Strengths Model Case Management: Moving Strengths from Concept to Action

Social work has long acknowledged the importance of focusing on the strengths of people and their environments. From the early years of Jane Addams and the settle- ment house movement (1902) to Bertha Capen Reynolds (1951) to Charlotte Towle (1953) to Germain and Gitterman (1979), voices from within the social work profes- sion have repeatedly called for a focus on the capabilities, resilience, and empower- ment of people and communities that have been marginalized throughout history. The University of Kansas School of Social Welfare drew upon the voices of these early pioneers and articulated the strengths perspective in the 1980’s (Weick, Rapp, Sul- livan, & Kisthardt, 1989), challenging the field to put the strengths and resources of people, communities, and their environments at the center of the helping relation- ship. Yet, despite these calls for an emphasis on strengths, deficit-based approaches continue to dominate conventional social work practice (Saleebey, 2009). It was within this tension that Strengths Model Case Management was developed. The Strengths Model represented a significant paradigm shift for mental health, social work, and other helping professions. People with mental illnesses have his- torically been oppressed by the societies in which they live, and this has often been reinforced (albeit unintentionally) by professionals responsible for helping them. When the Strengths Model was developed, traditional case management approach- es often focused on pathology and diagnosis, held low expectations for what people with mental illnesses could achieve in their lives, and frequently used stabilization and maintenance as measures of success. The Strengths Model arose in response to this, viewing people not only as capable and possessing a unique array of personal and environmental strengths but also challenging and inviting professionals to focus their efforts and support toward helping people achieve life goals and roles that anyone else in the community might pursue. This chapter provides an overview and the philosophical underpinnings of Strengths Model Case Management. The principles, research, and tools will be presented, along with a case example to demonstrate how the philosophy and practice approach work together. The chapter will conclude with a view of the implementation process for Strengths Model Case Management within an organizational setting and implications for the model moving forward. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the impor- tance of taking strengths from a verbalized concept to an actionable set of practice and organizational behaviors designed to improve the lives of the people

Enhancing Cognition Through Movement: Exploring the Link Between Executive Function and Locomotion

Background Executive functioning involves processes that include inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory (Diamond, 2013). It has been proposed that motor development plays a crucial role in the development of executive functioning ( Koziol & Lutz, 2013). However, the link between motor development and executive functioning has yet to be explored in infants. Methods This study explored the link between executive functioning processes and infant locomotion through the assistance of a robot that allowed non-crawling infants to locomote. Thirty-five typically developing infants began the study at the age of five months. They were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. In the experimental group, infants learned to locomote using the robot; in the control group, infants did not use the robot. The infants completed a total of twelve sessions over a two month period. Each session lasted about twenty minutes. After the twelve sessions, at the age of seven months, infants were given a rule switching task to assess executive functioning. This task requires infants to learn a rule and then inhibit the learned rule when the stimulus switches positions. At the start of the task, a puppet appears on the right side of the screen, this occurs for nine consecutive trials (pre-switch). After the ninth trial, the puppet switches to the left side of the screen, appearing for another nine consecutive trials (post-switch). At the beginning of each trial, a visual cue appears in the center of the screen to capture the attention of the infant. The task is scored based on anticipatory looks using an ASL eye-tracking system with GazeTracker software. The scoring for the trials was as follows: +2 for a correct look, 0 for no looks, -1 for looks in both directions, and -2 for an incorrect look. This task requires cognitive flexibility and inhibition, both of which have been associated with executive functioning. Hypotheses It was hypothesized that 1) infants in the experimental group will learn to use the robot to locomote, 2) the experimental group will score higher on the post-switch portion of the switch task compared to the control group, and 3) the amount of time spent locomoting on the robot for the last five sessions will correlate with the post-switch score for infants in the experimental group. Results A Paired-Samples t-test revealed that infants in the experimental group during sessions 8-12 (M = 11.89, SD = 49.60) showed greater intentional goal-directed movement compared to sessions 3-7 (M = 60.03, SD = 45.27), t(19) = 5.44, p\u3c .001, 2 = .61. This t-test indicates that infants learned to use the robot to locomote to a desired location by the end of the twelve sessions, supporting our first hypothesis. An ANCOVA controlling for sex and ethnicity indicated that there was a significant difference between the control and experimental groups on the post-switch scores, F(1, 31) = 4.603, p= .040, 2=.129; the locomotor group scored higher (M = -.18, SD = 4.49) compared to the control group (M = -2.17, SD = 5.98). This result supports our second hypothesis. A partial correlation analysis, controlling for sex and ethncitiy, showed a positive relationship between total time in motion for sessions 8-12 and the post-switch score for the experimental group (r =.49, one-tailed p = .023). This indicated that the more infants locomoted during the final sessions on the robot, the higher they scored on the post-switch task, supporting our third hypothesis. Discussion: These results provide us with a better understanding of the link between early locomotion in infancy and the development of executive functioning. They also suggest that a robotic assistive device can be used as a potential intervention to help the development of executive functioning in infants with reduced motor capabilities. References Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology. 64, 135-68 Koziol,L. F.,& Lutz, J.T. (2013). From movement to thought: The development of executivefunction. Applied Neuropsychology. Child, 2, 104-11

Quelle décolonisation pour le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam ? Sources, approches et historiographies

Christopher E. Goscha, maître de conférences à l’Université Lyon-II Au cours de l’année, ce séminaire s’est articulé d’une façon thématique autour de cette interrogation : comment penser et faire l’histoire de la décolonisation de l’ancienne « Indochine française », c’est-à-dire le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam. Pour explorer cette thématique, ce séminaire a visé trois buts. Dans la continuité de notre réflexion précédente engagée sur l’histoire coloniale, on s’est d’abord proposé de dresse..

Quelle histoire coloniale pour le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam ? Sources, approches et historiographies

Christopher E. Goscha, maître de conférences à l’Université de Lyon-II Au cours de l’année, ce séminaire s’est articulé d’une façon thématique autour de cette interrogation : comment penser et faire l’histoire « coloniale » de l’ancienne « Indochine française », c’est-à-dire le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam. Pour explorer cette thématique, ce séminaire a visé trois buts. Il s’est d’abord proposé de dresser un bilan critique de l’historiographie sur la colonisation française dans l’ancienne ..

Finding Common Ground: Exploring the Experiences of Client Involvement in Medication Decisions Using a Shared Decision Making Model

While shared decision making has gained more prominence in recent years in the field of general health care, few shared decision making models have been studied in the field of mental health. This constructivist study explores the experiences of twelve persons diagnosed with schizophrenia or other major thought disorder, along with their treatment providers (prescribers, nurses, case managers, and peer support workers), when introduced to a shared decision making model around psychiatric medications. Purposeful sampling, with an emphasis on achieving maximum variation, was used to better understand the interactive processes that contribute to as well as hinder client involvement in shared decision making. Multiple interviews with all participants over a one year period allowed for meaning making to unfold over time. Simultaneous involvement with data collection and data analysis was part of an emergent design that culminated in tentative constructions based on participant's experiences. Findings were subjected to a comprehensive member check for confirmability. Findings explore the multiple interacting factors that contribute to client's involvement in shared decision making, including agreement on a goal that is meaningful and important to the client to guide decisions, the relationship between the prescriber and the client, the presence of non-pharmaceutical alternatives that expand decision options, and behaviors by auxiliary supports (i.e. case management and peer support) that facilitate involvement. Findings also explore the complexity of thought behind client's decisions to use psychiatric medications and the dynamics that change when a new model of decision making is introduced. The findings became the basis of proposing a new tentative framework for shared decision making as well as a concept called activation points. While the findings are intended to improve the process at a specific mental health center, readers are invited to join the dialogue in regards to the transferability of the findings to other settings

Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of strengths model case management (SMCM) with Chinese mental health service users in Hong Kong

Introduction Strengths-based approaches mobilise individual and environmental resources that can facilitate the recovery of people with mental illness. Strengths model case management (SMCM), developed by Rapp and Goscha through collaborative efforts at the University of Kansas, offers a structured and innovative intervention. As evidence of the effectiveness of strengths-based interventions come from Western studies, which lacked rigorous research design or failed to assure fidelity to the model, we aim to fill these gaps and conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test the effectiveness of SMCM for individuals with mental illness in Hong Kong. Methods and analysis This will be an RCT of SMCM. Assuming a medium intervention effect (Cohen’s d=0.60) with 30% missing data (including dropouts), 210 service users aged 18 years or above will be recruited from three community mental health centres. They will be randomly assigned to SMCM groups (intervention) or SMILE groups (control) in a 1:1 ratio. The SMCM groups will receive strengths model interventions from case workers, whereas the SMILE groups will receive generic care from case workers with an attention placebo. The case workers will all be embedded in the community centres and will be required to provide a session with service users in both groups at least once every fortnight. There will be two groups of case workers for the intervention and control groups, respectively. The effectiveness of the SMCM will be compared between the two groups of service users with outcomes at baseline, 6 and 12 months after recruitment. Functional outcomes will also be reported by case workers. Data on working alliances and goal attainment will be collected from individual case workers. Qualitative evaluation will be conducted to identify the therapeutic ingredients and conditions leading to positive outcomes. Trained outcome assessors will be blind to the group allocation. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Hong Kong has been obtained (HRECNCF: EA1703078). The results will be disseminated to service users and their families via the media, to healthcare professionals via professional training and meetings and to researchers via conferences and publications

Quelle décolonisation pour le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam ? Sources, approches et historiographies

Christopher E. Goscha, maître de conférences à l’Université Lyon-II Au cours de l’année, ce séminaire s’est articulé d’une façon thématique autour de cette interrogation : comment penser et faire l’histoire de la décolonisation de l’ancienne « Indochine française », c’est-à-dire le Laos, le Cambodge et le Vietnam. Pour explorer cette thématique, ce séminaire a visé trois buts. Dans la continuité de notre réflexion précédente engagée sur l’histoire coloniale, on s’est d’abord proposé de dresse..

Thailand and the Vietnamese resistance against the French

This thesis traces the growth of Vietnamese resistance activities in Thailand from the beginning of the direct French colonisation of Vietnam in 1885 to the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949. Although Thailand's relative importance to the Vietnamese resistance movement did not increase at a constant rate during this period, but rather fluctuated in response to several factors, there was nevertheless an overall increase in Thailand's significance to the Vietnamese struggle against the French. This was most prominent during the immediate postwar period. Arranged chronologically, the present work is divided into six chapters that draw upon a large body of Vietnamese and Thai vernacular sources to detail the development of Vietnamese resistance work in Thailand during the period under study. The first chapter is divided into two time frames. The first part considers Thailand's importance to Vietnamese anticolonialists during the period between 1885 and 1925. Particular attention is paid to the extensive base building undertaken by scholar-patriots in Thailand in the early 1920s. The second section examines Vietnamese resistance programmes in Thailand in terms of their importance to the development of Vietnamese communism during the period between 1925 and 1940. Three major topics discussed in this section include: the role the Vietnamese played in the formation and leadership of the Siamese Communist Party, the part played by Vietnamese communists in promoting a Thai revolution via this Party, and the negative effects this had on Vietnamese resistance activities in Thailand. The second chapter discusses two trends in Thai politics that worked in the Vietnamese favour during WWII. The first stemmed from international events and internal Thai political changes that saw Phibun Songkhram adopt sympathetic policies toward the Vietnamese in a bid to gain their support during the brief 1940-41 Franco-Thai border war. The second, and most important development, resulted from the direct cooperation which emerged between Viet Minh and Seri Thai resistance leaders at the end of the Pacific War. These wartime Seri Thai contacts proved to be invaluable to the Viet Minh in the postwar period, one of the major factors explaining the ability of the Vietnamese to administer a wide-range of programmes in Thailand after the war. The last four chapters consider Thailand's unprecedented strategic importance to the Vietnamese in the immediate postwar period, with the discussion equally divided between the period prior to the outbreak of full-scale war in Indochina in December 1946 and the interval running from that point to 1949. Beginning at the end of WWII, chapter three side-tracks momentarily to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the complex strategic situation facing the Vietnamese, as the French moved to retake Indochina after WWII. Having done this, chapter four then shows how the Vietnamese responded to French actions in terms of expanding their military and diplomatic activities in Thailand during the same period. Chapter five focuses on the role played by Vietnamese representatives in Bangkok in the creation of the Southeast Asia League. This discussion serves as a vehicle to understanding better how Thailand became a key diplomatic outlet for the Ho Chi Minh-led government following the outbreak of war in Indochina. The last chapter examines Thailand's military significance to the Vietnamese between 1947 and 1949. The first part of this chapter deals with the period prior to the November 1947 military coup in Bangkok, when the conditions for Vietnamese resistance operations were most favourable. The second section shows that while Phibun's return to power in 1948 changed the rules guiding the operation of Thai-based Vietnamese programmes, Thailand nonetheless remained a key link to the Vietnamese until 1949. In this year, Thailand's importance effectively came to an end as Phibun began to crack-down stringently on Vietnamese activities in Thailand and the victory of the Chinese Communists opened more important northern bases and provided the Vietnamese with key access to Chinese diplomatic and military support

The x-ray structure of the supernova remnant W49B

Comparison of x-ray and radio images of W49B and other supernova remnants (SNR) provides detailed information on the mechanisms responsible for the emission and on the evolution of the remnants. There is faint x-ray emission from all parts of W49B but most of it is concentrated near the center of the remnant, unlike the radio emission which arises in a shell near the periphery. This structure indicates that this SNR is in the adolescent phase of its lifetime