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This
post is part of a weekly series, Best in Mental Health,
featuring the best posts of the week, in social work, psychology,
evidence-based practice/healthcare, non-profit and private practice
concerns on Social Work Career Development.
To get a quick idea of the topics covered in this week's round-up, please see the above word cloud :)
Evidence Based Practice/Healthcare:
Giving teens life skills plus information looks a promising combination in preventing substance misuse
The Lifestyle Elf (Sarah Chapman)
"Programs that include the development of life skills, refusal skills
and self-management skills are preferable to knowledge-only programs
to reduce alcohol and marijuana use... promote and support
school-based, comprehensive programs lasting over a year..."
Low birth weight or preterm babies have an increased risk of personality disorders
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)
"Pre-term birth (
Occupy medical and healthcare knowledge
Occupy Healthcare (Dr. Ben Miller)
"Spending on personal healthcare began to fall two years prior to the recession and was more pronounced during the recession... Pressure from... us patients—is perhaps the single most powerful driver of
change..."
Strong association between unemployment and suicide shown in new BMJ study
The Mental Elf (Andre Tomlin)
"Previous studies have shown that the suicide rate does tend to increase
during economic downturns and that this association is stronger in
countries that provide less social support and fewer employment
programs..."
Social Work:
Four Contexts for the Social Worker as Consultant (5th in Series)
Socialworkerhelper
"Staff development is a huge market in non-profits. Professionalizing,
certifying, and continuing education of staff is important because of
turnover and changing environments... The social worker as consultant can be instrumental in bringing elements of social entrepreneurship to non-profits..."
7 Tips to Help You Find Balance
Cathy Hanville, LCSW
"Set priorities and act upon them. Your actions should reflect the things
that you find most important in you life. If they don’t then you need
to make adjustments. Be organized. Planning ahead leads to having more time to spend..."
Care in the CommunityMentalHealthCop
"There will always be a place for inpatient care... But why did we move to a community based care model where possible? Very many of the county asylums in this country were appallingly
desperate places..."
College, civil rights, the past, and the present
The New Social Worker (Linda Grobman)
"It sometimes seems that the beginning of the civil rights movement was a long time ago... When I look around in everyday life, I think we have come a long way,
and still have a long way to go in the area of race relations and civil
rights..."
DSC Podcast Number 5
Disruptive Social Care (Stuart Arnott and Shirley Ayres)
"...this week we are discussing a wide range of topics including the Serious
Case Review on Winterbourne View, Young Rewired State and innovations
in giving!"
Flames on the side of my face…
SocialJerk
"I sat with the family in that waiting room, talking to nurses,
doctors,and other social workers... until it was nearly ten p.m. and
we were all starting to fall asleep... It taught me what being where a family is and sticking with them can do
for you..."
Food Stamps and the Curse of Knowledge
Classroom to Capitol (Melinda K Lewis)
"knowing too much, or, at least, forgetting that that can be a problem,
hurts us when it comes time to tell others what they need to know... We don’t want to confuse them, or shame them, or make
them throw up their hands at the hopelessness of the quest..."
Minecraft & The Uncanny, Part 1
Gamer Therapist (Mike Langlois, LICSW)
"Minecraft is a sandbox type of video game, meaning that the world
generated can be permanently changed by the player. Creativity and
survival is the goal, and there is no way to “win” the game..."
Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI)
The Social Work Podcast (Jonathan Singer, Ph.D., LCSW and Jennifer Muehlenkamp, Ph.D)
"NSSI is the intentional destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned... I spoke with Jennifer... some things that clinicians should and should not do when working with clients who self-injure..."
“One thing I wish I’d learned in Social Work School”: A Follow-up
N.A.H. (Relando Thompkins, MSW)
"I recently published a note about how I wish I'd learned more about skills for entrepreneurship while pursuing my degrees in Social Work... some
of the things others wish they had learned..."
Persistence
Practice Wisdom (Natalie L. Hill, LICSW)
"Persistence is a vital part of resilience... The trick in life is to persist in spite of
problems - to outlast them. Persistence is something we try to help our clients embody...but it's also something we frequently need ourselves..."
Special-ness
This Is Me (spldbch)
"A patient sat in my office not too long ago. She was struggling with feelings of inadequacy and depression. "I'm not good at anything," she lamented. Like most of us, she'd been told since childhood that everyone has some sort of talent..."
Surrey County Council policy puts adoptive and birth mothers on equal 'maternity pay' footing
The Latest on Child Welfare Policy (Heidi Ombisa)
"Here in the U.S... Through FMLA, birth, adoptive, and foster parents are entitled to 12
weeks of unpaid but job-protected leave for the birth of an infant or
new placement of a child, provided..."
SXSW Voting Has Begun! Please Vote for 50 Shades of Social Media: Freeing Sadomasochists
Karen Zgoda
"We beat ourselves up and yet our inner sadomasochist begs for more. In
the era of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” light BDSM is very appealing. But
there is another narrative: Social media is a healthy compulsion... make our community, profession, and the world a better place..."
Tackling the Social Work Graduate Admissions Process with a Graduate Education Action Plan (G.E.A.P.)
The Social Work Graduate School Site (Felicia L. Townsend, MBA, M.Ed)
"The G.E.A.P is similar to a business plan that an aspiring entrepreneur
would create before embarking on a new business venture. The plan will
provide you with a roadmap to sort out your reasons for wanting to
earn an MSW or any graduate level degree..."
Psychology:
About Michele Rosenthal, Author of Trauma! A PTSD Blog
HealthyPlace (Michele Rosenthal)
"After my recovery, I felt so grateful I wanted to give back and help
other survivors move forward toward feeling better. I founded
HealMyPTSD.com, which is a site for PTSD education and support... "
Do You Take Yourself Too Seriously?
Matrignosis: A Blog About Inner Wisdom (Dr. Jean Raffa)
"the word “feeling” is not about emotions, but about what we value. It’s
about noticing what we’re doing and how important it is to us... What makes us feel better about ourselves.
Lighting up our fifth cigarette may bring an emotional release from
stress, but does it really make us feel better about ourselves?..."
Dress up Clothes and Accessories are Important in the Play Room
St. Louis Center for Play Therapy Training (Pam Dyson, MA, LPC, RPT)
"Children love dressing up in costumes and accessories. Whether it's
items that represent real life or items that are more fantasy in nature,
costumes and accessories are another way for children to express their
feelings and desires in the play therapy room..."
Self-Care 101: Be Patient with Change
Dr. Ann Becker Schutte
"When you are under stress, or you are experiencing tough emotions, your
brain is likely to default to the most familiar coping strategy... Just knowing that you are likely to default to old habits under stress can help you be more aware..."
Everything starts and ends with Me ….Still talking about it
A Friend to Yourself (Sana Johnson-Quijada, MD)
"Being a friend to yourself means believing and treating yourself in ways
that are consistent with your belief that although we are victimized in
life, being the victim is a free choice... our personal
journey... connections we
share with others..."
Gratitude Begets Happiness
Mindfulness Muse (Laura Schenck, M.A.)
"The expression of gratitude in the face of adversity means much more
than simply looking on the bright side or ignoring the reality of
painful truths. The authentic expression of gratitude during times of stress includes appreciation for the abundance in your life..."
Help-Seeking Among Young Adults
The Trauma and Attachment Report (Stephanie Rhys)
"Seventy-five percent of mental health problems, such as depression and
anxiety, emerge during young adulthood, and yet this age group is the least likely to seek help when suffering from a mental disorder or distress..."
How to Prevent Stress from Shrinking Your Brain
The Mindful Self-Express (Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D)
"Studies in women with PTSD resulting from childhood sexual abuse and Vietnam veterans with PTSD have shown 12-26 percent
decreases in hippocampal volume, relative to those without PTSD... major life stress may shrink brain neurons..."
The Individual Psychotherapist & the Mystery of the Self
Journeying Toward Wholeness (Brian Collinson)
"The psychotherapist needs theory as a way to stay oriented in dealing with a client. However, before we get to the point where we can use it, we have to really, truly see who it is who is sitting in front of us..."
Learning From the Best: Be Your Own Olympic Medalist
The Albert Ellis Institute (Alina Boie, M.S.)
"Being a professional athlete does not only mean working hard but also
having excellent coping mechanisms for stress and emotional endurance... Believe in your dreams and goals... Be persistent even if you get discouraged at times..."
Projecting and the Law of False Attribution
After Psychotherapy (Joseph Burgo, PhD)
"we attribute a cause-and-effect relationship between the way we are feeling and the actions of people around us... I believe this law of false attribution underlies the process of projection... it’s built into our brains at birth, coloring our perceptions of the world..."
Quick Social Media Tips for Counselors Using Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Blogs
American Counseling Association (Judy Belmont)
"the counseling profession is not a “one size fits all” profession... With Facebook, I have never given my clients access to my personal page.
To have your clients be so privy to your personal life can wreak havoc
with transference and blurs boundaries..."
Nonprofit:
Making Volunteer Engagement Everyone's Job - (free webinar)Volunteer Match
[Thursday, Sept 6, 2:00PM EST] "How do you make volunteer engagement everyone's job?... how to create a step by step communication
plan to reinforce the importance of volunteer engagement to important
stakeholders within your organization."
The New Volunteer Manager's Toolkit
Volunteer Match
[Tuesday, Sept 18, 2:00PM EST] "This webinar will walk you through the three primary Rs – recruitment,
retention and recognition. We’ll discuss the most popular program
components such as interviews, orientations, volunteer handbooks, and
more."
What’s in your career playbook?
Allison Jones (ajlovesya)
"Sandbox's Playbook...
Designed to help you have fun while figuring out your guiding
principles, it focuses on four key elements of being a successful
entrepreneur: connecting, reflecting, acting, and innovating... the Playbook helps you get your priorities, vision, and goals in
order..."
Private Practice:
How One Savvy Therapist Decided On Her Business Name
Private Practice from the Inside Out (Brenda Bomgardner, BCC, NCC)
"Getting clear on my values was the foundation which supported the
process of creating a vision and a mission along with the name for my
private practice... whether [you] use your name or name your practice, the four areas below are part of a solid business plan..."
Keeping People and Respect at the Center of Your Business
Dr. Susan Giurleo
"When we treat people with kindness and respect, show them our
services have value and charge a fair rate, we attract clients and make
money... when you offer value to others, you don’t have to ‘sell’ them..."
When the Whole World is Watching
Psychotherapy Networker (Ofer Zur)
"As individual therapists and as a profession, we desperately need to
craft workable ethical guidelines... The basic issues-self-disclosure, confidentiality,
boundaries, and dual relationships-are the same as they've always been,
but they can take on unexpected shapes when manifested via Internet
technologies..."
Please share any thoughts or comments you have below. I'd love to hear which were your favorite posts out of this week's bunch!
Also, please feel free to mention any great posts that I may have missed.
You May Also Enjoy:
Best in Mental Health (wk of 8/6/2012)
Best in Mental Health (wk of 7/30/2012)
Best in Mental Health (wk of 7/9/2012)
