resistance and 11 ways of overcoming it were named. Spiritual resistance has both a protective and inhibiting function. Although at times it may serve to stifle the progression of spiritual development, it may also be the intermediary in protecting the ego from the tumultuous process experienced during spiritual emergency. </p><p>

<p> Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) in schools show promise in meeting the behavioral health needs of urban students, however there are multiple barriers to implementation. Providers&rsquo; attitudes towards EBPs may be one of these barriers. Through a cross sectional survey design, this dissertation answers four major research questions: 1) Is the EBPAS-50 an appropriate tool to use with school based behavioral health providers, 2) Do attitudes vary depending on level of experience (student vs. professional), 3) Do attitudes vary depending on a practitioners&rsquo; hire status (school-hired vs. non-school hired), and 4) Do EBPAS-50 scores predict implementation of EBPs? Participants were 160 school behavioral health providers who provided at least one hour per week of direct or indirect services within the Boston Public Schools. Results indicated that the factor structures for the EBPAS-50 and EBPAS- 15 did not hold with this population, however the EBPAS-15 was used for further analysis as it has been validated many times since its introduction. Using the EBPAS-15: 1) graduate students reported more positive attitudes than professionals, 2) school-hired providers reported more positive attitudes than non-school hired providers, and 3) there was no correlation between attitudes and use of EBPs. Though differences may have been statistically significant, it is questionable as to whether these differences are practically significant as the average, rounded, response from providers indicated that they agreed with EBPs to &ldquo;a great extent&rdquo;. This suggests need for ongoing research to identify: 1) aspects of evidence based practices that are important to school-based providers, and 2) a revised tool to measure the attitudes of school-based providers towards EBPs.</p>

<p> The African American community&rsquo;s relationship with the police has historically been strained for more than a century. How that tumultuous relationship affects African American mother&rsquo;s perceptions of police and confidence in the ability for police to interact safely with their sons has not been explored thus far. It is the intention of this study to explore and offer insight into the experience of African American mothers with sons and potential police interactions. This qualitative study utilized a focus group setting to gather information. Within two weeks of the focus group 6 participants withdrew, the focus group ultimately included 6 participants. Participants voiced their need to educate their sons about police, Blackness being a risk factor, the emotional burdens of ensuring safety, strategies used to promote safety in potential police interactions, and possible solutions to strained community police relations. Participants developed strategies to increase safety by asking their sons to be compliant, stay under the radar, utilize family support, recreational and community resources. While there was a lack of confidence and mistrust of the police, participants maintained hope that with training and positive community interactions there can be improvement in safety during police interactions.</p>

<p> Secondary traumatic stress is the physiological reaction to vicarious traumatization. Public child welfare workers are exposed daily to the traumas of child maltreatment from neglect to death. Unlike other first responders, child welfare workers have continued exposure to the trauma of child maltreatment with every report, change in placement, and discussion. Rural child welfare workers have an added burden of issues common to both the children and families they serve, and to themselves as members of their communities: isolation, social proximity, dual relationships, remoteness, and fewer resources. In an effort to identify the experiences of secondary traumatic stress in rural child welfare workers in this study, eight child welfare workers were individually interviewed from two separate, remote, rural communities. Using semi-structured, open-ended questions, discussions of their experiences produced a wealth of data that was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings gave discovery that rural child welfare workers do experience secondary traumatic stress, and included symptoms such as: depression, frustration, exhaustion, sleeplessness, crying, hypervigilance, avoidance, guilt, loss of appetite, and more. Many of these symptoms were exacerbated by the characteristics of the remote, rural community as there were few outlets and venues for discussing and debriefing in privacy. Conclusions were rural child welfare agencies need to engage in providing trauma informed training and support to their workers, and include secondary trauma as part of their culture in supervision and management. Finally, several new resources are discussed which are available to agencies and staff from national child welfare institutes, agencies, and online publications.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine psychological effects, including internalizing and externalizing behaviors, among Latino adolescents. Secondary data were utilized from the California Health Survey administered in 2011&ndash;2012. Internalizing behaviors include feelings of depression, hopelessness, nervousness, restlessness, worthlessness, and feeling that everything is an effort. Externalizing behaviors include drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Findings in the study suggested a significant relationship between U.S. citizenship and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Findings of this study also suggested significant relationships between external and internal behaviors. Additionally, the results showed significance in receiving psychological-emotional counseling.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3323064."

<p> This study examined attitudes towards intimate partner violence (IPV), endorsement of IPV myths, and self-esteem of undergraduate social work students at California State University, Long Beach. The sample consisted of 42 respondents, who were over the age of 18 and enrolled in the bachelor of social work major. Results indicated that, overall, this sample had high levels of self-esteem, low levels of attitudes accepting of IPV, and low levels of endorsement of IPV myths. Significant results were found indicating that younger students had higher levels of attitudes accepting of IPV. Additionally, students with parents who have less than a high school education had a significantly higher level of endorsement of IPV myths. Finally, there was evidence that the scores on the Domestic Violence Myth Acceptance Scale and the Intimate Partner Violence Acceptance Scale-Revised were positively correlated; the correlation approached significance. Implications for social work practice and directions for future research are discussed further.</p>

This research study has explored the kinds of thoughts that therapists report having had in response to their experiences with therapy failures. The central goal was to develop a model for organizing therapists' thoughts to form a basis for further investigations into therapists' conceptual processes for coping with and learning from therapy failures. The methodological approaches used in this study were designed to conform to a set of hermeneutic and social constructionist assumptions about the development and function of "meaning making," as it applies to both psychological research and the therapeutic relationship. Thus, the research methods replicated a social construction process, using a "community" of participants for all stages of data gathering and analyses. The application of Thought Listing and Multiple Sorting Procedures in combination with Cluster and Multidimensional Scaling Analyses yielded a three dimensional solution with which to organize these therapists' thoughts. Additional findings suggest that the ways in which therapists examine therapy failures is socially constructed and may function to preserve therapists' core beliefs. The three dimensional solution challenges the usefulness of an exclusively causal model for understanding therapists' reflections on failures.